County of Steinfurt

 

This page covers the geographic County of Steinfurt, which was founded as a lordship in the 12th century and consisted of a small amount of territory around Burgsteinfurt, northwest of Münster. It was occasionally combined with the County of Bentheim. That was the case beginning in 1544, when an heiress of the Bentheim line (the male line having gone extinct in 1530) married into the Steinfurt line and the combined country was ruled from Steinfurt (hence the addition of a second “Steinfurt” to the simplified name. After the two lines split again in 1643, Steinfurt was ruled by the new Steinfurt line until 1693, after which it was ruled by the new Bentheim line. I ignore those lineages in the simplified name.

 

  • Simplified country names
    • Steinfurt-Steinfurt (1544-1643)
    • Steinfurt (1643-1803)
  • Nation: Bentheimian Germany
  • Chronology
    • ~1129: Created as a lordship
    • 1396: Recognizes the Bishopric of Münster as its feudal lord and begins calling itself a county
    • 1421: Acquired by the Götterswyk family, which combined it in personal union with Bentheim and adopted that name
    • 1454: Independence restored upon the partition of Bentheim & Steinfurt
    • 1495: Achieved imperial immediacy
    • 1544: Again enters into personal union with Bentheim/beginning of database
    • 1643: Assigned to Bentheim-Steinfurt upon the repartition between Bentheim and Steinfurt
    • 1693: Assigned to Bentheim-Bentheim as part of a trade between the two lines
    • 1803: Occupied by Napoleonic France/end of database
  • Personal unions

 

Places in the County of Steinfurt