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History
Dietrich Luf III of Cleves
The builder of Burg Uda – an indebted heir on the Lower Rhine
Anyone who builds a castle has a reason. In the case of Dietrich Luf III of Cleves it was a very concrete one: he had sold his residence and needed a new one.
That is the shortest explanation for why an elaborate quadrangular castle rose in the Niers lowland near Oedt around 1300. The longer explanation involves a lost battle, ransom demands, and an inheritance that contained more debt than freedom of action.
At a glance
Titles, dates, consequences
c. 1300
Construction of Burg Uda
1314
Sale of the county of Hülchrath
1323
Gives up the title of count
1332
Year of death
The inheritance: Worringen and its consequences
The story begins with his father. When the last count of Kessel died in 1285, Dietrich Luf II of Cleves, count of Hülchrath, married the widow of Kessel. For him it was a profitable match: besides the family seat of Grevenbroich, the advocacies of Kempen, Oedt and Tegelen passed to him.
Before that could become a stable territory, the Limburg succession dispute intervened. Luf II sided with the Elector of Cologne and with him lost his freedom and large parts of his property at the Battle of Worringen in 1288. What followed were ransom demands from the city of Cologne and the Duke of Jülich.
When Luf II died he left his son a substantial holding on paper: the county of Hülchrath, the Sayn inheritance that had passed to Cleves in 1255, the castle and lordship of Kervenheim, and the lordship of Oedt. In reality that holding was heavily indebted through the ransoms and his father's expensive way of life.
The sale and the new build
Dietrich Luf III drew the conclusion: he sold the county of Hülchrath and the Sayn inheritance. The sale of Hülchrath went in 1314 to Archbishop Henry II of Virneburg of Cologne – by which the county was permanently lost to the house of Cleves.
He thereafter styled himself Dietrich Luf III of Cleves, lord of Kervenheim and Hude. From 1323 he dropped the title of count of Hülchrath altogether and called himself only lord of Kervenheim and Oedt.
With the county he had also sold his residence. He therefore built Burg Uda at Oedt around 1300 and moved there. In 1313 he surrendered it to the Archbishop of Cologne as a fief – the document that gives the castle its first mention.
This sequence explains the character of the complex. Burg Uda was not an administrative outpost at the edge of a large territory but the new centre of lordship of a man who had run out of alternatives. He built a regular quadrangular castle with four corner towers because it had to represent and to defend.
Politically he held his father's line: close attachment to the Archbishop of Cologne, combined with a policy directed against his cousin, the count of Cleves. Because Luf III also held estates and rights outside Oedt – in Kempen, Hüls and in Cleves territory – the importance of the castle as a centre of lordship reached well beyond the village.
After his death: the succession
From family seat to territorial castle of Cologne in sixteen years
1332
Death of Dietrich Luf III
The entire holding is inherited by his daughter Elisabeth, married to Gottfried of Bergheim of the Jülich comital family. From now on the castle is no longer inhabited by its owners.
after 1332
Passing to Jolanthe
The holding passes from Elisabeth of Bergheim to her daughter Jolanthe, married to Count Emicho of Leiningen.
1348
Sale to Jülich
Jolanthe and Emicho of Leiningen sell the castle and the Amt Oedt to Margrave William of Jülich.
shortly after
Resale to the Electorate of Cologne
Short of money, William of Jülich has to sell the district and castle to his brother Walram II, Elector of Cologne – presumably with great reluctance, since the castle commanded the middle Niers valley. Burg Uda becomes a territorial castle of Cologne and a border fortress against Jülich and Guelders.
Family and state of research
Dietrich Luf III was born before 1285, a child of his father's first marriage. His first wife was a Jolanta; from that marriage came his only daughter Elisabeth. In 1323 he married Mathilde of Voorne. He died in 1332.
Conflicting and open statements
• Elisabeth's husband is named as Gottfried of Bergheim of the Jülich comital
family; older accounts give a differing „Godart of Jülich". Whether the same person is
meant remains to be clarified.
• Note that Dietrich Luf III's first wife was also called Jolanta. The heiress was
the granddaughter, not the wife.
• Exact year of birth
• Exact date of death; only that he died before 10 November 1332 is documented
• Place of burial
Sources and status
The basis is Karl-Heinz Brocker, Geschichte des alten Amtes und späteren Gemeinde Oedt (History of the former Amt and later municipality of Oedt), published by the Heimatverein Oedt e.V. (PDF) and EBIDAT, the castle database of the European Castles Institute, entry for Burg Uda in Oedt (ebidat.de), together with the genealogical data in the standard reference works. Where accounts differ, this is noted above.
Last updated: August 2026
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Builder, building and lordship
Lordship
The Amt Oedt
Advocacy, territorial castle, administrative district: 800 years of lordship.
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