Adolf (c. 1255 – 2 July 1298) was the count of Nassau from about 1276 and the elected king of Germany from 1292 until his deposition by the prince-electors in 1298. He was never crowned by the pope, which would have secured him the imperial title. He was the first physically and mentally healthy ruler of the Holy Roman Empire ever to be deposed without a papal excommunication. Adolf died shortly afterwards in the Battle of Göllheim fighting against his successor Albert of Habsburg.

He was the second in the succession of so-called count-kings of several rivalling comital houses striving after the Roman-German royal dignity.

Family Adolf was the reigning count of a small German state. He was born about 1255 and was the son of Walram II, Count of Nassau and Adelheid of Katzenelnbogen. Adolf’s brother was Diether of Nassau, who was appointed Archbishop of Trier in 1300.

Adolf was married in 1270 to Imagina of Isenburg-Limburg (died after 1313) and they had eight children. Agnes of Isenburg-Limburg, the sister of Imagina, was married to Henry (Heinrich) of Westerburg, the brother of Siegfried II of Westerburg, the Archbishop of Cologne.

Career as Count of Nassau

In 1276 or 1277, Adolf followed his father as Count of Nassau. From his father, he inherited the family’s lands south of the Lahn River in the Taunus Mountains. These included Wiesbaden and Idstein, as fiefdoms, and the Vogtship in Weilburg under the Bishopric of Worms. He also shared ownership of the family homelands around the castles of Nassau and Laurenburg.

Around 1280, Adolf became involved in the with the Lords of Eppstein, in which the city of Wiesbaden was devastated and Sonnenberg Castle destroyed. The feud was settled in 1283, after which the city and the castle were rebuilt. Sonnenberg, along with Idstein, became Adolf’s residence. He granted Idstein town privileges in 1287 and built its fortifications.

Through his uncle, Eberhard I of Katzenelnbogen, Adolf came to the court of King Rudolf I of Habsburg. King Rudolf awarded him with the Burghauptmannamt (Castle Lordship) of Kalsmunt Castle in Wetzlar and a year later that of Gutenfels Castle near Kaub (where he became a vassal of the Counts Palatine of the Rhine).

Before his election, Adolf’s political activities had been limited to his role as Bundesgenosse of the Archbishop of Cologne. Adolf had no particular office, but likely became known through his involvement with the Archbishops of Cologne and Mainz in the politics of the Middle Rhine and Mainz areas. He spoke German, French, and Latin, which was rare at that time for nobles.

After his election, King Adolf of Nassau would only rarely be in his home country, having transferred the government there to his burgmen. On 17 January 1294, he purchased Weilburg for 400 pounds from the Bishopric of Worms. He granted Weilburg town privileges on 29 December 1295. He also established the Clarisse abbey of Klarenthal near Wiesbaden in 1296.

Election as King of the Romans

Rudolf I of Habsburg died on 15 July 1291. For many years before his death, Rudolf had tried to secure the election of his eldest son Albert (Albrecht) as his successor. He was thwarted, however, by the opposition of the Archbishop of Cologne, Siegfried II of Westerburg, and the King of Bohemia, Wenceslaus (Václav/Wenzel) II. Only the Count Palatine Louis II of Upper Bavaria "the Rigorous" promised to choose Albert. Wenceslaus, despite Rudolf's recognition of his electoral vote, refused to support Albert because he would not cede Carinthia to him. He took the side of the nobles in the core Habsburg areas of Swabia and in their newly acquired territories in Austria, with whom Albert was unpopular. Wenceslaus was supported by Duke Otto III of Lower Bavaria, whose family were traditional enemies of the Habsburgs. Wenceslaus succeeded in bringing the Electors of Brandenburg and Saxony over to his side: Albert II of Saxony signed an elector pact on 29 November 1291 that he would vote the same as Wenceslaus; Otto IV of Brandenburg made a similar commitment.

Archbishop Siegfried believed that the Emperor should not receive the crown as an inheritance from his father, but should be freely selected by the College of Electors. He convinced the Archbishop of Mainz, , to select a king who would principally serve their interests. Gerard in turn recruited the new Archbishop of Trier, Bohemund I. Thereupon, the Count Palatine was forced to submit to the majority of the College of Electors. Siegfried therefore proposed to the Elector College to select Adolf of Nassau as king. They were ready to elect him, provided he make extensive concessions to the Electors and follow their political demands.

A few days before the election, on 27 April 1292, the first of the electors, Archbishop Siegfried issued the Treaty of Andernach, stating that for Adolf to be chosen king he must promise a long list of acknowledgments of possession (including the imperial cities of Dortmund and Duisburg, and the Vogtship of Essen), pledges of imperial cities and castles, and a sum of 25,000 marks in silver. Furthermore, Adolf promised assistance against specifically listed opponents, but also the general promise that he would not admit any enemy of Siegfried II into his council. After the election, Adolf had to give the archbishop sufficient collateral for the fulfilment of the promise; otherwise he would lose his throne. The last clause is evidence of the fact that at the end of the 13th century, the coronation of the king as the constitutive moment of his rule was still very critical. Adolf promised the archbishop to ask him first for his coronation only after he had raised the agreed collateral.

