Blason fam de Maison von und zu Fürstenberg

Fürstenberg-Weitra was a cadet branch of the

princely A prince is a male ruler (ranked below a king, grand prince, and grand duke) or a male member of a monarch's or former monarch's family. ''Prince'' is also a title of nobility (often highest), often hereditary, in some European states. The ...

House of Fürstenberg, originally from Donaueschingen in Swabia, in present-day southwestern

Baden-Württemberg Baden-Württemberg (; ), commonly shortened to BW or BaWü, is a German state () in Southwest Germany, east of the Rhine, which forms the southern part of Germany's western border with France. With more than 11.07 million inhabitants across a ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

. From 1744 onwards the landgravial line resided at

Weitra Weitra (; cs, Vitoraz) is a small town in the district of Gmünd in the Austrian state of Lower Austria. Geography The municipality is situated amidst the extended forests of the rural Waldviertel region, close to the border with the Czech Rep ...

Castle in the Archduchy of Austria, a

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD ...

fortress close to the border with Bohemia. Though the Austrian possessions were not part of the Swabian

Principality of Fürstenberg Fürstenberg was a county (german: Grafschaft), and later a principality ('' Fürstentum''), of the Holy Roman Empire in Swabia, which was located in present-day southern Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Its ruling family was the House of Fürstenb ...

, the princely family owns Weitra Castle up to today.

History

Count Frederick IV of Fürstenberg-Heiligenberg (1563–1617) had acquired the remote Weitra estates in the Austrian

Waldviertel The (Forest Quarter; Central Bavarian: ) is the northwestern region of the northeast Austrian state of Lower Austria. It is bounded to the south by the Danube, to the southwest by Upper Austria, to the northwest and the north by the Czech Rep ...

region by marriage in 1607. His grandson Herman Egon was raised to a sovereign prince by the Habsburg emperor Leopold I in 1664. After the Fürstenberg-Heiligenberg line became extinct upon the death of Herman Egon's son Prince Anton Egon (1656–1716), the Fürstenberg-Weitra branch emerged when in 1744 his heir Prince Joseph Wilhelm Ernst of Fürstenberg-Stühlingen united all immediate Fürstenberg territories in Swabia under his rule and passed the Weitra estates to his younger brother

Landgrave Landgrave (german: Landgraf, nl, landgraaf, sv, lantgreve, french: landgrave; la, comes magnus, ', ', ', ', ') was a noble title used in the Holy Roman Empire, and later on in its former territories. The German titles of ', ' (" margrave"), ...

Louis Augustus Egon. Upon Louis' death in 1759, the landgraviate of Fürstenberg-Weitra was partitioned between his son Joachim Egon and his brother Frederick Joseph Maximilian Augustus of Fürstenberg-Taikowitz.

Landgraves of Fürstenberg-Weitra

*Louis Augustus Egon Posthumous (1744–1759) *Joachim Egon (1759–1828) *Frederick Egon (1828–1856) *John Nepomuk Joachim Egon (1856–1879) *Eduard Egon (1879–1932) Weitra line extinct, possessions fell back to Prince Maximilian Egon II as head of the House of Fürstenberg.

History

Landgraves of Fürstenberg-Weitra

See also