The County of Königstein was an imperially immediate territory of the

Holy Roman Empire The Holy Roman Empire, also known as the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation after 1512, was a polity in Central and Western Europe, usually headed by the Holy Roman Emperor. It developed in the Early Middle Ages, and lasted for a millennium ...

within the

Upper Rhenish Circle The Upper Rhenish Circle () 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 Swabian Alsace region and the Burgundi ...

House of Eppstein

On 6 August 1505 Maximilian I granted the titles of lords of Königstein, Eppstein and Munzenberg to the brothers Eberhard, George and Philip, all from the house of Eppstein. However, all three of them remained without male issue and so their sister Anna's son was made heir to all three of them - Anna had married Botho of Stolberg. After the imperial register of 1521, the counts of Königstein were to provide four cavalrymen and thirteen foot soldiers in case of war.

House of Stolberg

After Eberhard IV of Eppstein died on 25 May 1535, the county was inherited by his heir Louis of Stolberg, who had served as co-ruler with his uncle Eberhard as early as 1527. He introduced the

Protestant Reformation The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the papacy and ...

to the county, reorganizing the church along the same lines as

Wolfgang, Count Palatine of Zweibrücken Count Palatine Wolfgang of Zweibrücken (; 26 September 1526 – 11 June 1569) was member of the Wittelsbach family of the Counts Palatine and Duke of Zweibrücken from 1532. With the support of his regent, his uncle Rupert (later made the C ...

, although Marienschloss Abbey successfully held out against it. Louis died without male issue and so his brother Christoph of Stolberg inherited the county but he was its last lord, dying on 5 August 1581. After this Daniel Brendel von Homburg, Elector of Mainz, stated that his brother Albrecht Georg of Stolberg was considered the county as his fiefdom, as a proxy of

Rudolf II Rudolf II (18 July 1552 – 20 January 1612) was Holy Roman Emperor (1576–1612), King of Hungary and Croatia (as Rudolf I, 1572–1608), King of Bohemia (1575–1608/1611) and Archduke of Austria (1576–1608). He was a member of the H ...

and that

Mainz Mainz (; #Names and etymology, see below) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, and with around 223,000 inhabitants, it is List of cities in Germany by population, Germany's 35th-largest city. It lies in ...

should act as imperial commissary for the lordship of Königstein. This promoted Königstein into an 'oberamt'. The

counts of Stolberg The County of Stolberg () was a county of the Holy Roman Empire located in the Harz mountain range in present-day Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It was ruled by a branch of the House of Stolberg. The town of Stolberg was probably founded in the 12th c ...

complained to the

Reichskammergericht The ; ; ) was one of the two highest judicial institutions in the Holy Roman Empire, the other one being the Aulic Council in Vienna. It was founded in 1495 by the Imperial Diet in Worms. All legal proceedings in the Holy Roman Empire could be ...

over the issue and although it ceased to be a separately-ruled entity, it nominally existed until 1806 and the Act of Confederation, which abolished it and assigned it and

Gedern Gedern () is a town in the Wetteraukreis district in Hesse, Germany, and historically belongs to Upper Hesse, Oberhessen. It is located northeast of Hanau at the foot of the Vogelsberg Mountains, Vogelsberg, one of the largest inactive volcanoes ...

to the

Grand Duchy of Hesse The Grand Duchy of Hesse and by Rhine () 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 as the Grand Duchy of Hesse (). It assumed the name ...

Bibliography

*Jörg Brückner: Zwischen Reichsstandschaft und Standesherrschaft (PDF-Datei; 3,89 MB). Die Grafen zu Stolberg und ihr Verhältnis zu den Landgrafen von Thüringen und späteren Herzögen, Kurfürsten bzw. Königen von Sachsen (1210 bis 1815), Dissertation TU Chemnitz 2003. *Karl Wolf: Die Besitzergreifung der Grafschaft Königstein durch Kurmainz i. J. 1581 und der Wetterauer Grafenverein, in: Jahrbuch des Vereins für nassauische Altertumskunde und Geschichtsforschung 74, 1963, S. 70 ff. *Beate Großmann-Hofmann, Hans-Curt Köster: Königstein im Taunus: Geschichte und Kunst; Königstein (Verlag Langewiesche), 2010;

External links

* http://www.kur-koenigstein.de/de/koenigstein-entdecken/geschichte-und-tradition/stadtgeschichte.html {{Authority control Königstein Konigstein Taunus 1505 establishments in the Holy Roman Empire 1806 disestablishments in the Holy Roman Empire

House of Eppstein

House of Stolberg

See also

Bibliography

External links