| County of Veldenz Grafschaft Veldenz |
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| State of the Holy Roman Empire | ||||
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Coat of arms of the Counts of Veldenz |
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| Veldenz ca. 1400 | ||||
| Capital | Veldenz | |||
| Government | Principality | |||
| Historical era | Middle Ages | |||
| - Established | 1112 | |||
| - Counts of Veldenz-Geroldseck | 1277 | |||
| - Fell to County of Palatinate-Zweibrücken | 1444 | |||
| - Joined Upper Rhenish Circle | 1500 | |||
| - Counts of Palatinate-Veldenz | 1543 | |||
| - Annexed by the First French Empire |
1801 | |||
The County of Veldenz was a principality in the contemporary Land Rhineland-Palatinate. The county was located partially between Kaiserslautern, Sponheim and Zweibrücken, partially on the Mosel in the so-called Erzstift Trier. A town of the same name Veldenz and a castle Schloss Veldenz are located in the district of Bernkastel-Wittlich.
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The Counts of Veldenz separated from the Wildgraves of Kyrburg and Schmidburg family in 1112 . The direct male line of the first comital house ceased in 1260 with the death of Gerlach V of Veldenz and his daughter Agnes of Veldenz inherited the county in 1260. Her husband Heinrich of Geroldseck became the founder of the second line of Counts of Veldenz or the House of Veldenz-Geroldseck (Hohengeroldseck).
In 1444 the county came under the rule of Count palatine Stefan of Pfalz-Simmern-Zweibrücken by his marriage to Anna of Veldenz, the only heiress of Count Friedrich III of Veldenz.
In 1543 by the Marburg treaty it was agreed that the uncle of Duke Wolfgang of Zweibrücken, Ruprecht, should receive the county of Veldenz. Ruprecht died in 1544 but his son Hans Georg married Anna Maria of Sweden, a daughter of Gustav I of Sweden in 1563. This was the joining of the House of Wittelsbach with the Swedish Vasa royal family which was strengthened by a further marriage when Johann Casimir of Pfalz-Zweibrücken married Catharina of Sweden, a sister of Gustav Adolfus in the 17th century. Wolfgang had in 1553 with the Heidelberg Succession agreement regulated the mutual inheritance of all Wittelsbach lines reaching from Veldenz-Palatinate to the county Lützelstein in Alsace. The grandson of Georg Hans, Leopold Ludwig von Lützelstein, died in 1694 without legitimate offspring and the county-Palatinate of Veldenz reverted to the Zweibrücken line.
In 1801 it was incorporated into the Saardepartement of the First French Empire. The Congress of Vienna, 1815, gave the smaller part of the county lying on the Mosel to Prussia and the remainder to Bavaria.
Continued in the Pfalz-Zweibrücken line.
