Wittelsbach

The Wittelsbachs descend from the Counts of Scheyern, who moved to Wittelsbach Castle in 1119 and took their name from it. Otto, son of Count Palatine Otto IV, received Bavaria in 1180 after Henry the Lion's fall, and Louis I added the Rhenish Palatinate by marriage in 1214.

Under Louis IV, elected emperor in 1328, the house gathered Brandenburg, Tyrol, Holland and Hainaut, while the Treaty of Pavia in 1329 separated the Palatinate branch. After Louis died in 1347 his sons divided Bavaria; Tyrol was ceded to the Habsburgs in 1369 and Brandenburg returned to the Luxembourgs in 1373.

Bavaria was reunited in 1505, and its Catholic dukes led the German Counter-Reformation, Maximilian I gaining the electoral hat in 1623. The Palatinate line produced the Bohemian Winter King Frederick V in 1619, and the Palatine princess Sophia of Hanover carried the British succession to her son George I in 1714. In 1806 Bavaria became a kingdom under Maximilian I Joseph.