County of Hanau-Lichtenberg

Grafschaft Hanau-Lichtenberg

State of the Holy Roman Empire

1456/80 – 1736

Coat of arms

Capital

Buchsweiler

Government

County

History

•

Established

1456-1480

•

Disestablished

1736

Preceded by

Succeeded by

	County of Hanau
	Barony of Lichtenberg
	County of Zweibrücken-Bitsch

Landgraviate of Hesse-Darmstadt
Landgraviate of Hesse-Cassel

Roman Catholic; from 16th-century Lutheran; ruled by counts; language: German

The County of Hanau-Lichtenberg was a territory in the Holy Roman Empire. It emerged between 1456–80 from a part of the County of Hanau and one half of the Barony of Lichtenberg. Following the extinction of the counts of Hanau-Lichtenberg in 1736 it went to Hesse-Darmstadt, minor parts of it to the Hesse-Cassel. Its centre was in the lower Alsace, the capital first Babenhausen, later Buchsweiler.

In 1452, after a reign of only one year, Count Reinhard III of Hanau (1412–1452) died. The heir was his son, Philip the Younger (1449–1500), only four years old. For the sake of the continuity of the dynasty, his relatives and other important decision-makers in the county agreed not to turn to the 1375 primogenitur statute of the family—one of the oldest in Germany—and to let the heir's uncle and brother of the deceased, Philip I (the Elder) (1417–1480), have the administrative district of Babenhausen from the estate of the County of Hanau as a county in his own right. This arrangement of 1458 allowed him to have a befitting marriage and offspring entitled to inherit, and so increased the chances of survival of the comital house. Philip the Elder was called now "of Hanau-Babenhausen".

In the same year of 1458, Philip the Elder married Anna of Lichtenberg (1442–1474), one of the two daughter-heirs of Louis V of Lichtenberg (1417–1474). After the death of the last of the noble House of Lichtenberg (), Louis' brother, James of Lichtenberg, in 1480, Philip I the Elder inherited the half of the Barony of Lichtenberg in the Lower Alsace with its capital, Buchsweiler. From this arose the branch and county of Hanau-Lichtenberg. His nephew, Philip I (the Younger) of Hanau and his descendants called themselves, by contrast, the "counts of Hanau-Münzenberg".

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Wikipedia