Leiningen family


Leiningen is the name of an old German noble family whose lands lay principally in Alsace, Lorraine and the Palatinate. Various branches of this family developed over the centuries and ruled counties with Imperial immediacy.
Most of these counties were annexed by the First French Republic in 1793, after French troops conquered the Left Bank of the Rhine during the War of the First Coalition. Several family branches subsequently received secularized abbeys as compensation, but shortly afterwards, these new counties were mediatized and the family lost its immediacy. Today, the only existing branch is that of the Princes of Leiningen.

Origins

The first count of Leiningen about whom anything definite is known was a certain Emich II. He built Leiningen Castle, which is now known as "Old Leiningen Castle", around 1100 to 1110. Nearby Höningen Abbey was then built around 1120 as the family's burial place.
This family became extinct in the male line when Count Frederick I died about 1220. Frederick I's sister, Liutgarde, married Simon II, Count of Saarbrücken. One of Liutgarde's sons, also named Frederick, inherited the lands of the counts of Leiningen, and he took their arms and their name as Frederick II. He became known as a Minnesinger, and one of his songs was included in the Codex Manesse. Before 1212, he built himself a new castle called Hardenburg, about 10 kilometers south of Altleiningen. This was outside the county of Leiningen on the territory of Limburg Abbey, of which his uncle was the overlord, which caused some trouble.
His eldest son, Simon, married Gertrude, heiress of the County of Dagsburg, bringing that property into the family. They had no children and Simon's two brothers inherited the county of Leiningen together: Frederick III also inherited Dagsburg and Emich IV Landeck Castle; he founded the town of Landau, but the Landeck branch extinguished with his grandson in 1290. Frederick III, who disliked sharing Leiningen castle with his brother, had a new castle built in 1238–41 about 5 kilometres northeast of Leiningen, called Neuleiningen Castle. Frederick III's son, Frederick IV, had two sons, who divided the county into Leiningen-Dagsburg and Leiningen-Hardenburg.

History

Having increased its possessions, the Leiningen family was divided around 1317 into two branches.

[|Leiningen-Westerburg]

The elder of these, whose head was a landgrave, died out in 1467. Upon this event, its lands fell to a female, the last landgrave's sister Margaret, wife of Reinhard, Lord of Westerburg, and their descendants were known as the family of Leiningen-Westerburg. Later this family was divided into two branches, those of [|Leiningen-Westerburg-Alt-Leiningen] and [|Leiningen-Westerburg-Neu-Leiningen], both of which are extinct today.
After the French Revolution, the Left Bank of the Rhine was conquered during the War of the First Coalition and annexed by France in 1793. The two counts of Alt- and Neu- Leiningen were arrested and jailed in Paris. They lost their territories. In 1803 they were compensated with secularized Ilbenstadt Abbey and Engelthal Abbey. The German mediatization brought an end to these short-lived counties in 1806, when their territories were divided between the Grand Duchy of Berg, the Grand Duchy of Hesse, Nassau-Weilburg and Nassau-Usingen. Ilbenstadt Abbey was sold by the House of Leiningen-Westerburg-Altleiningen in 1921, Engelthal Abbey by the heirs of the House of Leiningen-Westerburg-Neuleiningen in 1952.

Leiningen-Hardenburg

Meanwhile, the younger branch of the Leiningens, known as the family of Leiningen-Hardenburg, was flourishing. On 27 June 1560, this branch was divided into the lines of Leiningen-Dagsburg-Hardenburg, founded by Count Johann Philip, and Leiningen-Dagsburg-Heidesheim or Falkenburg, founded by Count Emicho.
In 1658 Leiningen-Dagsburg-Falkenburg divided into
The county of Leiningen-Dagsburg was inherited by Leiningen-Dagsburg-Hardenburg in 1774.
Leiningen-Guntersblum was divided between two further side branches:
In 1779, the head of the Leiningen-Dagsburg-Hardenburg line was raised to the rank of a Prince of the Holy Roman Empire with the title of Prince of Leiningen. In 1801, this line was deprived of its lands on the left bank of the Rhine by France, but in 1803 it received Amorbach Abbey as an ample compensation for these losses. A few years later, the Principality of Leiningen at Amorbach was mediatized, and its territory is now included mainly in Baden, but partly in Bavaria and in Hesse. Amorbach Abbey is still today the family seat of the Prince of Leiningen.
The second prince of the Leiningen-Dagsburg-Hardenburg line, Prince Emich Charles, married Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. After his death in 1814, the princess married Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, a younger son of George III of the United Kingdom, by whom she became the mother of the reigning British Queen Victoria.
Since 1991, the head of the princely line has been Prince Andreas.
His eldest brother, Prince Karl Emich was excluded from succession after he married morganatically.

Line of Descent

Note that different sources use different sequence numbers for some of the Counts. For consistency across sources, dates of birth and death are useful.

Earliest Counts

This County was then absorbed into Leiningen-Schaumburg.

Leiningen-Leiningen

This branch ended in 1705, and this County was also absorbed into Leiningen-Schaumburg.

Leiningen-Schaumburg