Erbach

Erbach was a lordship in the Mümling valley of the Odenwald. Its ruling family served the counts palatine of the Rhine as hereditary cup-bearers; in 1337 Schenk Conrad ruled from Erbach’s water castle.

The lords gained an imperial estate in 1422. In 1532 Charles V made Erbach an imperial county for Eberhard’s service in the Palatine Peasants’ War, and the Reformation followed in 1544. In 1806 the county was mediatized, most going to Hesse and the rest to Bavaria.