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- BIOGRAPHY
Mettfrid was Gaugraf in the Engersgau from about 1084 and Graf von Wied from about 1129 to 1145. In 1129 he started construction of the castle of Wied. Mettfried was the first count of the first house of the counts of Wied and is considered the founder of the countship of Wied.
There are no reliable documents from which one can safely identify the names and positions of Mettfrid's parents and ancestors, nor are his years of birth and death known. The historian Hellmuth Gensicke (1917-2006) in his _Landesgeeschichte des Westerwaldes,_ considered it likely that Mettfried was a direct descendant of Gaugraf Wigger, documented in the Engersgau in 1034, who would be the same person as Gaugraf Wittechind mentioned in 1044.
The earliest mention of Mettfrid is in a deed of gift of Engelbert, archbishop of Trier, in favour of the abbey of St. Matthias. The charter is dated to the period from 1084 to 1101, and Mettfrid is called Graf im Engersgau ('Comitatu Meffredi in pago Engeresgowe').
Mettfried and his brother Richwin von Kempenich witnessed the foundation of the abbey of Laach by Heinrich von Laach, Pfalzgraf bei Rhein. In a document suspected to have been forged in 1139, Mettfried is called 'Graf von Wied' ('Meffridus comes de wiede').
In a document issued on 29 November 1103 by Archbishop Bruno of Trier for the abbey of Münstermaifeld, Mettfrid and Richwin are referred to as counts, but without mention of their county ('comes Metfrih et frater eius Rihuuin').
The first reliable document in which Mettfried is referred to as 'Graf von Wied' ('Meffridus comes de Widhe'), comes from the year 1120. In it, Archbishop Meginher of Trier gave the convent of St. Thomas in Andernach into the care of the abbey of Springiersbach. Mettfrid is the founder of the family seat, the castle of Wied, called the castle of Altwied from the 17th century. In Mettfrid's time the keep was built and lived in; it has been partly preserved. Mettfrid's wife may have been called Osterlind, but her family name is not recorded. She may have originated from a noble family from the left bank of the Rhine. Mettfrid had four sons and four daughters who have been identified. His heir Sifrid (Siegfried) is recorded with progeny, and Sifrid's brother Arnold was chancellor to King Konrad III, and as Arnold II von Wied, archbishop of Cologne, in 1152 he crowned Friedrich I Barbarossa as German king.
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