Adolph I, Duke of Cleves
Count of Cleves, raised to Duke of Cleves
Adolph I of Cleves (German: Adolf I) (2 August 1373 – 23 September 1448) was the second Count of Cleves and the fourth Count of Mark.
Life
Adolph was the son of Adolph III, Count of Mark, and Margaret of Jülich (and thus the brother of Margaret of Cleves).
After his father's death in 1394, he became Count of Cleves. In 1397 he defeated his uncle William VII of Jülich, 1st Duke of Berg in the battle of Kleverhamm and became Lord of Ravenstein.
When his brother Dietrich IX, Count of Mark died in battle in 1398, he also became Count of Mark. Adolph further expanded his influence by marrying a daughter of the Duke of Burgundy. As a result, Cleves was raised to a Duchy by the Holy Roman Emperor, Sigismund, in 1417.
From 1409 onwards he faced opposition from his younger brother Gerhard, who claimed the County of Mark. By 1423, their dispute resulted in an armed conflict, with Gerhard allying himself with the Archbishop of Cologne.
A peace was signed between the two brothers in 1430 and confirmed in 1437.
“Adolph I, Duke of Cleves” enters the record as count of Cleves, raised to Duke of Cleves. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Adolph, Duke and Cleves can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q362618. VIAF identifies the subject as 65199029. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1373, 1448, 1394 and 1397.
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This entry incorporates text from “Adolph I, Duke of Cleves” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.