County of Kirchberg and Weissenhorn | ||||||||||||||||
Grafschaft Kirchberg und Weißenhorn | ||||||||||||||||
State of the Holy Roman Empire | ||||||||||||||||
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Map of Württemberg before the French Revolutionary Wars, showing the County of Fugger, with the Danube shown running through the centre of the image and the Iller forming the border between Württemberger lands (coloured) and Bavarian lands (non-coloured)
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Capital |
Weißenhorn (nominally) Imp. City Augsburg (de facto) |
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Government | Principality | |||||||||||||||
Historical era | Early modern Europe | |||||||||||||||
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Pledged non-immediate County of Kirchberg and of Weißenhorn |
1507 |
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• | Raised to Imperial nobility | 1511 | ||||||||||||||
• | Gained immediate Lordship of Glött |
1536 |
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• | Fugger lands' immediacy | 1541 | ||||||||||||||
• | Joined Swabian Circle | 1563 | ||||||||||||||
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Mediatised to Bavaria and Württemberg |
1806 | ||||||||||||||
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The Fugger family (German pronunciation: [ˈfʊɡɐ]) is a German family that was a historically prominent group of European bankers, members of the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century mercantile patriciate of Augsburg, international mercantile bankers, and venture capitalists. Alongside the Welser family, the family controlled much of the European economy in the sixteenth century and accumulated enormous wealth.
This banking family replaced the de' Medici family, who influenced all of Europe during the Renaissance. The Fuggers took over many of the Medicis' assets and their political power and influence. They were closely affiliated with the House of Habsburg whose rise to world power they financed. Unlike the citizenry of their hometown, they never converted to the Augsburg Confession, but remained with the Catholic Church.
Jakob Fugger „the Rich“ was elevated to the nobility of the Holy Roman Empire in May 1511 and created Imperial Count of Kirchberg and Weissenhorn in 1514. The company was dissolved in 1657, however the Fuggers remained wealthy landowners and ruled the County of Kirchberg and Weissenhorn. The Babenhausen branch became Princes of the Holy Roman Empire in 1803, the Glött branch princes in the Kingdom of Bavaria in 1914.