The other electors extracted similar concessions from Adolf, but only after the election. Among the most far-reaching were the concessions to King Wenceslaus of Bohemia on 30 June 1292. Adolf promised Wenceslaus to remove the two duchies of Austria and Styria from Albert of Habsburg. This was to be done as the previous King Rudolf had removed these territories from King Ottokar II of Bohemia, the father of Wenceslaus. Albert would be charged to agree to this arrangement at a court hearing. If Albert would not bend, the decision of the court would be executed by force within a year. Wenceslaus would then recover the lost territories of his father. Gerhard, the Archbishop of Mainz would receive the imperial cities of Mühlhausen and Nordhausen, which corresponded with the interests of Mainz in the Thuringian region. Furthermore, Gerhard received financial benefits. Like his counterpart in Cologne, the Mainz elector also forbade the presence of his opponents in Adolf’s court. In comparison to the benefits which the electors of Mainz, Cologne, and Bohemia received, the donations to the Count Palatine and the Archbishop of Trier were modest.

On 5 May 1292 in Frankfurt am Main, the Archbishop of Mainz, in the name of all the electors, elected Adolf King of the Germans (Emperor-Elect). He was crowned in Aachen on 24 June by the Archbishop of Cologne.

Reign

At the start of his reign, Adolf had neither influence nor power, and was elected Rex Romanorum because of the electors' preference for a weak king. His power was limited from the outset because of the commitments he made.

As he had agreed with the Archbishop of Cologne, Adolf remained in his dominion for four months after his election. The archbishop awaited from the king a revision of the results of the Battle of Worringen in 1288. He had hoped to win again greater influence in the city of Cologne. Despite the tight specifications, Adolf soon emancipated himself from his Electors and concluded pacts with their opponents. Thus, for example, he confirmed the rights of the nobles and the city of Cologne, who had turned against their ruler, and even extended these rights.

Adolf also very quickly broke the promises concerning the Duchies of Austria and Styria. As a clever diplomat, Albert of Habsburg avoided a confrontation with the new king. In exchange for his surrender of the Imperial Regalia, which he still had in his possession, he received, in November 1292, a formal enfeoffment with Austria, Styria, the Windic March, and the Lordship of Pordenone. The disposition of the prestigious insignia and relics of the empire was an additional and important sign for the legitimacy of the reign of the king, but not a mandatory prerequisite. With each new document, Adolf moved a little farther away from his promises, without having to open himself up to breach of contract accusations.

Adolf acted as a self-assured ruler in other ways as well. His court was an attraction for all who sought protection from the powerful emerging territorial lords. He held numerous court days. At the beginning of his reign, he renewed the general public peace (Landfrieden) of Rudolf I for another ten years, and brought about at least two regional peaces.

Adolf used the feudal system as one of his major tools of power. He demanded from the spiritual princes a payment, called Lehnsware, for their enfeoffment with regalian rights, and increased this demand to the level of a nuisance. Many of Adolf’s contemporaries considered this action to be simony. Many of today's historians, however, view it as an innovative way to open up new state revenue sources, as other Western European kings did.

Also, the recovery and management of imperial property was important to him. He succeeded, through clever marriage policy, to bring former imperial properties back under the control of the emperor.

Alliance with England

In 1294, when Adolf’s rule was at its height, he concluded an alliance with the King Edward I of England against France and was awarded 60 000 pounds sterling, which corresponded to 90 000 gold marks. The pact had been preceded by attempts by Philip IV of France to conquer the Duchy of Burgundy and the County of Flanders. The Count of Flanders, Guy of Dampierre, mediated, therefore, the alliance between Edward I and Adolf for his protection against France. That the alliance was construed by his contemporaries as purely mercenary, and the fact that Adolf did not comply with its obligations, damaged his reputation, but this was initially without consequences.

Adolf began recruiting troops in the empire for a war against France. On 31 August 1294, he sent a declaration of war to the French king, alleging that the latter had seized rights and possessions of the empire. King Philip responded contemptuously on 9 March 1295. Pope Boniface VIII, however, ordered peace in 1295 and threatened to commence the excommunication of Adolf in the event of an outbreak of war.

Policies in Thuringia

A little later, Adolf intervened in war-torn Thuringia, where fighting had erupted between Landgrave Albert the Degenerate and his sons Frederick and Theodoric IV of Lusatia. He bought the Landgraviate from Albert in his capacity as king and probably using the payments from England. Legally, it was perfectly acceptable for Adolf to induce the feudal lord to abandon his fief and to bring the land under the empire. Furthermore, he seized the Margraviate of Meissen as an imperial fief, since it had been literally ownerless after the extinction of a collateral line of the House of Wettin and had been occupied by a son of Albert the Degenerate.