Landesteile in Ottonian Nassau

From 1561 until 1607, the Ottonian Nassau lands were united in a single county—Nassau-Dillenburg. Nevertheless, the outlines of the five future counties (Dillenburg, Siegen, Beilstein, Hadamar, and Dietz) were evident throughout that period (actually since 1564 in the case of Dietz). Thus, I recognize the five future counties as “Landesteile” when the unified county was in place. Doing so locates places more precisely during that period than just lumping them all into Nassau-Dillenburg.

 

The same principle holds after 1717, when the Hadamar lands were redistributed. Because those lands would eventually be recognized as a formal subdivision of a unified principality (this time Nassau-Dietz—later Orange-Nassau), I recognize them as distinct Landesteile in whatever principality they were part of before the unification was complete. As other lines died out and their territories were added to the unified principality, those territories were formally recognized as subdivisions and as such were still officially referred to as principalities. To avoid confusion with the previously independent countries, however, I call them Landesteile (in German, because they are subdivisions, not countries). In the case of Hadamar between 1744 and 1775, the Landesteil (in the guise of an “Amtskollegium”) constituted the only level of subnational government—all Ämter were abolished during that period. The boundaries between the Dietz, Dillenburg, and Hadamar Landesteile were rearranged in 1782 when Amt Beilstein in Landesteil Dietz was abolished.

 

Master list of countries and subdivisions of the Ottonian Nassau region