Counts of Katzenelnbogen
| County of Katzenelnbogen | ||||||||||
| Grafschaft Katzenelnbogen | ||||||||||
| State of the Holy Roman Empire | ||||||||||
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 The County of Katzenelnbogen (in dark gray)
and surrounding principalities in 1400 |
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| Capital | Katzenelnbogen | |||||||||
| Religion | Roman Catholicism | |||||||||
| Government | Principality | |||||||||
| Count | ||||||||||
| • | 1095 (first) | Dieter I | ||||||||
| • | 1444–79 (last) | Philip I | ||||||||
| Historical era | Middle Ages | |||||||||
| • | First mentioned | 1095 | ||||||||
| • | County | 1138 | ||||||||
| • | Comital line extinct, to Hesse-Marburg |
1479 | ||||||||
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Coat of arms
The County of Katzenelnbogen (named after Chatti Melibokus) was an immediate state of the Holy Roman Empire. It existed between 1095 and 1479, when it was inherited by the Landgraves of Hesse.
The estate comprised two separate territories. The main parts were the original Untergrafschaft ("lower county") with its capital at Katzenelnbogen in the Middle Rhine area and the Obergrafschaft ("upper county") south of the Main River around Darmstadt, predecessor of the Landgraviate of Hesse-Darmstadt.
One Diether I of Katzenelnbogen - literally cat's ellbow - (circa 1065–95), then serving as Vogt of Prüm Abbey, was first mentioned about 1070 in a deed issued by Archbishop Anno II of Cologne. From 1094 onwards, Diether and his son Henry I built Katzenelnbogen Castle in the Taunus mountain range; in 1138, King Conrad III of Germany vested his grandson Henry II with the comital title, when the Kraichgau was bequested to him. The counts also built Burg Rheinfels and Auerbach Castle in the 13th century and finished Burg Katz in 1371, they rebuilt the Marksburg purchased from the Lords of Eppstein and acquired highly lucrative customs rights on the Rhine River. In almost four centuries, the county grew bit by bit, from the Neckar to the Moselle Rivers.
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