Hesse

Hesse

The name Hesse is due to the gradual transformation of the tribal name of the Germanic Chatti, through several intermediate steps, to the present name Hesse. The territory of Hesse has always been dominated by more than one state since the division of the estate from 1567 until the end of the Second World War.

Hesse never established a unified tribal duchy like Saxony, Bavaria and Swabia. Hesse was largely colonized by the Franks from the 6th century on and annexed it as a royal land. It was divided into districts and administered by "Gaugrafen" on behalf of the respective king.

After the extinction of Ludovingians in the male line in 1247 the daughter of the last Thuringian landgrave, Sophie, married to the Duke Henry II of Brabant, secured in the Thuringian-Hessian War of Succession (1247-1264) the independence of Hesse for her son Henry, later Henry I of Hesse.

In 1292, king Adolf of Nassau entrusted landgrave Henry with the Boyneburg Castle and with the town of Eschwege, which had previously been commissioned by Henry, and thus elevated the landgraviate of Hesse to become the imperial principality. In the Holy Roman Empire, all the rulers of the Hessian lands were considered princes. At the end of the Hessian rule, the House of Hesse ruled in Hesse-Kassel until 1866 and in Hesse-Darmstadt until 1918.