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50-798: Originating in Alsace during the Carolingian and Ottonian periods, the Geroldsecks were first mentioned in a witness list dating from the 1080s, and were definitely proven to reside in the Black Forest region from 1139. They were heavily involved in mining of ores, especially silver . The Hohengeroldseck family supported and rebuilt many monasteries within the Zähringen domains, notably Schuttern and Ettenheimmünster, each located about 25 kilometers from castle Hohengeroldseck. All together,

100-763: A further 16 Florins was to be paid to the Army. In addition, Hohengeroldseck had to pay to the Imperial Court Chamber annually 10 Reichsthalers and 12 1/2 Kreutzer. These contribution rates remained unchanged until the Holy Roman Empire was dissolved in 1806. Elisabeth of Hohen-Geroldseck was elected to rule the Imperial Abbey of Buchau on May 28, 1523. The Abbey was a member of the Swabian League . Elisabeth had to flee in 1525 when

150-482: A part of Lotharingia in the threefold division of Middle Francia. Lothair II , because of his kinship with the still-powerful Etichonids, had firm support in Alsace throughout his tumultuous reign. In 867, he created the first Duke of Alsace in over a century when he granted the ducatum Elisatium to his illegitimate son Hugh , who had an ancient Etichonid name. In 869, Lothair granted protection of his kingdom to Louis

200-595: A result of the Napoleonic Wars . The Army of the Empire was not a standing army . When there was danger, it was mustered from among the elements constituting it, in order to conduct a military campaign or Reichsheerfahrt during an Imperial War ( Reichskrieg ) or an Imperial Execution ( Reichsexekution ). It could only be deployed with the consent of the Imperial Diet and should not be confused with

250-581: The Pactus Alamannorum . In 596, Childebert II bequeathed Alsace to his son Theuderic II , who was raised there. This attached it to Burgundy, but in 610 Theudebert II , Theuderic's brother of Austrasia, forced Alsace' cession to him only to lose it two years later to Burgundy again. In 623, when Chlothar II granted Austrasia to Dagobert, he excluded Alsace, the Vosges , and the Ardennes , but

300-741: The County of Sponheim from Prussia and Baden's portion of the Palatinate on the right bank of the Rhine River following the death of the childless Grand Duke Charles of Baden. At the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1818, however, the great powers came to terms with Grand Duke Charles' succession, and guaranteed his successor a full inheritance. To help meet its obligations to Bavaria, Austria proposed to cede Hohengeroldseck to Baden in exchange for Baden's transfer of that portion of Wertheim on

350-655: The French Revolutionary Army surrounded Blieskastel Palace, forcing the Leyen family to flee. Having lost all of their possessions on the left bank of the Rhine river , the nearly destitute family took up residence in the Dautenstein, where they remained until the end of their rule over Hohengeroldseck. The peace treaty with France denied the family restoration of their lands, and numerous petitions to

400-593: The Germanic ali-land-sat-ja , meaning "one who sits in another land." Alsace was Alemanni territory, but not so much as Alemannia proper, which was east of the Rhine : it was, however, the "other" land in which some Alemanni had settled. In the Late Roman Empire , a district of Alsace ( pagus Alsatiae ) had been established in the region. Under Chlothar II , Alsace and Alemannia were granted their own law,

450-784: The Imperial Army ( Kaiserliche Armee ) of the Holy Roman Emperor . In practice, the various forces of the Army of the Empire often had stronger local allegiances than to the Holy Roman Emperor. Prompted by the threat posed by the Hussites , the Imperial Diet of 1422 held in Nuremberg created the Army of the Empire by demanding specific contingents of troops from the various parts of the Empire. The Hussite Wars continued from 1420 to 1434, by which point

500-494: The Imperial Diet for compensation were fruitless, as the Final Recess of 1803 denied the family compensation granted other exiled nobles on the basis that the Leyen family did nothing to aid the war against France. Henceforth, Count Philip Francis looked to France for friendship. The Friendship paid off in that Hohengeroldseck was spared the mediatization of 1806 that consumed much larger and wealthier states by virtue that

