Montfort-Bregenz

The Montfort-Bregenz were the Bregenz branch of the counts of Montfort, a Swabian dynasty sprung from the counts palatine of Tübingen. Hugo II of Tübingen inherited the former county of Bregenz through his wife Elizabeth, and from about 1170 a younger line ruled it as counts of Montfort-Bregenz on Lake Constance.

This first line died out in 1338; the lands were passed to the Montfort-Tettnang branch, which from 1354 took the name Montfort-Tettnang-Bregenz and split into elder and younger lordships in 1379. Hugo of Montfort, a Minnesang poet and statesman born in 1357, inherited the Styrian counts of Pfannberg's estates through his wife in 1362 and founded a Styrian branch.

Elizabeth of Hochberg, heiress of Count William VII, sold the elder part of Bregenz to the Habsburgs in 1451, and the rest followed in 1523. The Styrian line inherited the Tettnang lands in 1574 and survived until the Montfort house became extinct in 1787.