Erbach

The lords and later counts of Erbach were a Rhenish Franconian noble house of ministerial origin, seated at Erbach in the Odenwald. Eberhard I first appears in 1148, and the family served as advocates of Lorsch Abbey before the Wittelsbach counts palatine made them hereditary cup-bearers around 1226, after which they styled themselves the Schenken of Erbach.

The house split into the Erbach and Reichenberg lines in the thirteenth century, and its water castle at Erbach is first mentioned around 1303. The family gained a seat among the imperial estates in 1422 and was raised to imperial count in 1532 for Count Eberhard's service against the peasants in the Palatine Peasants' War.

The counts introduced the Reformation in 1544. In 1806 the county was mediatized, passing mostly to Hesse and the remainder to Bavaria, though two branches kept their castles in the Odenwald.