Hildebold of Schwangau by Ian Cowburn

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Hermetic Virtues

Hildebold of Schwangau, Schwanstein and the Order of the Knights of the Swan by Ian Cowburn

Lohengrin

The Swan Lake (Schwansee), of Tchaikovsky's famous opera, is situated in Upper Swabia, in the Allgau region of the Alps. In the Middle Ages, German minnesingers praised the heroic deeds that certain “Swan Knights” performed here in the name of the Holy Grail. In his “Parcifal” Wolfram von Eschenbach tells a story about a Swan Knight — a Schwanritter — called Lohengrin who is Parcifal’s envoy, a knight of the Holy Grail. Lohengrin sails the Swan Lake in his boat drawn by a white swan to rescue Alais, the Duchess of Brabant. He does rescue her but has to conceal his name. When the name is disclosed Lohengrin must return to the Grail Castle. This story was the basis for Wagner's opera of the same name.

The first documentary mention of Schwangau "Castrum Schwangowe" is in the year 1090. In the 12th century the Schwanritters built Hohenschwangau Castle between two mountain lakes — Schwansee (the Swan Lake) and Alpensee (the Alpine Lake). The lakes were surrounded by high mountains to the south and dark forests to the north. The Swan Castle became the minnesingers’ central rallying place. It was a property of the Old Welfs. The Schwangau family held it for several centuries.

Schwansee

The first name we know is a certain Hiltpold, or Hildebold, von Schwangau (approx. 1190 - 1256) mentioned in “The Heidelberg Book of Songs”, (also called the “Mannesiano Codex”). From him twenty-two minnelieder remain, composed between 1215 and 1225, which are found partially in the Heidelberg and also in the Weingartner song collections.

With the death of Welf VI in 1191, the property at Schwangau was confiscated by the Hoehenstaufen, the last of whom, Prince Konradin, decapitated at the age of 16 in 1268 in Naples, resided in the castle. It is said that the Order of the Knights of Schwangau, also known as the Order of St Gereon, was created in 1191 (Hormayr—Hortenburg, 'Die Goldene Chronik von Hohenschwangau', 1842). The St Gereon brotherhood wore a triangle emblem composed of three green hillocks; three other castles belonged to the Order, in addition to the Schwangowe stronghold: Buching, Trauchgau

Schloss Hohenschwangau

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Hildebold of of Schwangau, Schwanstein and the Order of the Knights of the Swan (continued) (Druchgowe) and Frauenstein. St. Gereon was one of Freemasonry's four crowned martyrs of 304 CE – the Quatuor Coronati. The church in Fussen, the town close to Hohenschwangau, is dedicated to St. Gereon. The brotherhood's chapel in this church is dedicated to Coloman, one of the "wandering Irish" who evangelised Germany in the 7th century. His name day is October 13th.

Schwangau

In 'The Order of the Dragon,' the author Clements lists 15th century Oswald von Wolkenstein as a prominent member of the Dragon Order – see the article in HV number 5, Summer 2008 – Oswald von Wolkenstein married Margaret of Schwangau in 1417. In songs specially composed for his wife, Oswald celebrated her nobility, her beauty and her pure soprano voice. In priase of these qualities he composed his most beautiful love duets.

The last Schwangau knights (two brothers) left the area in 1535, delivering the property to Emperor Charles V of Habsburg for 35,000 steel bars. They both died in 1536 and the Schwangau line became extinct. Hochenschwangau then declined and suffered particular damage during the Napoleonic wars of 1800-1809. Crown prince Maximilian of the royal Bavarian family of Wittelsbach (later King Maximilian II) bought and rebuilt the ruins in 1832-1836, turning the castle into his residence, the pearl of German Romanticism. We shall follow the history of the Wittelsbachs at Schwangau later, and notably that of Ludwig II's Neuschwangau.

Schloss Hohenschwangau today

The "Knight of the Swan" tale was originally attached to the family of Godfrey de Bouillon in the French chansons de geste known as the "Crusade cycle". We may observe that the origin of the Order seems to lie in Lower Flanders in the Boulogne country (note the reference to the Duchess of Brabant, above) and goes by Godfrey of Bouillon to the Welfs (Godfrey had no children, contrary to the mishmash soup served up in the Priory of Sioninspired roleplay book "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail" and neither was he crowned “King of Jerusalem”; in 1099 he took the title of Advocate of the Holy Sepulchre); his domains, which also included the notorious Ardennes abbey of Orval, passed by his aunt Matilda of Tuscany’s second marriage to the family of the Welfs of Swabia – the Allgau is in Upper Swabia, which passed to Bavaria in the later Middle Ages.

St.-Riquier

The Swan Order "of Saint Angilbert" is named after an ancestor of Godfrey de Bouillon, confidant and friend of Charlemagne, Court Chaplain and Privy Counsellor. He undertook several diplomatic missions for the Emperor and was one of the executors of the Emperor's will. Saint Angilbert was born c. 740 and died 814 A.D. He studied under Alcuin and married Charlemagne's daughter Bertha. Bertha entered a convent and Angilbert became a monk, spending the last days of his life at the abbey of St-Riquier at Centula, of which he was Abbot and where he established a library. He was also Count of Boulogne and Ponthieu and the badge of the Swan stayed with these two houses' descendants, the Montgomeries of Ponthieu (including the infamous Robert de Belesme – see the article on Kilwinning in HV number 7, Winter 2008) and the Counts of Boulogne, from whom Godfrey de Bouillon was descended.

