House of Eszterházy

Esterházy (also spelled Eszterházy, Hungarian pronunciation: [ˈɛstɛrhaːzi]) is a Hungarian noble family with origins in the Middle Ages. Since the 17th century, they were among the great landowner magnates of the Kingdom of Hungary during the time it was part of the Habsburg Empire and later Austria-Hungary. During the history of the Habsburg empire, the Esterházys were consistently loyal to the Habsburg rulers. They received the title of count in 1626 and the Forchtenstein line received the title of Fürst (Ruling Prince) from the Holy Roman Emperor in 1712.

The Esterházys arose among the minor nobility of the northern part of the Kingdom of Hungary (today's southwest Slovakia), originally a branch of the Salamon clan (de genere Salamon) by the name Zerházi (de Zerhásház / de Zyrház / de Zyrhas). Their first known ancestors were Mokud (Mocud) from the Salamon clan, who was a military serviceman and landowner in the Csallóköz region of Western Hungary (today Žitný ostrov in southwestern Slovakia), and Pristaldus, a judicial office-holder in the court of Béla III of Hungary.

The name Esterházy was first used by Benedict Zerhas de Zerhashaz (1508–1553), who in 1539 took over the wealth of his wife Ilona Bessenyei de Galántha. Their son, Ferenc Esterházy (1533–1604) inherited the coat of arms and title of his mother and the full name of the family became Eszterházy de Galántha, Galanta being a small town east of Bratislava (Hungarian: Pozsony, German: Pressburg), now capital of Slovakia.

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