Ulrich of Sanneck

Ulrich of Sanneck
Seal of Ulrich of Sanneck
Lord of Žovnek
Reign	around 1286 - 1316
Predecessor	Liutpold III of Sanneck
Successor	Frederick I, as Count of Celje
Born	Žovnek Castle
Noble family	House of Sanneck
Spouse(s)	Anne of Sternberg, Catherine of Heunburg
Issue	Frederick I of Celje
Father	Conrad I of Sanneck

Ulrich of Sanneck (German: Ulrich von Sanneck, Slovene: Ulrik Žovneški; around 1255 – 1316), Lord of Žovnek (Sanneck, in German), was a free noble (roughly equivalent to a baron) in the March of Savinja in what was then the Holy Roman Empire and is now in Slovenia. During the struggle between Henry, Duke of Carinthia and the Habsburg rulers of Austria and Styria, he sided with the latter. By accepting the Habsburgs as his liege lords, he was instrumental in transferring the lordship over the Savinja region from the Meinhardiner-dominated Carniola to Habsburg Styria.^[1] His second marriage with the noblewoman Catherine of Heunburg would enable their son to claim the Heunburg inheritance in Carinthia and in the Savinja Valley, including the strategically important Celje Castle. This union of the Sanneck (Žovnek) and Heunburg (Vovbre) noble houses would give birth to the House of Celje.