Sayn

Sayn was a small imperial county in the Westerwald, with lands around Altenkirchen and an ancestral seat at Sayn Castle. In 1337 Count John III of the House of Sayn ruled from Altenkirchen.

The family lost its ancestral lands around Sayn Castle in 1605. In 1608 the county passed to the counts of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn; uncertainty over William III’s heirs brought brief annexation by the Archbishop of Cologne. In 1648 the lands were divided between the Altenkirchen and Hachenburg lines.