550-756: The Peasant's War saw the League's enemies attack the Abbey. She returned shortly thereafter and completed fortifications and many building extensions. Elisabeth died in 1540. The last of the House of Geroldseck was Baron Jacob, who began his reign in 1584. In that year, Jacob began construction of a three-storey residence in the middle of the walled enclosure of the water castle of Dautenstein in Seelbach . He moved out of Castle Hohengeroldseck in 1599 and took up residence in

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600-612: The ducatus Elisatium was still not attached to the Duchy of Swabia by then. It eventually would be, however. Army of the Holy Roman Empire The Army of the Holy Roman Empire ( French : Armée du Saint-Empire ; German : Reichsarmee , Reichsheer , or Reichsarmatur ; Latin : Exercitus Imperii ) was created in 1422 and came to an end when the Holy Roman Empire was dissolved in 1806 as

650-617: The ducatus alsicensi in 816, though it was still a ducatus without a dux . In 829, Louis's youngest son, Charles , was made duke of Alsace, Alemannia and Rhaetia , but in 831 his share of the empire was expanded and was made into a kingdom. By the Treaty of Verdun (843) it was made part of the kingdom of Middle Francia under Lothair I , to the displeasure of Louis the German , who would have liked to see it attached to Alemanni in his East Francia . Upon Lothair's death in 855, Alsace became

700-628: The Alemanni and in 744 some rebellious Alemans invaded Alsace, implying that it was considered loyal to Martel's successors, Carloman and Pepin the Short . Even Liutfrid himself may have died fighting on behalf of the Carolingians against the Alemanni. In any case, the peaceful dissolution of the duchy in Alsace mirrored the similar efforts of the Carolings elsewhere (notably Provence ), while it

750-724: The Alsatian side of the Rhine. A further division of the Hohen-Geroldseck line in the beginning of the fourteenth century caused the independence of the Veldenz Counts as well as the loss of old territories in Alsace. A different Castle Geroldseck was built in the thirteenth century on lands of the Lower Line in what is today the commune of Niederstinzel in the Wasgau region of Alsace. Hans of Geroldseck ruled from

800-509: The Army of the Empire ( Reichsdefensionalordnung ) of 1681 finally determined the composition of the army, fixing the contingents to be provided by the various Imperial Circles . The simple total strength (called in Latin the Simplum ) was now fixed at 40,000 men, consisting of 28,000 infantry and 12,000 cavalry, including 2,000 dragoons (that is, mounted infantry ). In emergencies, the size of

850-698: The Baron of Kronberg had obtained rights to the Lordship of Hohengeroldseck as an Austrian fief in the event Baron Jacob's line went extinct. He took possession in 1635, at the same time being raised to a Count. Anna Maria petitioned the Emperor but could not receive her proper inheritance. The Counts of Kronberg never resided in Hohengeroldseck but at their ancient residence in Kronberg im Taunus . In 1636,

900-704: The Count was nephew to Archchancellor Karl Theodor von Dalberg , a close collaborator of Napoleon's. The County joined the Rhine Confederation as a founding member on July 12, 1806. Article V. of the Treaty of the Confederation of the Rhine raised Count Philip Francis to a Prince, and his realm became known as the Principality of Leyen . The same treaty declared Leyen separated forevermore from

950-468: The Dautenstein in that same year. Baron Jacob died in the year 1634. His daughter and heiress, Anna Maria, first married Count Frederick of Solms-Rödelheim , founder of the Solms-Rödelheim branch of the family. After his death, reported in places as 1649 but likely much earlier, his widow Anna Maria wed Margrave Frederick V of Baden-Durlach on 13 February 1644. Previously in the year 1620,

1000-638: The Dautenstein was destroyed as a casualty of the Thirty Years' War and rebuilt shortly thereafter, though on a more modest scale. The castle of Hohengeroldseck itself was destroyed by the French in 1689, a casualty of the War of the Palatinate . The destruction has been uniformly but erroneously attributed by 19th century authors to the actions of Marshal Crequi , who actually died in 1687, two years before

