Meinhard III, a member of the House of Wittelsbach, was Duke of Upper Bavaria and Count of Tyrol from 1361 until his death.
Background
He was the son of Duke Louis V of Bavaria with Countess Margaret of Tyrol and as such also the last descendant of the Tyrolean branch of the House of Gorizia (Meinhardiner dynasty). Meinhard was born in Landshut during the reign of his Wittelsbach grandfather, Emperor Louis IV, who had prevailed against his Habsburg rival Frederick the Fair. His father Louis V, the eldest son of the emperor, in 1323 was enfeoffed with the Margraviate of Brandenburg upon the extinction of the Ascanian margraves.
Career
He did however concentrate on his Bavarian heritage and in 1342 married Countess Margaret of Tyrol, whose first matrimony with John Henry of Luxembourg was not yet divorced. This marriage earned the couple not only the enmity of the House of Luxembourg, but also the excommunication by Pope Clement VI. After the sudden death of Louis V in 1361, his seventeen-year-old son ascended to rule in Upper Bavaria and in the County of Tyrol, in which he was strongly influenced by the Bavarian nobility. He fled to the court of the Prince-Bishop of Eichstätt, was temporarily arrested in Munich and finally retired to the Tyrolean home lands of his mother, possibly with the help of the Habsburg duke Rudolf IV of Austria.
Meinhard III died at Tirol Castle near Meran in 1363.
His early death induced his mother Margaret to deny the inheritance claims raised by Count Meinhard VI of Gorizia and the House of Wittelsbach, when she ceded Tyrol to Duke Rudolf IV of Austria. The unification of Tyrol with Austria was completed.