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Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: NAN-NEW |
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NASSAU , a territory of Germany, now forming the bulk of the government district of Wiesbaden, in the Prussian province of Hesse-Nassau, but until 1866 an independent and sovereign duchy of Germany. It consists of a compact mass of territory, 1830 sq. m. in area, bounded on the S. and W. by the Main and Rhine, on the N. by Westphalia and on the E. by Hesse. This territory is divided into two nearly equal parts by the river Lahn
Lahn
mineral
mineral
cotton
capital of the government district as it was of the duchy. In 1864 the duchy contained 468,311 in-habitants, of whom 242,000 were Protestants, 215,000 Roman Catholics and 7000 Jews. The ecclesiastical jurisdiction was in the hands of the Protestant bishop of Wiesbaden and the Roman Catholic bishop of Limburg. Education was amply provided for in numerous higher and lower schools. The annual revenue of the dukedom was about 400,000 and it furnished a contingent of 6000 men to the army of the German Confederation.History.During the Roman period the district enclosed by the Rhine, the Main and the Lahn was occupied by the Mattiaci and later by the Alamanni. The latter were subdued by the Franks under Clovis at the end of the 5th century, and at the partition
house
capital was Siegen. The brothers thus founded the two branches of the house
The fortunes of the Ottonian, or younger line, belong mainly to the history of the Netherlands. The family was soon divided into several branches, and in the 15th century one of its members, Count Engelbert I. (d. 1442), obtained through marriage lands in Holland. Of his two sons one took the Dutch, and the other the German possessions of the house, but these were united again in 1504 under the sway of John, count of Nassau-Dillenburg, the head of a branch of the family which, in consequence of a series of deaths, the last of which took place in 1561, was a few years later the sole representative of the descendants of Count Otto. John's son was Count William the Rich (d. 1559), and his grandson was the hero, William the Silent, who inherited the principality of Orange in 1544 and surrendered his prospective inheritance in Nassau to his brother John (d. 16o6). William and his descendants were called princes of Orange-Nassau, and the line became extinct when the English king William III. died in 1702. Meanwhile the descendants of Count John, the rulers of Nassau, were flourishing. They were divided into several branches, and in 1702 the head of one of these, John William Friso of Nassau-Dietz (d. 1711), whose ancestor had been made a prince of the Empire in 1654, inherited the title of prince of Orange and the lands of the English king in the Netherlands. A few years later in 1743 a number of deaths left John William's son, William, the sole representative of his family, and as such he ruled over the ancestral lands both in Nassau and in the Netherlands. In 18o6, however, these were taken from a succeeding prince, William VI., because he refused to join the Confederation of the Rhine. Some of them were given in 1815 to the other main line of the family, the one descended from Count Walram (see below). In 1815 William VI. became king of the Netherlands as William I., and was compensated for this loss by the grant of parts of Luxemburg and the title of grand-duke. When in 1890 William's male line died out Luxemburg, like Nassau, passed to the descendants of Count Walram. In the female line he is now represented by the queen of the Netherlands.Adolph of Nassau, a son of Walram, the founder of the elder line 'of the house of Nassau, became German king in 1292, but was defeated and slain by his rival, Albert of Austria, in 1298. The territories of his descendants were partitioned several times, but these branch lines did not usually perpetuate them-selves beyond a few generations, and Walram's share of Nassau was again united in 1605 under Louis II. of Nassau-Weilburg (d. 1626). Soon, however, the family was again divided; three branches were formed, those of Saarbriicken, Idstein and Weil-burg, the heads of the first two becoming princes of the Empire in 1688. Other partitions followed, but at the opening of the 19th century only two lines were flourishing, those of Nassau-Usingen and Nassau-Weilburg. In 18o1 Charles William, prince of Nassau-Usingen, was deprived by France of his lands on the left bank of the Rhine, but both he and Frederick William of Nassau-Weilburg, who suffered a similar loss, received ample compensation. In 18o6 both Frederick William and Frederick Augustus
Leipzig
Augustus
series of reactionary measures reduced matters to their formerunsatisfactory condition. The duke adhered stedfastly to his conservative principles, while his people showed their sympathies by electing one liberal landtag after another. In 1866 Adolph espoused the cause of Austria, sent his troops into the field and asked the landtag for money. This was refused, Adolph was soon a fugitive before the Prussian troops, and on the 3rd of October 1866 Nassau was formally incorporated with the kingdom of Prussia. The deposed duke entered in 1867 into a convention with Prussia by which he retained a few castles and received an indemnity of about 1,500,000 for renouncing his claim to Nassau. In 189o, on the extinction of the collateral line of his house, he became grand-duke of Luxemburg, and he died on the 17th of November 1905.The town of Nassau (Lat. Nasonga) on the right bank of the Lahn, 15 M. above Coblenz, is interesting as the birthplace of the Prussian statesman, Freiherr von Stein. Pop. (1905) 2238. It has a Roman Catholic and an Evangelical church, while its main industries are brewing and mining. Near the town are the ruins of the castle of Stein, first mentioned in 1138, with a marble statue of Stein, while the ruins of the ancestral castle of the house of Nassau may also be seen. For the history of Nassau see Hennes, Geschichte der Grafen von Nassau bis 1255 (Cologne, 1843) ; von Schutz, Geschichte des Herzog-turns Nassau (Wiesbaden, 1853) ; von Witzleben, Genealogie and Geschichte der Furstenhauses Nassau (Stuttgart, 1855) ; F. W. T. Schliephake and K. Menzel, Geschichte von Nassau (Wiesbaden, 18651889) ; the Codex diplomaticus nassoicus, edited by K. Menzel and W. Sauer (1885188;); and the Annalen des Vereins fiir nassauische Altertumskunde and Geschichtsforschung (1827 fol.). End of Article: NASSAU If you wish, you can link directly to this article.
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