page_title: County of Montbéliard
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: County of Montbéliard / History
context_page_description: The County of Montbéliard, was a feudal county of the Holy Roman Empire seated in the city of Montbéliard in the present-day Franche-Comté region of France. From 1444 onwards it was held by the House of Württemberg.
context_section_description: The county was established in 1042 by Emperor Henry III on the territory of the County of Burgundy, part of the Kingdom of Arles, a constituent of the Empire since 1033. It was led by a line of Counts of Montbéliard descending from Conrad's vassal Louis of Mousson in Upper Lorraine, husband of Countess Sophie of Bar, and their successors from the Scarpone family. In 1163 Lord Amadeus II of Montfaucon became Count of Montbéliard by marriage to Sophie, daughter of Count Theodoric II (Thierry II), who left no male heirs.
  In 1407, the marriage of Countess Henriette, heiress of Count Stephen of Montfaucon with Eberhard IV of Württemberg tipped the county into the fold of the Swabian nobility in Germany. In addition to the County of Montbéliard, Countess Henrietta brought wedding dowries: fiefdoms, such as lordships in Granges-le-Bourg, Clerval, Passavant, Etobon, Porrentruy, with the fiefdoms of Saint-Hippolyte, and lands of Franquemont (Goumois). Some of them were in the County of Burgundy, but the countess administered the County of Burgundy by the sovereign right by virtue of the legacy that is of her grandfather Stephen of Montfaucon, and the tribute that she received from the Burgundian Duke John the Fearless. By the advent of this marriage, inheritance of the County of Montbéliard and its dependencies added to Württemberg who brought the lordship of Riquewihr, Ferrette and the County of Horbourg in Alsace.
  Eberhard IV died in 1419 and upon Henriette's death in 1444, Montbéliard was adjudicated to their son Count Ludwig I of Württemberg-Urach. His son Eberhard V annexed Montbéliard as part of the united County of Württemberg, though it still retained its status as an immediate territory and separate county within the County. It was not a vassalage of Württemberg; it was his equal but hereditary committed to the marriage of Count Eberhard IV by Henriette. De facto, the Romance territory would retain "all its rights, traditions and customs, as well as its language" as it was customary in the vast Holy Roman Empire. In 1495 the Count of Montbeliard Eberhard V of Württemberg was raised to the rank of Duke and the county became the "Principality of Montbéliard".
  In spite of vicissitudes, Montbéliard was ruled by junior branches of the House of Württemberg for several centuries. Count Frederick I of Montbéliard again inherited the Württemberg duchy in 1593, but in 1617 the county was again separated for his younger son Ludwig Frederick and ruled by his descendants until it fell back to Württemberg in 1723. With the annexation in 1748 of the "Four Lands" (land dependent Héricourt – Châtelot – Clémont – Blamont) by King Louis XV of France, the Principality was reduced to a "single county" until the French Revolution, or more precisely until November 1793.
caption: Château de Montbéliard
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