Brühl family

Von Brühl
Coat of arms of von Brühl.
Ethnicity	German
Current region	Germany, United States, Sweden, Denmark, France, United Kingdom
Place of origin	Free State of Saxony, Holy Roman Empire
Distinctions	Imperial Count of the Holy Roman Empire

Brühl (de Brüel, von Brühl) is the name of an old German noble family from Saxony-Thuringia, with their ancestral seat in Gangloffsömmern in Thuringia. Branches of the family still exist today.

With the era of Heinrich von Brühl during the 18th century, who indirectly controlled Saxony and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and thus was one of the most powerful persons in the Holy Roman Empire, the family was one of the most influential families in the world, and has been compared to the House of Medici, the Richelieu family, and the Rothschild family.

One of the most important branches of the von Brühl family uses the spelling Brüel, and mainly resides in Denmark and Sweden.

Not much is known about the family's early history. They are first mentioned in 1344, with Heinrich aus dem Brühl. He is named as a ministerialis of the Counts of Hohnstein. The name Heinrich was later often still given to new members of the family.

Heinrich von Brühl (died 1446) owned the manor Wenigen-Tennstedt and is first mentioned in records in 1424. The familial line starts with him. His descendant Heinrich von Brühl acquired a manor at Gangloffsömmern in 1470, which became the family home.

In 1464 the manor of Pakosław (Greater Poland) was bought by one Johannes Brühl (senior), whose son Johannes Brühl (junior) left Poland for Saxony in 1496, with his wife Balice Banarowna, heiress of Oświęcim, accompanying the king's daughter, Barbara Jagiellon (later the wife of George, Duke of Saxony). The name Brühl-Oswiecino was still in use into the 18th century.

At the end of the 17th century the family seat was owned by the Oberhofmarschall and Wirklicher Geheimer Rat Hans Moritz von Brühl. His son was the well-known Heinrich von Brühl (1700–1763). From 1719 he served the court of the Electorate of Saxony, and progressed quickly through the favour of Augustus II the Strong. For almost two decades, Brühl was the most powerful man in the Electorate, as prime minister he indirectly controlled Saxony and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth . His fiscal policy, unchecked by a weak Duke, almost led Saxon to financial disaster, but made Brühl extremely wealthy. Like his three older brothers a year later, Heinrich von Brühl was made an Imperial Count in 1737.

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