Hohenlohe

The House of Hohenlohe traces its first documented ancestor to Conrad of Weikersheim, recorded in 1153; the name comes from Hohlach Castle, first adopted by the family in 1178. The lords built a lordship on the Hohenlohe Plateau in Franconia, and Heinrich and Gottfried von Hohenlohe became grand masters of the Teutonic Order.

In 1230 the house divided into the Hohenlohe and Brauneck lines, the latter dying out in 1390. Emperor Frederick III raised Kraft V and his brother to imperial counts in 1450; from 1551 the Neuenstein and Waldenburg branches dominated, the first turning Lutheran and the second remaining Catholic.

The Waldenburg line gained princely rank in 1744 and the Neuenstein-Oehringen line in 1764. In 1806 the Confederation of the Rhine mediatized the Hohenlohe lands to Bavaria and Wuerttemberg, while the family kept its estates and several branches survived.