Egilmar I Count of SCHLESWIG HOLSTEIN, OLDENBURG

                   Oldenburg was erected about the middle of the twelfth century. The founder of the reigning
house was Egilmar, who is first mentioned in a document dated 1088. His territory, of which the Duke of Saxony was the liege lord, was situated between the country of the Saxons and the Frisians. The
wars with the latter lasted for several centuries, and it was not until 1234 that one of their tribes (the Stedingians) succumbed to the Oldenburg attacks in the battle of Altenesch. The Archbishop of Bremen was in these wars an ally of the counts of Oldenburg. When the famous Saxon duke, Henry the Lion, was forced to flee and the old Dukedom of Saxony was partitioned by Frederick Barbarossa in
1181, the counts of Oldenburg obtained the rights of princes and princesses of the Holy Roman Empire, but took little part in its development and progress