Lobdeburg

The lords of Lobdeburg originated with the lords of Auhausen in Swabia, one of whom, Hartmann of Auhausen, moved east in the early twelfth century and built a seat at Lobdeburg near Jena.

On the Slavic frontier east of the Saale they raised an imperial-immediate lordship, reaching Triptis by 1300, and founded or chartered towns including Jena and Kahla, as well as the Leuchtenburg and the monastery of Roda.

The house later split into several lines, including Arnshaugk; the widow Elisabeth of Arnshaugk, born around 1262, married Margrave Albert II of Meissen, carrying that branch's lands into the Wettin family. In the fourteenth century the Lobdeburgs lost their imperial immediacy to the Margraves of Meissen and Landgraves of Thuringia and sold their castles, chiefly to the Counts of Schwarzburg. Their name-bearing line died out in the middle of the fifteenth century.