Erbach an der Donau

Erbach stands at the edge of the Danube valley, below the Swabian Jura. Its parish appears as Irlebach in the Constance diocese's tithe register of 1275. In 1345 the lordship passed to the Habsburg possessions of Further Austria and was granted as a fief to a succession of noble families. Hans von Baumgarten received it in 1535 and built Erbach Castle between 1550 and 1552.

In 1622 the fief came to Hans Ludwig von Ulm and his family, the barons of Ulm-Erbach. After war and plague had taken their toll, the lords sought men from Vorarlberg to settle and marry local widows, hoping to restore agriculture. Erbach belonged to the Austrian Margraviate of Burgau in the eighteenth century. It passed to Bavaria after the Peace of Pressburg and then to Württemberg in 1810.