A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state or representative for service to the monarch, the church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood finds origins in the Ancient Greek hippeis (ἱππεῖς) and Roman equites.
Marburg is a university town in the German federal state (Bundesland) of Hesse, capital of the Marburg-Biedenkopf district (Landkreis). The town area spreads along the valley of the river Lahn and has a population of approximately 76,000.
A coat of arms is a heraldic visual design on an escutcheon, surcoat, or tabard. The coat of arms on an escutcheon forms the central element of the full heraldic achievement, which in its whole consists of a shield, supporters, a crest, and a motto. A coat of arms is traditionally unique to the armiger. The term 'coat of arms' itself, describing in modern times just the heraldic design, originates from the description of the entire medieval chainmail 'surcoat' garment used in combat or preparation for the latter.
Sonneberg in Thuringia, Germany, is the seat of the Sonneberg district. It is in the Franconian south of Thuringia, neighboring its Upper Franconian twin town Neustadt bei Coburg.
The ministeriales were a class of people raised up from serfdom and placed in positions of power and responsibility in the High Middle Ages in the Holy Roman Empire.
Uradel is a genealogical term introduced in late 18th-century Germany to distinguish those families whose noble rank can be traced to the 14th century or earlier. The word stands opposed to Briefadel, a term used for titles of nobility created in the early modern period or modern history by letters patent. Since the earliest known such letters were issued in the 14th century, those knightly families in northern European nobility whose noble rank predates these are designated Uradel.
Romrod is a small town in the Vogelsbergkreis in central Hesse, Germany.
Burgsinn is a market community in the Main-Spessart district in the Regierungsbezirk of Lower Franconia (Unterfranken) in Bavaria, Germany and the seat of the Verwaltungsgemeinschaft of Burgsinn. It has a population of around 2,500.
The House of Westernhagen is the name of an old German noble family from Thuringia which originated in Lower Saxony. The first reference to the family was made in 1258. The original family name was von Hagen. The family acquired a fiefdom in 1283 and built Westernhagen Castle in Berlingerode, from which their name derives.
Gabsheim is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Alzey-Worms district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Wörrstadt, whose seat is in the like-named municipality.
Breitenbach am Herzberg is a municipality in southwesternmost Hersfeld-Rotenburg district in eastern Hesse, Germany.
Hohenroda is a municipality in Hersfeld-Rotenburg district in eastern Hesse, Germany lying right on the boundary with Thuringia.
Tiesenhausen is the name of a Baltic German nobility family. The origins of the family are in Lower Saxony. During the Baltic crusades they settled in Livonia in the first half of the 12th century. Bishops Albert of Riga and Herman of Tartu had a sister whose husband Engelbertus de Tisenhuse was the progenitor of the family in the Baltic. After some time in southern Livonia in the early stages of occupation, Engelbertus joined his brother-in-law bishop Herman to obtain the northern Livonian country of Ugaunia around Otepää and Tartu. It was Ugaunia where the family held its main early properties and positions. Engelbertus' son married a daughter of the castellan of Koknese in Latgale and through this marriage, the family claims descent from indigenous princes of the Latgalians. Some branches of Tisenhusen clan settled later to the Latvian Vidzeme holdings of Ergli and Berzaune. From the ancestral place of Ugaunia, sons of the family managed to obtain estates in other parts of Estonia, also so-called Danish Estonia and Osilia-Rotalia, both by services and by marriages.
The House von der Decken is the name of an old Hanoverian family of German nobility. Since more than 750 years the center of the family is in a part of Lower Saxony at the south bank of the river Elbe called Kehdingen.
The Barony of Bilstein was a dynastic lordship with extensive estates in the region of the present German states of Hesse and Thuringia and a territory of the Holy Roman Empire.
Hackinger, or von Hacking, is the name of an old Austrian noble family.
Falke is an ancient German noble family (Uradel). The name is originally spelled Falcken, Falken, Falkenreck, also Falken-Reck.
Heraldry is the system of visual identification of rank and pedigree which developed in the European High Middle Ages, closely associated with the courtly culture of chivalry, Latin Christianity, the Crusades, feudal aristocracy, and monarchy of the time. Heraldic tradition fully developed in the 13th century, and it flourished and developed further during the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern period. Originally limited to nobility, heraldry is adopted by wealthy commoners in the Late Middle Ages. Specific traditions of Ecclesiastical heraldry also develop in the late medieval period. Coats of arms of noble families, often after their extinction, becomes attached to the territories they used to own, giving rise to municipal coats of arms by the 16th century.
The Patriciate of the Imperial City of Nuremberg, the families entitled to the Inner Council, represented the actual center of power in Nuremberg until the French occupation in 1806.
