Steinfurt

The free lords of Steinfurt took their name from the stone ford across the Aa in Westphalia, which they controlled before 1129, levying toll on the trade road to Münster. Rudolf II of Steinfurt, first attested in 1155, built the moated castle of Burgsteinfurt, the family seat.

A long feud with the lords of Ascheberg ended when that house died out in 1206, leaving Steinfurt to dominate the region. The family's younger sons rose in the church, and with the cathedral provost Bernhard they founded the Hospitaller commandery of Steinfurt.

A charter of 1338 calls the settlement below the castle their town. The male line ran out in 1421, and the heiress brought the lordship to her husband Everwin of Götterswick; from his second marriage descended the house of Bentheim-Steinfurt, which raised Steinfurt to a county in 1495.