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Hermetic Virtues

Hildebold of of Schwangau: Schwanstein and the Order of the Knights of the Swan (continued) The story tells that the Swan Knights, twelve clothed in white and one clothed in black, have as their duty to guard the Cauldron of Grief, a large, natural stone basin in a cave that drips salt water when someone's cause is worthy of being triumphant, but are unable to fight the battle themselves. When a Tear of Grief falls into the Cauldron, a whiteclad knight is sent to protect and to care for the person, fighting what or whoever they must to bring the situation to rights and a happy conclusion. If the Tear of Grief is shed by someone who is dead or dying, the black-clad knight is sent to seek revenge. A Swan Knight thus serves the Lady of the Swans in her capacity as avenger and warrior.

St. Hubert The notion of a female warrior or avenger is widely spread, from In-ana of the Sumerians to Brigit of the Gaels; it may be significant that the Ardenne Forest, Godfrey's home area, is named from ArDuenna, a Celtic working of Diana the Huntress.

This notion of a female warrior or avenger is widely spread, from Inana of the Sumerians to Brigit of the Gaels; it may be significant that the Ardenne Forest, Godfrey's home area, is named from Ar-Duenna, a Celtic working of Diana the Huntress. The Christian patron saint of the Ardenne is St. Hubert, a member of the Carolingian clan of the late 6th century; many of the mysterious Merovingian kings of Austrasia died in "hunting accidents" in this Forest. St. Hubert is often portrayed as a shining cross between the horns of a stag – curiously reminisced in the founding legend of Holy Rood Abbey at Edinburgh. The Ardenne is also home to the Woeuvre, a female Wyrm which inhabits the meres and bogs of this dense forest, obviously another personification of the Huntress.

The oldest son of Maximilian of Wittelsbach, Ludwig II of Bavaria, built Neuschwanstein in the place of the castles Vorschwangau and Hinterschwangau. The foundation was laid on 5th September 1869. The construction work stopped in 1886 with the death of the king, so the work was never completed. During these years romantic artists — Moritz von Schwind, Dominique Quaglio and others — inspired by medieval legends created the castle’s beautiful murals. In 1853 Christian Ruben, Michael Neer and Lorenz Quaglio decorated the Hall of the Ludwig II Swan Knights with paintings devoted to Lohengrin. Maximilian married Princess Maria from the Prussian royal family of Hohenzollern. Their son Otto Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig was born in Nymphenburg castle in Munich on 25th August 1845. Prince Ludwig grew up on the banks of the Swan Lake, in Hochenschwangau castle, surrounded by legends and swans... He became king Ludwig II of Bavaria at the age of 18. On 4th May 1864 he met Richard Wagner and became his patron. For many years he produced Wagner’s operas, turning them into the kind of shows that a Broadway producer would not dare dream of. For these productions he had huge theatre houses built and equipped with state-of-theart technology. Such public benevolence, however, was not all that important to Ludwig II himself. There was something else. In 1868 he finished the first constructions Neuschwanstein—the idea for his major scheme: the Neuschwanstein castle — the new centre for the Order of Swan Knights (the keepers of the Holy Grail) of which he himself was to be the Grand Master. Ludwig II moved into Neuschwanstein shortly before his death, in 1886. He lived there for 172 days.

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Hildebold of of Schwangau: Schwanstein and the Order of the Knights of the Swan (continued) Richard Wagner never saw the new castle. Ludwig had written to him: "they will take revenge, the desecrated gods, and come to live with Us on the lofty heights, breathing the air of heaven". Wagner died on February 13, 1883 in Venice. However, he visited Ludwig regularly on the banks of the Swan Lake, in the old castle where he played his music composed not for the public but specially for Ludwig. Ludwig II loved solitude, dreaming, art, history and narghile rooms. Neuschwanstein

Knights Chapel

The picture cycles of Neuschwanstein were inspired by the operas of Richard Wagner. The paintings were modelled on the medieval legends that the composer had also taken as the basis for his works. The walls of the Lower Hall are painted with scenes from the Sigurd saga. The Gudrun saga in the paintings of the Upper Knights Hall Hall continues on from the Sigurd saga. In the bedroom there are scenes from Tristan and Isolde. The Singers' Hall is decorated with murals illustrating the Parcifal saga. In the Salon the Parcival cycle is continued with the adventures of his son Lohengrin. The study has scenes from the tragic life of the minnesinger Tannhaeuser.

Singers Hall

Lohengrin

After Wagner's death in 1883, King Ludwig II spent his time day-dreaming in the narghile rooms. In 1886 his scheming political ministers succeeded in taking over his power; they arrested Ludwig II at Neuschwanstein for lunacy and put him in the Berg castle on the bank of Lake Sternberg. On the very next day after the arrest, 13th May 1886, the King’s body was found in the lake. The body of this mysterious political assassination’s sole witness, the king's doctor Professor Gudden, was discovered near by. Ludwig was deposed on the grounds of mental illness without any medical examination and died a day later under mysterious circumstances, the "diagnosis" remains controversial.

Ludwig was deposed on the grounds of mental illness without any medical examination and died a day later under mysterious circumstances, the "diagnosis" remains controversial.

Having found out that the Swan King died in a lake ten years after their secret meeting, Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky went into deep reflections. What if he somehow caused the real person’s death just by becoming the author of that of a ballet character? Or had he just prophetically foreseen it? In any case, Peter Ilyich asked Marius Petipat to stage the new ballet “The Swan Lake” at the Mariinsky theatre. Petipat happily accepted the offer. Peter Ilyich, however, never saw the production. He died on the night of 25th October 1893. According to the official version, it was a glass of cold water that killed him… Copyright © 2009 Ian Cowburn

Swan Lake