County of Bentheim & Steinfurt

 

This page covers the lineage-based country of Bentheim & Steinfurt. Its core territory consisted of the two countries in its name, but I treat them as distinct geographic entities. It also formed personal unions with nearby countries and acquired administrative rights to territory under the sovereignty of more distant countries. No places have been assigned to this country, so I give it no simplified name. Instead, I append “Steinfurt” to the simplified names of the core geographic countries and others with which it was in personal union and of quasi-countries over which it had administrative rights. In the case of distant quasi-countries, I also append “Bentheim” to represent the nation.

 

Anything involving territory outside of Bentheimian Germany is rendered in gray. Events and countries outside the temporal scope of the database are rendered in italics.

 

  • Nation: Bentheimian Germany
  • Chronology
    • 1421: Created when the Götterswyk family acquired the County of Bentheim and the Lordship of Steinfurt and adopted the Bentheim name
    • 1454: Suspended upon the partition between Bentheim and Steinfurt; Steinfurt acquires administrative rights over Gronau (an Unterherrschaft of the Bishopric of Münster)
    • 1544: Restored upon the reunification of Bentheim and Steinfurt/beginning of database
    • 1557: Inherits sovereignty over Tecklenburg (with Rheda) upon the extinction of the Schwerin line
    • 1582: Acquires administrative rights over the Ämter of Freudenberg and Uchte from Hesse-Kassel upon the extinction of the Hoya line
    • 1589: Inherits sovereignty over Hohenlimburg and administrative rights over Alpen, Erbvogtei, Helpenstein, and Wevelinghoven (all Unterherrschaften of the Electorate of Cologne) upon the extinction of Neuenahr-Alpen
    • 1610: Bentheim-Alpen (with Alpen and Helpenstein), Bentheim-Limburg (with Hohenlimburg), and Bentheim-Tecklenburg (with Tecklenburg, Rheda, Erbvogtei, Freudenberg, and Uchte) are spun off
    • 1623: Regains administrative rights over Erbvogtei
    • 1629: Regains administrative rights over Alpen and Helpenstein
    • 1632: Transfers administrative rights over Alpen, Erbvogtei, Helpenstein, and Wevelinghoven to Bentheim-Tecklenburg
    • 1638: Transfers administrative rights over Gronau to Bentheim-Tecklenburg
    • 1643: Terminated upon the repartition between Bentheim and Steinfurt
  • Successors
  • Personal unions
  • Spin-offs
  • Insourcings