County of Zweibrücken

County of Zweibrücken
Grafschaft Zweibrücken
State of the Holy Roman Empire
1182/90 – 1394
Coat of arms of the Counts of Zweibrücken
Counties of Zweibrücken (dark green) and Zweibrücken-Bitsch (pink) about 1400
Capital		Zweibrücken
Government		County
Historical era		Middle Ages
•	Partitioned from     Saarbrücken	1182
•	Partitioned in twain	between 1295 and 1333
•	Fell to     Electorate of the Palatinate	1394
Preceded by Succeeded by   County of Saarbrücken Electorate of the Palatinate County of Zweibrücken-Bitsch

Coat of arms of the Counts of Zweibrücken

The County of Zweibrücken (German:Grafschaft Zweibrücken) was a territory in the Holy Roman Empire named for Zweibrücken in the contemporary Land Rhineland-Palatinate. It was created in between 1182 and 1190 from an inheritance division of the county of Saarbrücken and lasted until 1394.

The counts of Saarbrücken ranked in the beginning of the 12th century amongst the most prominent families in southwestern Germany with major landholdings in present-day Lorraine, Alsace, Saarland and Rhineland-Palatinate and prominent patronages. Their power is best characterized by the fact that members of the family twice in the 12th century held the position of archbishop of Mainz. Seemingly soon after 1100 they gained patronage over the monastery of Hornbach with large landholdings between Blies and the Palatinate Forest.

Here, at the crossing over the Schwarzbach, and probably about 1150, the water castle of Zweibrücken was built. With an inheritance division in the Saarbrücken counts family, Zweibrücken fell to the younger son Henry I, who founded the line of counts of Zweibrücken. Around the castle, a town formed and received city rights in 1352 together with Hornbach.