Zweibrucken

The counts of Zweibrücken were a branch of the House of Saarbrücken, whose water castle at a crossing of the Schwarzbach had been built around 1150. When the Saarbrücken lands were divided between 1182 and 1190, the younger son Henry I received the Zweibrücken estate and founded the comital line.

In 1286 the brothers Eberhard I and Walram I split the county: Eberhard took Lemberg and founded the Zweibrücken-Bitsch line, while Walram kept Zweibrücken and began the Walramide branch. Walram I was followed by Simon and then by Walram II, who reigned until 1366.

The last Walramide count, Eberhard II, being childless, pledged the county to the Wittelsbach counts palatine in 1385; they inherited it on his death in 1394. Joined with the County of Veldenz in 1444, the lands became the nucleus of the Principality of Palatinate Zweibrücken.