the House of Wartenberg (german: Grafen von Wartenberg) was the name of the German comital family (''

Graf (feminine: ) is a historical title of the German nobility, usually translated as "count". Considered to be intermediate among noble ranks, the title is often treated as equivalent to the British title of "earl" (whose female version is "coun ...

en'') which held large territories in Rhenish Hesse, Electoral Palatinate and Upper Swabia.

Origins

The distant origins of this family are speculative yet seem to originate in the northwestern edge of the Palatinate Forest, east of modern-day

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

. The ''Kolb von Wartenberg'' family took its name from Castle Wartenberg built in the present day

Kaiserslautern Kaiserslautern (; Palatinate German: ''Lautre'') is a city in southwest Germany, located in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate at the edge of the Palatinate Forest. The historic centre dates to the 9th century. It is from Paris, from Frankfur ...

which was destroyed in 1522. Its territories belonged until the late 18th century to the

Upper Rhenish Circle The Upper Rhenish Circle (german: Oberrheinischer Reichskreis) was an Imperial Circle of the Holy Roman Empire established in 1500 on the territory of the former Duchy of Upper Lorraine and large parts of Rhenish Franconia including the Swabi ...

and included properties in Wachenheim,

and Mettenheim. After the left bank of

Rhine ), Surselva, Graubünden, Switzerland , source1_coordinates= , source1_elevation = , source2 = Rein Posteriur/Hinterrhein , source2_location = Paradies Glacier, Graubünden, Switzerland , source2_coordinates= , so ...

was taken over by the French revolutionary troops in 1794 and subsequently integrated into the

French First Republic In the history of France, the First Republic (french: Première République), sometimes referred to in historiography as Revolutionary France, and officially the French Republic (french: République française), was founded on 21 September 1792 ...

, the County of Wartenberg was dissolved. As a compensation for the loss of their estates, the Counts of Wartenberg received in 1802 the Rot an der Rot Abbey in Upper Swabia. The monastery's possessions included thirteen villages and hamlets with a total of 2871 subjects. The new county then became known as County of Wartenberg-Roth. In 1804, the last Count of Wartenberg, Ludwig, adopted his two nephews Counts Franz Carl Friedrich and Franz Georg Friedrich of Erbach-Erbach who upon Ludwig's death inherited not only the title Wartenberg-Roth, but also the Lordship of Roth's estates of Erbach and Reichenbach in Hesse and the Lordships of Wildenstein and Steinbach in

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...

.Ernst Heinrich Kneschke: ''Neues allgemeines deutsches Adels-Lexicon'', Band 5, 1864, S. 215 ff
Online
After the

Congress of Vienna The Congress of Vienna (, ) of 1814–1815 was a series of international diplomatic meetings to discuss and agree upon a possible new layout of the European political and constitutional order after the downfall of the French Emperor Napoleon B ...

in 1816, the ancestral territory, which belonged to this noble family, became part of the

Kingdom of Bavaria The Kingdom of Bavaria (german: Königreich Bayern; ; spelled ''Baiern'' until 1825) was a German state that succeeded the former Electorate of Bavaria in 1805 and continued to exist until 1918. With the unification of Germany into the German E ...

, except for Mettenheim, which was absorbed into the

Grand Duchy of Hesse The Grand Duchy of Hesse and by Rhine (german: link=no, Großherzogtum Hessen und bei Rhein) was a grand duchy in western Germany that existed from 1806 to 1918. The Grand Duchy originally formed from the Landgraviate of Hesse-Darmstadt in 1806 ...

County of Wartenberg

The historical County of Wartenberg included the townships Aspach, Diemerstein,

Ellerstadt Ellerstadt is an ''Ortsgemeinde'' – a municipality belonging to a ''Verbandsgemeinde'', a kind of collective municipality – in the Bad Dürkheim district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Geography Location The municipality lies on the Up ...

, Fischbach, Imbsbach, Marienthal, Ober- und Nieder-Mehlingen, Mettenheim, Oranienhof,

Rohrbach Rohrbach or Röhrbach may refer to: Places Municipalities in Switzerland *Rohrbach, Switzerland, in the canton of Bern Municipalities in Germany *Rohrbach, Bavaria, in the district of Pfaffenhofen, Bavaria *Rohrbach, Birkenfeld, in the district o ...

Sembach Sembach is a municipality in the district of Kaiserslautern in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It forms part of the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' of Enkenbach-Alsenborn. The town is nestled in the Palatinate Forest Nature Park between Kaiser ...

, Wachenheim und Wartenberg.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Counts of Wartenberg Wartenberg Wartenberg Counties of the Holy Roman Empire

Origins

County of Wartenberg

See also

References