The House of Wurmbrand-Stuppach is an old noble family of Austria. During the 17th and 18th centuries, the Counts of Wurmbrand-Stuppach gained notability in wars against the Turks in the Balkans. They were highly decorated advisors to the Habsburg Emperors. During the 18th century the family had immediate status as ruling counts of a small territory of the Holy Roman Empire and as such, the family belonged to high nobility.
The founding of the house of Wurmbrand-Stuppach, and the origins of the name, occurred during the Crusades. The Count of Stuppach had disappeared seven years earlier fighting in the Holy Land, and the knights were getting impatient on waiting for his wife and successor to remarry. A lindworm (a mythological two-legged wyvern-like creature) had entered the county and began to terrorise the land. The knights demanded she marry a brave nobleman to fight it.
The Countess asked for four weeks' delay, and when that time had passed she said to the knights "I asked God. He likes my husband to return to me, if he still lives. To my sadness he did not come. Give me still four weeks period." But the people would not have another four weeks delay due to the lindworm, so she instead announced that she would marry whoever slayed the beast.
Silently, the knights left. Those which went to slay the lindworm did not return. One day, a poor farmer was on the Burglach making fences when the lindworm appeared. It lunged at the farmer, which speared the lindworm in the mouth with a stake he was using to build the fences. Other farmers who were nearby saw it, and they carried him to the countess to be married. The wedding lasted a week.
The family is first mentioned with Leupold dem Wurmbrant in 1194. They originate from the Bucklige Welt region in Lower Austria. At the end of the 12th century they received the fief of Stuppach castle near Gloggnitz which remained in their possession until 1659.
In 1600, they acquired Steyersberg castle near Warth, Lower Austria.
Ehrenreich the Elder (1558- c. 1620) became baron in 1607. His children became counts in 1682. Count Johann Josef Wilhelm (1670–1750), president of the Aulic Council, was honored by the Emperor by being made a personal (not yet hereditary) member of the Franconian count's bench, a part of the college of Imperial Princes (Reichsfürstenrat or Fürstenbank) in the Imperial Diet in 1726. Upon his admission he had to promise to purchase some immediate territory on the first occasion, since all of the family's possessions had no such status as they were located within the Archduchy of Austria. Finally a splinter share of the immediate County of Limpurg was inherited by Johann Josef Wilhelm's wife Countess Juliane Dorothea von Limpurg-Gaildorf, a territory around its residence Gaildorf, Swabia, that had been divided between a large number of heirs when its former rulers, the Counts Schenk von Limpurg extinguished in 1713, leaving ten daughters. With this splinter share, the acquisition of a territory with Imperial Immediacy was fulfilled and the head of the family became a hereditary member of the Swabian count's bench. The county of Limpurg was mediatized in 1806 and became part of the Kingdom of Württemberg. The Mediatized Houses however kept their princely status.
The elder branch extinguished with count Degenhard in 1965, and his only daughter Leonora inherited Steyersberg castle; it is now owned by her son Dr Paul Miller. The headship of the house went to count Ernst Gundaccar (b. 1946) of the younger branch, formerly residing at Liblín (Czech Republic). His mother, the heiress of Schloss Frohsdorf, was princess Blanca Massimo, daughter of Prince Fabrizio Massimo and Princess Beatrix of Borbon-Spain, herself a daughter of Carlos, Duke of Madrid. Frohsdorf castle was sold in 1941, but the estate is still owned by count Ernst Gundaccar who has two sons. Schloss Stubenberg in Styria was bought in 1815 and given to the Catholic Church in 1925 as a monastery, when two daughters took the veil.
The third branch resided at Reitenau castle near Stambach (1602-1822) and at Gornja Radgona Castle (1789-1914). In 1694 they purchased Altschielleiten castle at Stubenberg, Styria, where the new Schielleiten Palace was built from 1730. When this branch extinguished in 1906, the palace was inherited by the Marchese Tacoli family.
In 1806 the count of Wurmbrand-Stuppach was mediatised.
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