Hessen

The House of Hesse descends from the dukes of Brabant of the Reginar family. In 1241 Sophie of Thuringia, daughter of Landgrave Louis IV and Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, married Henry II of Brabant, and when the Ludovingian landgraves died out in 1247 she fought the War of the Thuringian Succession and kept the Hessian lands for her son Henry the Child, who became the first Landgrave of Hesse in 1264.

In 1337 the landgraviate was ruled from Cassel by Henry II the Iron, whose daughter Adelaide married King Casimir III of Poland. Hesse was briefly split into Upper and Lower Hesse and reunited by William II in 1500.

It reached its greatest weight under Philip I the Magnanimous, who adopted Protestantism at the Homberg synod of 1526 and led the Schmalkaldic League against Emperor Charles V. On Philip's death in 1567 his four sons divided the land; the Kassel line became imperial electors in 1803 and the Darmstadt line grand dukes in 1806.