Imperial County of Ortenburg
| Imperial County of Ortenburg | ||||||||||
| Reichsgrafschaft Ortenburg | ||||||||||
| State of the Holy Roman Empire | ||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||
 Ortenburg territories from 1350 until 1789
|
||||||||||
| Capital | Ortenburg (Bavaria) | |||||||||
| Government | Monarchy | |||||||||
| Historical era | Middle Ages | |||||||||
| • | First mention of Ortenburg Castle |
1120 | ||||||||
| • | Rapoto II Count Palatine of Bavaria |
1209 | ||||||||
| • | Reichsfreiheit confirmed | 1473 | ||||||||
| • | Joined Bavarian Circle | 1500 | ||||||||
| • | turned Protestant under Count Joachim |
1563 | ||||||||
| • | Disestablished | 1805 | ||||||||
|
||||||||||
Coat of arms
The Imperial County of Ortenburg was a state of the Holy Roman Empire in present-day Lower Bavaria, Germany. It was located on the lands around Ortenburg Castle, about 10 km (6.2 mi) west of Passau. Though the Counts of Ortenburg - formerly Ortenberg - emerged in the 12th century as a cadet branch of the Rhenish House of Sponheim (Spanheim) who then ruled over the Duchy of Carinthia, an affiliation with the Carinthian Ortenburger comital family is unverifiable.
The first Count Rapoto I of Ortenburg was mentioned about 1134. Born at Kraiburg, the fourth son of Duke Engelbert II of Carinthia, he retained several Bavarian territories held by the Spanheimer family, while his elder brothers Ulric and Engelbert III succeeded their father in Carinthia and Istria. Rapoto had the Ortenburg Castle erected about 1120 whereafter he began to call himself a Graf von Ortenberg. When his brother Engelbert III died without heirs in 1173 he could unite a significant number of territories under his rule and confirmed his independence when the Bavarian ducal title passed to the House of Wittelsbach in 1180. After Otto VIII of Wittelsbach had assassinated the German king Philip of Swabia in 1208, Rapoto's son Count Rapoto II even held the office of a Count Palatine of Bavaria.
...
Wikipedia