1050-497: The Emperor. Between the 1590s and the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars , the Army fought in the wars directly affecting the Empire, usually with units of the Imperial Army of the Empire and other local territorial forces. It did not take part in the Thirty Years' War of 1618 to 1648. In 1804, the imperial forces originating from the lands of the new Emperor of Austria , a title created that year, became

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1100-448: The German immediately before his death on a trip to Rome . When Louis fell ill later that year, Charles, now king of all West Francia , tried to annex Alsace and made Hugh swear allegiance to him, but Louis recovered and by the Treaty of Meerssen (870) Alsace was attached to East Francia at long last. There is little evidence for an Alsatian dukedom after that, though some have interpreted references to an Uto dux in 999 as implying that

1150-586: The Germans would be in the greatest need, these heroes would come out from the castle to help them. The Lower Line ruled its Swabian territory situated upon the city of Lahr until 1426, when the family went extinct. Baron Diebold of Hohen-Geroldseck therefore challenged the legitimate heirs, the Counts of Moers-Saarwerden , for the inheritance in 1428, but could not prevail and suffered grave economic woes. Baron Dietrich of Hohen-Geroldseck played an ambitious role in

1200-562: The Geroldsecks founded between 16 and 20 monasteries within the southern half of modern Baden. They were closely aligned with the Bishop of Strassburg , being Vogt protectors for nearly 371 years, and twice Bishops of Strassburg, 1262–1273. Their family seat was Castle Hohengeroldseck near Biberach . Walter of Geroldseck built the Castle upon the Schönberg between 1240 and 1250. Around 1252,

1250-611: The Holy Roman Empire, as per Article III. The Empire itself was declared at an end on August 6, 1806. As for the army, Article XXXVIII. of the Rhine Treaty decreed a 4,000 strong combined army corps raised by "the other Princes of the Confederation," to which the Prince of Leyen had to supply a contingent of 29 soldiers and the money to equip and care for them. The outbreak of the War of the Sixth Coalition in 1813 signaled

1300-568: The Pious , though there exists disputed evidence of its use as early as 735–737. Following the suppression of the Alemanni in 742–746 by Carloman , son of Charles Martel , the duchy of Alsace was dissolved in 742 when a successor for the deceased Duke Liutfrid was not named. While some historians have suggested an antipathy between the Etichonids and the Arnulfings to explain

1350-687: The approaching end of the French supremacy. The Battle of the Nations in mid-October removed France's grip on Germany, and the members of the Rhine Confederation either abandoned their French alliance or were overrun by the advancing Allies. On December 13, 1813, the Principality of Leyen was occupied by Austrian forces, declared "leaderless" because Prince Philip was residing in Paris at the time, and formally mediatized. Hohengeroldseck

1400-425: The army could be increased by doubling or tripling the contingents. Such multiples were called in Latin the duplum and the triplum . The figures for the contingents to be supplied by each Imperial Circle were little altered until the demise of the Empire. In practice, they were organized into a number of separate regiments . In some cases, money was provided instead of men to fulfil these military obligations to

1450-465: The army had proved its worth. Over the next hundred years, the size of the Army was controlled either by the number of serving men being strictly regulated or by limits on the money that paid for it. At the Diet of Worms in 1521 a commitment was made to keep the strength at 20,063 infantry and 4,202 cavalry . This was later simplified to 20,000 and 4,000. The monthly cost of paying for an army of this size

1500-535: The beginning of the nineteenth century, it was bound clockwise by the Free Imperial City of Zell to the north, the Lordship of Hausen (a possession of the Prince of Fürstenberg ) to the east, the Ettenheim territory of the bishopric of Strassburg to the south as well as an enclave within the territory of Hohengeroldseck itself, an estate of a Free Imperial Knight of the autonomous Ortenau District to

