Count of Berg
| County (Duchy) of Berg | ||||||||||
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Grafschaft (Herzogtum) Berg (de) Graafschap (Hertogdom) Berg (nl) |
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| State of the Holy Roman Empire (until 1806) | ||||||||||
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 Coat of arms
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.svg) Map of the Lower Rhenish–Westphalian Circle around 1560,
Duchy of Berg highlighted in red |
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| Capital |
Schloss Burg (1101-1280) Düsseldorf (1280-1815) |
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| Languages | German | |||||||||
| Government | Absolute monarchy | |||||||||
| Historical era | Middle Ages | |||||||||
| • | Emergence from Lotharingia | 1101 | ||||||||
| • | Split with County of Mark | 1160 | ||||||||
| • | United with County of Jülich | 1348 | ||||||||
| • | United with County of Mark and Duchy of Cleves | 1521 | ||||||||
| • | United with Palatinate-Neuburg and the Electorate of the Palatinate | 1609 and 1690 | ||||||||
| • | Disestablished | 9 June 1815 | ||||||||
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Berg was a state – originally a county, later a duchy – in the Rhineland of Germany. Its capital was Düsseldorf. It existed as a distinct political entity from the early 12th to the 19th centuries.
The Counts of Berg emerged in 1101 as a junior line of the dynasty of the Ezzonen, which traced its roots back to the 9th-century Kingdom of Lotharingia, and in the 11th century became the most powerful dynasty in the region of the lower Rhine.
In 1160, the territory split into two portions, one of them later becoming the County of the Mark, which returned to the possession of the family line in the 16th century. In 1280 the counts moved their court from Schloss Burg on the Wupper river to the town of Düsseldorf. The most powerful of the early rulers of Berg, Engelbert II of Berg died in an assassination on November 7, 1225. Count Adolf VIII of Berg fought on the winning side in the Battle of Worringen against Guelders in 1288.
The power of Berg grew further in the 14th century. The County of Jülich united with the County of Berg in 1348, and in 1380 the Emperor Wenceslaus elevated the counts of Berg to the rank of dukes, thus originating the Duchy of Jülich-Berg.
In 1509, John III, Duke of Cleves, made a strategic marriage to Maria von Geldern, daughter of William IV, Duke of Jülich-Berg, who became heiress to her father's estates: Jülich, Berg and the County of Ravensberg, which under the Salic laws of the Holy Roman Empire caused the properties to pass to the husband of the female heir (women could not hold property except through a husband or a guardian). With the death of her father in 1521 the Dukes of Jülich-Berg became extinct, and the estate thus came under the rule of John III, Duke of Cleves — along with his personal territories, the County of the Mark and the Duchy of Cleves (Kleve) in a personal union. As a result of this union the dukes of the United Duchies of Jülich-Cleves-Berg controlled much of present-day North Rhine-Westphalia, with the exception of the clerical states of the Archbishop of Cologne and of the Bishop of Münster.
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Wikipedia