Counts of Rieneck

Bailiwick of the Archbishopric of Mainz; Lordship (County) of Rieneck
Vogtei des Mainzer Erzstift; Herrschaft (Grafschaft) Rieneck
State of the Holy Roman Empire
before 1100 – 1408 1673 – 1806
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Capital		Lohr
Government		Principality
Historical era		Middle Ages
•	First mention    of Rieneck	ca 790
•	County established	before 1100 11th century
•	Court of Louis I    Count of Loon	from 1168
•	Granted city rights by    Emperor Louis IV	1333
•	Comital line    extinct	1408
•	Purchased by    Count of Nostitz	1673
•	Mediatised to    Aschaffenburg	1806 1806
•	Granted to Bavaria	1815
Preceded by Succeeded by Archbishopric of Mainz Archbishopric of Mainz Archbishopric of Mainz Principality of Aschaffenburg

Coat of arms

The County of Rieneck was a comital domain within the Holy Roman Empire that lay in what is now northwestern Bavaria (in the west of Lower Franconia). It bore the same name as its original ruling family, the Counts of Rieneck, from whom the county and its main seat, the town of Rieneck, got their names.

The first documentary evidence of what is now the town of Rieneck surfaces in AD 790. Rieneck gained its name from the Counts of Rieneck, who founded the line of Burgraves of Gerhart at the end of the 11th century from the Vogtei over the Archbishopric of Mainz between Neustadt am Main, Lohr am Main and Karlstadt am Main. The family line died out with Gerhard I in 1108. His only daughter married Arnold, Count of Loon (1101–39), inheriting Rienecker territory and, around 1156/7 by Louis I, Count of Loon, the family name, possibly as a result of an unsuccessful claim to the Rhineland castle Burg Rhieneck. As soon as the name was acquired, his family built the castle on the banks of the river Sinn. With the 1168 expansion of the castle, Louis I chose Burg Rieneck as his court.

From 1295, Lohr am Main became the seat of the burgraviate and border posts were set up to shelter the local castle from the domains of the archbishopric. In 1333, the county was granted city rights by Louis IV the Bavarian, Holy Roman Emperor, as thanks for support during his struggle for the kingdom. Skillful dynastic marriages allowed for the gradual expansion of their domain; conflict often resulted between Rieneck and their neighbours, the Archbishopric of Mainz and the Bishopric of Würzburg.

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