1550-460: The castle as a fief of the Bishop of Metz from 1355 until his death in 1391, after which time his rights devolved to the Lords of Ochsenstein and the counts of Zweibrücken-Bitsch . Castle Geroldseck itself was destroyed by fire in 1381. Old German folktales regarded the ruins as the meeting place of great heroes, such as Ariovistus , Herman , Widukind , and Siegfried . Legends claimed that, when

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1600-719: The castle was laid waste. In 1697, the Margraves of Baden seized Hohengeroldseck as allies of the French, but the Imperial Army drove them out soon after. In 1704, Count John Nicholas died, and with him the Kronberg family went extinct. Of the Kronberg lands, the dominion of Rothenberg was disbursed to the Count of Degenfeld and Kronberg itself to the Elector of Mainz . Hohengeroldseck was granted to Count Karl Caspar von der Leyen. In 1711, Count Karl Caspar von der Leyen

1650-529: The dissolution of their power in Alsace, the Etichonids were allied with Charles Martel as early as the 720s, when he campaigned against the Alemanni, who were a constant thorn in the side of their Alsatian cousins. Some have interpreted the tripartite web of support between Alsatian monasteries, the Etichonid dukes and counts, and Theuderic IV as evidence of an attempt to stay outside of Arnulfing (subsequently Carolingian ) control. In 722, Martel first defeated

1700-475: The faithfulness of the Sundgau . The creation of a duchy of Alsace corresponded with the creation of counties in the region. Thitherto counties had not been found in most of Austrasia, but by the eighth century they were common in the south. The counts of Alsace were known in contemporary Latin texts by the title grafio (plural grafiones ), which may have indicated a slightly different office from that of

1750-579: The family inherited the most important portions of the County of Sulz on the Neckar as well as the dominions of Schenkenzell and Lossburg and perhaps Romberg, and these formed the basis of their Lordship. In 1260, Walter of Geroldseck became Bishop of Strassburg. His brother Hermann obtained a bailiwick lying between Seltz and the Bishopric of Basel , and incurred the wrath of the latter when he seized

1800-440: The industry of monks for secular benefit. Alsace was first spoken of as a ducatus in the 730s, though the correspondence of Alsace with the territory of the early duces can be inferred quite easily (for example, known dukes of Alsace referring to earlier dukes as their predecessors can only mean that the territorial unit of rule was the same). The term ducatus alsacensi , "Duchy of Alsace", only came into use under Louis

1850-683: The latter transfer being signed in Aschaffenburg on October 27, 1819. The Baden authorities referred to the territory as "the Provisional District of Hohengeroldseck" until March 1, 1831, when it was merged into the District of Lahr and henceforth disappeared from history. Located in the Ortenau region of Swabia, the area of the state never exceeded 45 square miles. Despite its small size, Hohengeroldseck had many neighbors. At

1900-442: The monastery of St. Gregory in the Alsatian Münstertal . Walter lent aid to his brother, which irritated the townspeople of Strassburg. Further attempts to assert his authority over the townspeople caused a revolt, and he was driven from the city. Walter found many allies to assist him in attempting to reclaim the city, including the Bishop of Trier , but he was defeated in the Battle of Hausbergen in 1262, and henceforth Strassburg

1950-511: The north and the Free Imperial City of Gengenbach to the northeast, while the smaller exclave of Hohengeroldseck was bound to the south by the Schutterwald knightly estate (held in condominium with Austria), another exclave of Further Austria to the west, and the Free Imperial City of Offenburg to the north and east. Both exclaves were held in condominium with Austria. Duchy of Alsace The Duchy of Alsace ( Latin : Ducatus Alsacensi , Ducatum Elisatium ; German : Herzogtum Elsaß )

2000-409: The opposite side of the River Main (the town of Steinfeld and surrounding territory) to Bavaria. All parties accepted. On July 10, 1819, the Frankfurt Convention was held to solve all outstanding German border issues. The Convention confirmed all decisions made at the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle. Austria exchanged Hohengeroldseck for Steinfeld, which in turn was ceded to Bavaria, the protocols for

