GUNTHER

also called Gundicar, Gundicarius, Gunnar, Gundahar, or Guntharius Burgundian king (died 437) who was the hero of medieval legends. The historical Gunther led the Burgundians across the Rhine in the early 5th century, establishing a kingdom at Worms. He supported the imperial usurper Jovinus (411) and fell in battle against the Huns in 437. Gunther (called Gunnar) figures in the Eddaic poem Atlakvida, in which he is slain by Atli (Attila) the Hun and avenged by his sister, Atli's wife. In the 11th-century Latin poem Waltharius (q.v.), he and his warriors try unsuccessfully to kill the hero (Walter of Aquitaine) and steal his treasure. The 12th-century German epic Nibelungenlied associates him with Siegfried, who helps Gunther to win Brunhild and in return marries Gunther's sister Kriemhild. When Siegfried is later killed on Gunther's order, Kriemhild revenges his death by having Gunther and his followers slain while visiting the court of her second husband, Etzel (Attila). See also Kriemhild. born 1304, Blankenburg, Harz died June 14, 1349, Frankfurt am Main count of Schwarzburg-Blankenburg and rival king of Germany (1349), who claimed the throne as successor to the Holy Roman emperor Louis IV the Bavarian (died 1347) in opposition to Charles of Luxembourg. The younger son of Henry VII, count of Schwarzburg-Blankenburg (died 1323), Gnther inherited Blankenburg and Saalfeld in 1330. He served as a diplomat and military commander for Louis IV from 1334 to 1339. After Louis IV's death, the electors of Brandenburg, Saxe-Lauenburg, Frankfurt, and the archbishopric of Mainz, who were partisans of the Wittelsbach house, of which Louis IV had been a member, offered the throne to Edward III, king of England. When Edward declined (1348), they offered it to Gnther; he was elected king at Frankfurt on January 30 and crowned on Feb. 6, 1349. Gnther, however, did not have clear title to the throne because the Reichstag (imperial diet), which had been alienated by Louis IV's dynastic policies, had elected Charles of Luxembourg, margrave of Moravia, anti-king on July 11, 1346. Charles IV won over many of Gnther's followers and defeated him at Eltville. By the terms of the Treaty of Eltville (May 26, 1349), Gnther, who was mortally ill, accepted 20,000 silver marks and amnesty for his supporters in exchange for relinquishing his claim to the German throne.