Engelhardt family

Engelhardt (Russian: Энгельгардт) was a Baltic-German noble and baronial family. The family name is sometimes given as "von Engelhardt".

The legendary founder of the Engelhardt dynasty, Carl Bernhard Engelhardt (1159–1230), served as a knight in the Third Crusade, which was launched to liberate the Holy Sepulchre. During that campaign, he is said to have received the surname Engelhardt ('angelic strength') for saving the life of the French king Philip II Augustus in the Siege of Acre.

The documented origins of the family lie in Switzerland, where Heinrich Engelhardt is mentioned in the years 1383–1390 as a citizen and councillor in Zurich. In the early fifteenth century, Georg Engelhardt lived in Livonia. From him descend all the nobles and barons of the Engelhardt family in the Russian Empire.

The first Engelhardt to become a Russian subject was Werner Engelhardt, who had previously served in the army of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. He converted to the Russian State religion, accepting Orthodoxy and taking the baptismal name, Jeremiah. He died before 1672. His son Siegmund (Stepan, upon Orthodox baptism) was a Muscovite noble and stolnik (personal attendant upon the Tsar) and a lieutenant in the Smolensk gentry. Other sons of Werner (Jeremiah) were Georg (Yuri) and Johann (Ivan), who also served as stolniks.

The noble family of Engelhardt is recorded in Book VI of the genealogy of the province of Smolensk, and its coat of arms is included in Part VI of the General Armorial. The baronial line of Engelhardt is recorded in Part V of the genealogy books of the provinces of Yaroslava, Ekaterinoslavskaya, and Kursk.

The house of Engelhardt has produced many distinguished and well known charitable works — the building of churches and hospitals, large donations to universities, public libraries and observatories (including the donation of ancient manuscripts), free land for the construction of railways and other public purposes, and the liberation of serfs.

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