2050-527: The quarrel between Austria and the Electoral Palatinate in the 1480s, but this led to the outright conquest of Castle Geroldseck by the Palatinate in 1486. The defeat of the Elector in the Landshut Succession War in 1504 saw the return of the family to their seat. According to the Imperial Matriculation of 1521, the Lordship of Hohengeroldseck contributed 1 cavalryman and 3 infantrymen to the Imperial Army . In 1545 and 1551 it contributed 1 cavalryman, 2 infantrymen, and 20 Florins in money. In case of emergency,

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2100-432: The southwest, territory of Nassau-Usingen to the west with portions of Baden-Durlach above and below it, and finally a tiny exclave of Further Austria to the northwest. In addition, two small exclaves to the northwest of Hohengeroldseck shared numerous borders. The larger exclave was surrounded on three sides by three different estates of Free Imperial Knights of the Ortenau District, with an exclave of Further Austria to

2150-460: The traditional comes (plural comites ), which was used in the more Romanised parts of Gaul. Under Gundoin's successors, the famous Etichonids , the counties — Alsace was already generally divided into a Nordgau and Sundgau — were brought under direct ducal control. From the very beginning, Gundoin had used monasteries and monastic foundation as tools in spreading his authority and in developing his regional economy by employing

2200-400: Was a free Imperial City . In 1270, Baron Heinrich of Geroldseck married Agnes the heiress of the last Count of Veldenz and so founded the second dynasty of that territory. In 1277, the house of Geroldseck divided into Upper (Hohen-) and Lower lines, sharing some common properties such as the bailiwicks of Friesenheim and Oberschopfheim, the village Ottenheim , as well as Castle Schwanau on

2250-449: Was a large political subdivision of the Frankish Empire during the last century and a half of Merovingian rule. It corresponded to the territory of Alsace and was carved out of southern Austrasia in the last decade of the reign of Dagobert I , probably to stabilise the southern reaches of Austrasia against Alemannia and Burgundy . By the late Middle Ages , the region was considered part of Swabia . The term "Alsace" derives from

2300-430: Was also part of a larger effort — which was notably violent in Alemannia and Aquitaine — to replace dukes, who had the power to command armies, with counts, who were royal officers responsible to and representative of royal power. Alsace remained a distinct unit after 742. With the rise in influence of Hugh of Tours , who was a conscious ancestor of the Etichonid dukes, Louis the Pious first made reference to

2350-437: Was awarded to Austria by the Congress of Vienna in 1815. Its cession to Baden was brought about in a very complex way. At the Congress of Vienna, Austria insisted on the re-annexation of Salzburg , which had been made over to Bavaria by Napoleon after the Treaty of Schönbrunn in 1809. In the Treaty of Munich in 1816, Austria and Bavaria came to terms, with the Austrians promising to support Bavaria in its ambition to secure

2400-469: Was created Imperial Count which guaranteed sovereignty through Imperial immediacy . Renovations to Castle Dautenstein in the second half of the 18th Century saw the removal of its walls, rendering its appearance similar to a large farmhouse, but the compound retained its original footprint, and the building served as a modest court for the Counts of Leyen whenever they might journey from their residential palace at Blieskastel . However, on May 14, 1793,

2450-454: Was known as the Roman Month ( Römermonat ). The Imperial Register ( Reichsmatrikel or Heeresmatrikel ) determined the contributions of the individual states making up the Empire, the first being the Register of 1422. Contrary to popular belief, the Army of the Empire did not take part in the Thirty Years' War of 1618 to 1648. The Emperor participated in this war with the Imperial Army ( Kaiserliche Armee ) instead. The Constitution of

2500-436: Was shortly after forced to concede it to Dagobert by the Austrasian nobility. Sometime probably between 629 and 631 Dagobert granted it as a dukedom to Gundoin , a Frank from the Austrasian heartland of the Meuse valley, a move which tied Alsace more closely to the Austrasian court. Gundoin's duchy comprised both sides of the Vosges, the Burgundian Gate , and the Transjura ; there were to be continuous early problems retaining

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