HERMANN I. (d. 1217), landgrave of Thuringia and count palatine of Saxony, was the second son of Louis II. the Hard, landgrave of Thuringia, and Judith of Hohenstaufen, sister of the emperor Frederick I. About 118o he received from his brother Louis the Saxon palatinate, and married Sophia, sister of a former count palatine. In 1190 Louis died and Hermann frustrated the attempt of the emperor Henry VI. to seize Thurin gia as a vacant fief of the Empire, and established himself as landgrave. In 1197 he went on crusade. When Henry VI. died in 1198 Hermann's support was purchased by the late emperor's brother Philip, duke of Swabia, but as soon as Philip's cause appeared to be weakening he transferred his allegiance to Otto of Brunswick, afterwards the emperor Otto IV. Philip accordingly invaded Thuringia in 1204 and compelled Hermann to come to terms by which he surrendered the lands he had obtained in '198. After the death of Philip and the recognition of Otto he was among the princes who invited Frederick of Hohenstaufen, after wards the emperor Frederick II., to come to Germany and assume the crown. The Saxons consequently attacked Thuringia, but the landgrave was saved by Frederick's arrival in Germany in 1212. After the death of his first wife in 1195 Hermann married Sophia, daughter of Otto I., duke of Bavaria. By her he had four sons, two of whom, Louis and Henry Raspe, succeeded their father in turn as landgrave. Hermann died at Gotha on April 25, 1217. Walther von der Vogelweide and other Minnesingers were wel comed to his castle, and Hermann figures in story and in opera as the promoter of the famous singing contest at the Wartburg. See E. Winkelmann, Philipp von Schwaben and Otto IV. von Braunschweig (Leipzig, 1873-78) ; T. Knochenhauer, Geschichte Thiir ingens (Gotha, 1871) ; and F. Wachter, Thiiringische and obersachs ische Geschichte (Leipzig, 1826) .