Schleiden

Schleiden lies in the wooded Eifel hills, in the valley of the Olef. During the Middle Ages and early modern period it was the centre of a lordship, later the County of Schleiden, within the Duchy of Luxembourg. From the fifteenth century Luxembourg formed part of the Burgundian and then Habsburg Netherlands; after the division of the Habsburg lands it remained with the Spanish branch. Following the War of the Spanish Succession, Luxembourg passed to the Austrian Habsburgs. Revolutionary France conquered the region in 1794–95 and placed Schleiden in the department of Ourthe. The Congress of Vienna assigned it to Prussia in 1815, ending centuries of Luxembourgish affiliation.