Reuss

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For other uses, see Reuss (disambiguation).

Reuss (German: Reuß) was the name of several historical states located in present-day Thuringia, Germany. Its rulers, the Reuss family, named all(!) of their male children Heinrich (Henry) since the end of the twelfth century in honour of the Emperor Henry VI of Germany (1190-97), to whom they owed a great deal. The head of each branch of the family bore the title Fürst (Prince).

[edit] History of the various states

Several different principalities of the House of Reuss which had previously existed had by the time of the formation of the German Confederation become part of the two remaining lines (the Elder and the Younger Lines). Before then, they had been part first of the Holy Roman Empire, and then the Confederation of the Rhine.

The present Principality of Reuss and the neighbouring tracts of land were inhabited in early medieval times by Slavonian races who were civilized and converted to Christianity by the German Emperor Otto I (936-73). In church matters the region was under the Diocese of Zeitz (founded in 968), which became a suffragan of Magdeburg. On account of the frequent inroads of the Slavs, the residence of the Bishop of Zeitz was removed to Naumburg in 1028, after which the See was called Naumburg-Zeitz.

Upon its subjection to German authority, the whole province was allotted to the Margraviate of Zeitz. As early as the year 1000, however, Emperor Otto III permitted the entire part lying on the eastern boundary of Thuringia to be administered by imperial vogts, or bailiffs (advocati imperii), whence this territory received the name of Vogtland (Terra advocatorum), a designation that has remained to this day a geographical summary for Reuss, especially that part on the Saxon borders. The position of vogt soon became hereditary. The princes of Reuss are descended from the vogts of Weida.

Erkenbert I (1122) is proved by documentary evidence to have been their ancestor. His successors acquired almost the whole Vogtland by feuds or marriage settlement, although in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries they lost the greater part of their possessions, most of which fell to Saxe-Meissen (the present Kingdom of Saxony). In 1244 the vogt Henry IV entered a German monastery. His sons divided his possessions, their seats being respectively at Weida (extinct in 1535), Gera (extinct in 1550), and Plauen.

The Plauen branch was sub divided into an elder line that died out in 1572, and a young line. Henry, the founder of the Plauen line (d. about 1300), on account of a visit to Russia received the surname of "der Reusse" (Ruthenus), whence the name passed to the country; on account of the close relations of that country with the neighbouring Saxon states, Lutheranism speedily gained a foothold in Reuss. The rulers joined the Schmalkaldic League against the German emperor, and forfeited their possessions, but afterwards recovered them.

The two remaining Reuss principalities went on to join in turn the German Confederation (in 1815). Henry XXII is notable among the more modern princes of this house for his enmity to Prussia, which he opposed in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, when the Prussian troops occupied his domain. Henry joined the North German Confederation and the new German Empire (1871). He alone of all the confederate princes remained until his death (1902) an implacable enemy of Prince Bismarck and of the conditions created in Germany by the foundation of the empire. His son, Heinrich XXIV (1878-1927), being incapable of ruling, the regency passed to the princes of the younger line of Reuss. After the death of Henry XXIV, the last scion of the younger line, the Principalities of Reuss-Greiz and Reuss-Schleitz will be united.

In the aftermath of World War I, they were unified in 1919 as the Republic of Reuss, which was incorporated into the new state of Thuringia in 1920.