Oettingen

The counts of Oettingen were a Swabian and Franconian noble house, tracing their line to the Sieghardinger counts of the Riesgau documented around 1000, forebears shared with the Hohenstaufen. The family first appears in 1147, when Louis received the county around Nördlingen as a fief; they built Steinsberg castle around 1200.

Between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries they assembled the largest secular territory in east Swabia. In the fourteenth century Irmengard of Oettingen became countess palatine of the Rhine.

Partitions began in 1410 and multiplied the lines, including the Protestant Oettingen-Oettingen, which won princely rank in 1674 but died out in 1731. The Spielberg and Wallerstein branches were raised to principalities in 1734 and 1774; in the mediatisation of 1806 their lands passed to Bavaria and Württemberg while the family kept its titles.