LEININGEN

This article appears in Volume V16, Page 399 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: LAP-LEO

LEININGEN , the name of an old German family, whose lands lay principally in

Alsace

ALSACE (Ger. Elsass)

and

Lorraine

LORRAINE

. The first

count

COUNT (Lat. comes, gen. comitis, Fr. comte, Ital. conte, Span. conde)

of Leiningen about whom anything certain is known was a certain Emicho (d. 1117), whose family became

extinct

EXTINCT

in the male
line when

Count

COUNT (Lat. comes, gen. comitis, Fr. comte, Ital. conte, Span. conde)

Frederick, a Minnesinger, died about 1220.
Frederick's

sister

SISTER

, Liutgarde, married Simon, count of Saar-
brticken, and Frederick, one of their sons, inheriting the lands of the

counts

COUNTS

of Leiningen, took their arms and their name. Having increased its possessions the Leiningen family was divided about 1317 into two branches; the elder of these, whose head was a landgrave, died out in 1467. On this event its lands fell to a female, the last landgrave's

sister

SISTER

Margaret

, wife of Reinhard, lord of Westerburg, and their descendants were known as the family of Leiningen-Westerburg. Later this family was divided into two branches, those of Alt-Leiningen-Westerburg and Neu-Leiningen-Westerburg, both of which are represented to-day.
Meanwhile the younger branch of the Leiningens, known as the family of Leiningen-Dagsburg, was flourishing, and in 156o this was divided into the lines of Leiningen-Dagsburg-Hartenburg, founded by Count John Philip (d. 1562), and Leiningen-Dagsburg-Heidesheim or Falkenburg, founded by Count Emicho (d. 1593). In 1779 the head of the former line was raised to the rank of a prince of the

Empire

EMPIRE

. In 18or this family was deprived of its lands on the left bank of the Rhine by France, but in 1803 it received ample compensation for these losses. A few years later its possessions were mediatized, and they are now included mainly in Baden, but partly in Bavaria and in Hesse. A former head of this family, Prince Emich Charles, married Maria Louisa Victoria, princess of Saxe-Coburg; after his death in 1814 the princess married George III.'s son, the duke of Kent, by whom she became the

mother

MOTHER

of Queen Victoria. In 1910 the head of the family was Prince Emich (b. 1866).
The family of Leiningen-Dagsburg-Heidesheim was divided into three branches, the two senior of which became

extinct

EXTINCT

during the 18th

century

CENTURY (from Lat. centuria, a division of a hundred men)

. At present it is represented by the

counts

COUNTS

of Leiningen-Guntersblum and Leiningen-Heidesheim, called also Leiningen-Billigheim and Leiningen-Neidenau.
See Brinckmeier, Genealogische Geschichte des Hauses Leiningen (Brunswick, 18901891).

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