Hillesheim (noble family)
The Counts of Hillesheim were a Rhenish-Palatinate noble family that came from the Bergisches Land .
Family history
The family belonged to the knighthood of the Duchy of Jülich-Berg . Originally she came from the village of Merscheid (also Mereschitt, Merscheit or Meschet) near Solingen and, after she came into possession of a property in the hamlet of Hillesheim, which today belongs to Much, called herself Merscheid called von Hillesheim or only von Hillesheim .
In 1636 Wilhelm von Hillesheim received Niederbach Castle in Oberpleis . When he died in 1658, he was buried in the local church. Three of his sisters were nuns, another had married the Imperial Field Marshal Wolf Rudolf Freiherr von Ossa (1574–1647); four of his own daughters were also religious. Since 1641 he has owned the Ahrenthal estate and castle , as well as the village of Franconia , currently a district of Sinzig . In 1712 his grandson Franz Wilhelm Caspar von Hillesheim (1663–1748) was raised to the rank of imperial count ; from 1723 to 1743 he also served as Minister of the Electoral Palatinate and owned a palace in Mannheim .
In 1722 the family acquired part of the Reipoltskirchen rule in the Palatinate , and in 1730 a further share. Since then the members have called themselves Counts of Hillesheim, Barons of Reipoltskirchen and Lords of Ahrenthal . In 1737 the rule of Kalenborn (near Altenahr) was added. They ruled the Reipoltskirchen territory from 1777 together with the other partial owners Friedrich Wilhelm zu Isenburg and Büdingen and his wife Karoline Franziska Dorothea nee. von Parkstein , a natural daughter of the Palatinate Elector Karl Theodor . In addition to the main town of Reipoltskirchen, the little country also included the moated castle there , as well as the communities of Nussbach , Rathskirchen , Hefersweiler and Berzweiler , Relsberg , Niederkirchen , Morbach , Rudolphskirchen , Finkenbach Gersweiler , Reichsthal , Schönborn and Dörnbach .
Ernst Wilhelm Gottfried, the last Count of Hillesheim and Baron von Reipoltskirchen, died in 1785 without heirs. He acted as the Electoral Palatinate Privy Councilor and Chamberlain . With him, the noble family von Hillesheim in Germany died out in the male line. His sister Charlotte Elisabeth Regina (1727–1807), who also died as the last of her sex in Germany, lived as an unmarried canoness in Vilich .
The family possessions therefore fell to the other sister Anna Elisabeth Augusta von Hillesheim (1725–1798) or her descendants. She was married to the Jülich-Bergische Hofkammervizepresident Reichsgraf Ambrosius Franziskus von Spee (1730-1791). Both were the great-great-grandparents of Admiral Count Maximilian von Spee , who had become famous in recent German history, who perished in 1914 with his two sons in a sea battle near the Falkland Islands . Via this connection, the possession of the Counts of Hillesheim came to Carl-Wilhelm von Spee (1758–1810) and passed from him to his descendants, the Counts of Spee , some of whom still own it today (e.g. Ahrenthal Castle).
With the extinction of the Counts of Hillesheim, a family appeared in Electoral Palatinate Bavaria , which also called itself von Hillesheim , occupied the old coat of arms and established an alleged relationship. To it belongs, for example, the civil servant Aloys Friedrich Wilhelm von Hillesheim (1756-1818), who succeeded in 1815 in having his actually unfounded title of nobility recognized in the Kingdom of Bavaria . In addition, the Kurland branch of the originally Jülich-Bergische von Hillesheim, von Meerscheidt-Hüllessem exists to this day .
coat of arms
The coat of arms shows three black branches in gold, four times on the right and three branches on the left. On the crowned helmet with black and gold covers a growing black billy goat with a gold collar, on which the branches are repeated, and from whose mouth a gold star emerges.
literature
- Leopold von Zedlitz-Neukirch : New Prussian Adels Lexicon , Volume 2, Leipzig, 1836, pp. 393–394
Web links
- PDF document on the history of the Count families von Hillesheim and von Spee
- Website about the noble family von Hillesheim
- PDF document about the non-association with the later family von Hillesheim
- Website for the Spee-Haus in Neuwied-Engers, with pictures of the Hillesheim coat of arms there
- Website about a Hillesheim coat of arms in Oberpleis
Individual evidence
- ^ Website on Niederbach Castle and the Lords of Hillesheim
- ↑ Jakob Christoph Beck : Neu-Vermehrtes Historisch- und Geographisches Allgemeine Lexicon , Volume 5, 1744, page 57; Scan from the source
- ↑ Biographical website on Wolf Rudolf von Ossa ( Memento of the original from January 13, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Genealogical website on Franz Wilhelm Caspar von Hillesheim
- ^ Website on the Hillesheim Palace in Mannheim
- ↑ Website with the timetable for the history of Reipoltskirchen
- ↑ Website on the history of the Kalenborn rule ( Memento of the original from December 8, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Website on the history of Reipoltskirchen
- ^ Genealogical website on Ernst Wilhelm Gottfried von Hillesheim
- ^ Gottlob Friedrich Krebel: European genealogical manual , Leipzig, 1786, page 211 scan from the source
- ^ Genealogical website about Anna Elisabeth Augusta von Hillesheim
- ^ Theodor Joseph Lacomblet: Archive for the history of the Lower Rhine , Volume 5, Düsseldorf, 1865, p. 471; (Digital scan)
