Counts Palatine of Tübingen
| County (Palatine) of Tübingen | ||||||||||||||
| (Pfalz)grafschaft Tübingen | ||||||||||||||
| State of the Holy Roman Empire | ||||||||||||||
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 Coat of arms
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| Capital | Tübingen | |||||||||||||
| Government | Principality | |||||||||||||
| Historical era | Middle Ages | |||||||||||||
| • | Limes established | AD 85 | ||||||||||||
| • | Hugo I invested with Holzgerlingen and Schönbuch |
1007 | ||||||||||||
| • | Raised to county palatine | 1146 | ||||||||||||
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Marchtal and Bebenhausen abbeys founded |
1171 and 1183 |
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| • | Tübingen granted town rights |
1231 |
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| • | Sold to Württemberg | 1342 | ||||||||||||
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| Today part of |
 Germany
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The County Palatine of Tübingen was a state of the Holy Roman Empire in the medieval period. The dynasty, originally based in Nagold, managed to acquire extensive holdings over the course of their time in power, distinguishing themselves by founding a large number monasteries in their territories. By the time of the High Middle Ages, several factors contributed to their economic decline, including the expenses of keeping court and extravagant donations to the monasteries they founded. The line itself experienced fragmentation into numerous cadet branches, the longest-lasting of which were the Counts of Tübingen-Lichteck (until 1664) and the Counts of Montfort (1779).
The oldest documented count of Nagold is Anselm of Nagoldgau the Elder, who is as recorded as possessing Kuppingen (modern Herrenberg-Kuppingen) in the year 966. He is followed by Anselm of Nagoldgau the Younger, who is mentioned in records from 1027 and 1048.
Between these two (the only two counts designated "of Nagoldgau") a certain Count Hugo I of Nagold, presumably from the same family, appears in 1007, when he was invested with the royal estates of Holzgerlingen and the Imperial forest at Schönbuch.
The city of Tübingen first appears in official records in 1191, and the local castle, Hohentübingen, has records going back to 1078 (as "castrum Twingia") when it was besieged by Henry IV, King of Germany in the context of the Investiture Controversy. Hugo III (who also founded Blaubeuren Abbey in 1066) would nevertheless submit to the king the following year.
From 1146, Hugo V (1125-1152) would bear the title of count palatine (Pfalzgraf), as Hugo I of Tübingen. This promotion is presumably due to services rendered to Conrad III, the first Hohenstaufen king of Germany, elected in 1138. By that point, the office of count palatine was no longer tied to its original task of maintaining a royal palace (whence the term “palatine”), but instead indicated that the holder exercised a certain degree of power and authority as the king’s official representative within a stem duchy, making Hugo second only to the Duke of Swabia. As count palatine, he was also granted the right to exercise judicial powers in the king’s stead, in addition to hunting rights, the right to collect customs, and the right to mint coins – as demonstrated by the Tübingen pfennig, which appears starting in 1185.
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