Eppstein

The lords of Eppstein were an imperial free noble house, descended from the lords of Hainhausen in the Rodgau, who are documented from 1108. They took their name after acquiring Eppstein Castle in the Vordertaunus between 1183 and 1190.

From this base in the Rhine-Main country they rose to power: between 1200 and 1305 they supplied four archbishops of Mainz, with Siegfried III leading the anti-Staufer party. An elder branch died out in 1269, opening a ten-year feud in which the counts of Katzenelnbogen carried off much Eppstein land.

In 1433 the brothers Gottfried VII and Eberhard II divided the inheritance into Eppstein-Munzenberg and Eppstein-Konigstein; the latter received the comital title in 1505. With the last lord's death in 1535 the house became extinct, its territories passing mainly to Hesse and the archbishopric of Mainz.