Wittgenstein

The Wittgenstein were a comital dynasty of the Sauerland in north-western Germany, named after Wittgenstein Castle above the Lahn. They descended from Werner I of Battenberg and Wittgenstein, whose line also held the County of Battenberg in Hesse. The family renounced its Battenberg lands in 1296 and kept its seat at Wittgenstein.

In 1337 the county was still ruled by the last generations of the house, whose heiress Adelaide married Count Salentin of Sayn-Homburg of the House of Sponheim in 1345. The inheritance passed to the Sayn line, which took the name Sayn-Wittgenstein, while the old comital family was extinct in the male line by the middle of the fourteenth century.