County/Principality of Nassau-Siegen

The first County of Nassau-Siegen was established in 1303, when Ottonian Nassau lands were partitioned among three counties. In 1328, however, the Count of Siegen inherited the County of Nassau-Dillenburg, which was the core of the Ottonian lands, so he abandoned the Siegen name in favor of Dillenburg. The two counties maintained their own identities, however, so when the Ottonian lands were reunited in 1561, Siegen was a distinct Landesteil within the larger county.

 

In 1607, the Ottonian lands were again partitioned and Nassau-Siegen reemerged as an independent entity in which Calvinism was the state religion. (Note that I drop “Nassau” from the simplified county name to avoid redundancy with the name of the nation—Ottonian Nassuvian Germany.) The 1607 partition specified that counties were thereafter to remain intact—not partitioned further in future generations. However, the heir-apparent in Siegen converted to Catholicism and his father (Johann VII) responded by proposing a further partition in his will to prevent his Catholic son from inheriting the entire county. When the Johann VII died in 1623, the boundaries of the county’s subdivisions were modified to accommodate the proposed partition, but the Catholic son (Johann VIII) insisted that he was the sole ruler because the will violated the rules of the 1607 partition. His claim was backed by the Emperor and, with a brief exception, either Johann VIII or his successors maintained control over the entire county until 1648. The exception was the period between 1632 and 1636, when one of the Calvinist brothers asserted control while Johann VIII was absent fighting in the Thirty Years’ War. I make no distinction between rulers during that period. Between 1607 and 1648, I simply call it the County of Nassau-Siegen regardless of who the legal or effective ruler was.

 

In 1648, the Emperor decided to create a condominium to recognize the rights of all three lines mentioned in the will of Johann VII. In practice, however, that decision effectively implemented the partition proposed in the will, which resulted in the following assignments:

 

• The Catholic line received the Haingericht, Amt Netphen, and the Upper Castle in Siegen itself, which served as the county’s seat.
• The elder of the two Calvinist lines received Amt Freudenberg, the Amt der Vierdorfschaften, and the Lower Castle in Siegen, which similarly served as that county’s seat.
• The younger of the Calvinist lines received Amt Ferndorf-Krombach and Amt Hilchenbach, the latter of which included the Ginsburg castle that served as the county’s seat.
• Excepting the castles, the city of Siegen was nominally a true condominium and I treat it as such (although in practice, each castle almost certainly exerted exclusive control over neighboring parts of the city).

 

In terms of finding appropriate simplified country names for those entities, the third entity is straightforward—Siegen-Hilchenbach. Because the other two entities were both seated in Siegen, however, selecting simplified names for them is not straightforward. Instead of my usual practice of using city or town names to distinguish among spin-off counties, I use castle names in this case. Thus, I render the simplified country name of the Catholic county seated in Siegen as “Siegen (Upper)” and the corresponding name for the Calvinist county in Siegen as “Siegen (Lower)”. For the city of Siegen itself, I stick with just “Siegen” as the simplified country name. The Siegen (Upper) and Hilchenbach counties became principalities in 1652 and Siegen (Lower) became a principality in 1664. I ignore those upgrades for the purpose of simplified country names.

 

Choosing simplified country names became complicated again when princes began dying with underage heirs or no heirs at all. First to die out was the Hilchenbach line, the territory of which was successfully claimed by the Calvinist Siegen line in 1674. From then on, I recognize only two possible entities—one Catholic and one Calvinist, both based in Siegen. In 1691, the Catholic prince began administering both entities because the Calvinist prince was underage. Nevertheless, I retain the simplified country name of Siegen (Lower) for the Calvinist portion despite the Catholic administration. (My usual practice would be to hyphenate the simplified name to reflect both the sovereign and the administrator, but I can see no way to do that in this case without causing more confusion.)

 

One particular Catholic prince (Wilhelm Hyacinth, grandson of Johann VIII) proved to be an egregiously bad ruler and the emperor removed him as administrator of both his own territory (over which he nevertheless remained sovereign) and the Calvinist principality in 1707. From that time on, the Calvinist prince (now of age) administered his own territory and the Catholic principality was administered by other parties as follows:

 

• From 1707 through 1712, it was administered by the Cologne Cathedral Chapter;
• From 1712 (when the Catholic and Calvinist lines reached a lease agreement) through 1734 (when the Calvinist line died out), it was administered by the Calvinist prince; and
• From 1734 through 1742 (when the Catholic line relinquished its sovereignty to Nassau-Dietz), it was administered by the Archbishopric of Cologne.

 

When the Archbishopric or its auxiliary, the cathedral chapter, were in charge of the Catholic principality, I render the simplified country name as “Siegen (Upper)-Bonn”. (I do not use the name of Cologne itself because that could refer to either the Archbishopric or the imperial city. Instead, I use the name of Bonn—where the Archbishopric was actually seated—and reserve “Cologne” for the imperial city.) When the Calvinist line was in charge of the Catholic principality, I leave the simplified name as “Siegen (Upper)” because I could find no clear way to reflect both sovereignty and administration in a hyphenated name. As for the Calvinist principality, its Siegen lands became a Landesteil within Nassau-Dietz in 1734 when its line died out.

 

Backing up to 1717, both the Catholic and Calvinist lines acquired portions of Amt Hadamar, which had belonged to the Principality of Nassau-Hadamar until its ruling line had died out six years earlier. Unlike in Siegen proper, the Catholic prince actually administered the portion of Hadamar over which he gained sovereignty. I can find no information on what those portions of Amt Hadamar were called. I label the portion acquired by the Catholic line as Quasi-Vogtei Hadamar (because it included the city of Hadamar) and the portion acquired by the Calvinist line as Quasi-Vogtei Dehrn (after the “Dehrner Zent“, a former name of the Amt’s territory outside of the city). When the Calvinist line died out in 1734, the Catholic line took over its Hadamar lands (making the Quasi-Vogteien obsolete). In 1742, the Catholic prince traded all of his claims in Siegen proper to the Prince of Nassau-Dietz (where they were added to the Siegen Landesteil) in exchange for the entirety of the former Principality of Hadamar. However, the prince died the following year without an heir, so the Hadamar lands also fell to Dietz, thus unifying Ottonian lands for the first time since 1607.