Johann III, Count of Sponheim-Starkenburg, the Older (b. ca. 1315 – d. 30 December 1398), reigned over the County of Sponheim for 67 years. He also received many epithets such as "the Noble" and, because of his declining vision, "the Blind".
Johann III of Sponheim was the first son of Count Heinrich II of Sponheim and Loretta of Salm. He had two brothers, Heinrich and Gottfried. He succeeded his grandfather, John II, in 1324, but his mother Loretta acted as his regent until his coming of age in 1331.
In 1331 he married Mechthild of the Electorate of the Palatinate, a niece of Ludwig der Bayer. During his reign, several important events occurred, such as the construction of the Heilig-Geist-Hospital in Enkirch and a war with the Archbishop of Trier, Boemund II of Saarbrücken, which caused high death tolls on both sides. Johann III of Sponheim had, along with his mother, disputes with the Trier church. In 1338 he ceded Sponheim possessions as fiefdoms to Archbishop Baldwin of Luxembourg.[1]
Johann waged a feud against Archbishop Baldwin of Luxembourg, which was settled through atonement on 13 April 1347. On 4 January 1351 Archbishop Baldwin named Johann the chief Amtmann of the Trier lands on the right bank of the Moselle river.[2] In 1356, Baldwin's successor, Boemund, entered a conflict with Johann and his brother-in-law Rupert I, Elector Palatine, about the toll near Enkirch. This feud was troublesome for many Trier locations because of the associated robbery and fire, but Boemund destroyed Starkenburg, Kirchberg, and cornered Sponheim in such a way that Johann had to sue for peace in 1360.[3] The ensuing feud between Johann and his cousin Walram was not of great importance, since it was rapidly settled.
On 9 May 1368, he bestowed the Sponheim Erbmarschall office, which had been vacated by the death of Simon of Waldeck, and the village of Sevenich associated with this fiefdom upon Lord Friedrich of Ehrenburg. For Winterburg, Koppenstein, and Birkenfeld, he received city rights from Kaiser Ludwig in 1330. He built a church in Trarbach, but the year is not known. He sent an abbot from Himmerod Abbey in Traben, who had to read the Mass in Trarbach daily, and three times a week in the absence of the Count. It is unknown whether he took part on the offensive organized by Count Kuno II of Falkenstein and Count Walram of Sponheim in 1362 against the Englishmen who were ravaging the left bank of the Rhine. Johann III was the builder of the Grevenburg (Grafenburg) over Trarbach, which was first mentioned on 3 October 1357. He was buried in the Abbey of Himmerod.
In 1331, Johann III married Mechthild of the Palatinate (d. 1375). She was a daughter of the Count Palatine of the Rhine Rudolf I and Mechthild of Nassau. Paternally, she was great-granddaughter of King Rudolf of Habsburg, and maternally granddaughter of King Adolf of Nassau. Emperor Louis the Bavarian, who had reigned since 1314, was her uncle. With the extinction of both Sponheim lines in 1437, their two daughters Mechthild and Loretta posthumously inherited the whole County of Sponheim between the Baden and the Veldenz. Children: