Otto I, Count Palatine of Mosbach


Otto I was the Count Palatine of Mosbach from 1410 until 1448, and the Count Palatine of Mosbach-Neumarkt from 1448 until 1461.

Life

Otto was born in Mosbach in 1390, into the House of Wittelsbach, as the youngest son of Rupert III of the Palatinate, King of Germany, and his wife, Elisabeth of Nuremberg.

Reign

In 1410 after the death of his father, the territories of the Palatinate were divided between his four sons; Otto received the territory around Mosbach and Eberbach. He made Mosbach his capital and began the construction of a new residence there. Otto became the regent of the Electorate of the Palatinate and guardian of his nephew Louis IV after his brother Louis III returned from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem seriously ill and died soon after. He held the regency until 1442.
In 1448 he inherited half of the territory of the extinct Palatinate-Neumarkt line and purchased the other half from his brother Stephen, and he also established a residence in Neumarkt.

Marriage and issue

Otto married Joanna of Bavaria-Landshut, the daughter of duke Henry XVI, Duke of Bavaria in January 1430 and had the following children:
  1. Margaret
  2. Amalie
  3. Otto
  4. Rupert
  5. Dorothea prioress in the Liebenau monastery
  6. Albert
  7. Anne prioress in the Himmelskron monastery
  8. John
  9. Barbara nun in the Liebenau monastery near Worms

Death

Otto died on 5 July 1461 in Reichenbach, aged 70. He was buried in the Benedictine Reichenbach Abbey.