House of Wittelsbach
The House of Wittelsbach is a former Bavarian dynasty, with branches that have ruled over territories including the Electorate of Bavaria, the Electoral Palatinate, the Electorate of Cologne, Holland, Zeeland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Hungary, Bohemia, and Greece. Their ancestral lands of Bavaria and the Palatinate were prince-electorates, and the family had three of its members elected emperors and kings of the Holy Roman Empire. They ruled over the Kingdom of Bavaria which was created in 1805 and continued to exist until 1918.
The House of Windsor, the reigning royal house of the British monarchy, are descendants of Sophia of Hanover, a Wittelsbach Princess of the Palatinate by birth and Electress of Hanover by marriage, who had inherited the succession rights of the House of Stuart and passed them on to the House of Hanover.
History
When Otto I, Count of Scheyern died in 1072, his third son Otto II, Count of Scheyern acquired Wittelsbach Castle. The Counts of Scheyern left Scheyern Castle in 1119 for Wittelsbach Castle and the former was given to monks to establish Scheyern Abbey. The origins of the Counts of Scheyern are unclear. Some speculative theories link them to Margrave Henry of Schweinfurt and his father Berthold, whose background is also disputed. Some speculate that the Schweinfurters may be descendants of the Luitpolding dynasty, the Bavarian dukes of the 10th century.The Wittelsbach Conrad of Scheyern-Dachau, a great-grandson of Otto I, Count of Scheyern, became Duke of Merania in 1153 and was succeeded by his son Conrad II. It was the first duchy held by the Wittelsbach family.
Otto I's eldest son Eckhard I, Count of Scheyern was father of the count palatine of Bavaria, Otto IV, who was the first Count of Wittelsbach and whose son Otto was invested with the Duchy of Bavaria in 1180 after the fall of Henry the Lion and hence the first Bavarian ruler from the House of Wittelsbach. Duke Otto's son Louis I, Duke of Bavaria acquired the Electorate of the Palatinate in 1214.
Throughout history, members of the royal house have reigned as Dukes of Merania ; Dukes, Electors, and Kings of Bavaria ; Counts Palatine of the Rhine ; Margraves of Brandenburg ; Counts of Holland, Hainaut, and Zeeland ; Elector-Archbishops of Cologne ; Dukes of Jülich and Berg ; Kings of Sweden ; and Dukes of Bremen-Verden.
The family also provided two Holy Roman Emperors, one King of the Romans, two Anti-Kings of Bohemia, one King of Hungary, one King of Denmark and Norway, and one King of Greece.
Bavaria and Palatinate within the Holy Roman Empire
The Wittelsbach dynasty ruled the German territories of Bavaria from 1180 to 1918 and the Electorate of the Palatinate from 1214 until 1805. In both countries they had succeeded rulers from the House of Welf. The Duchy of Bavaria was elevated to the Electorate of Bavaria in 1623, and in 1806, Napoleon elevated it to the Kingdom of Bavaria. In 1815, the majority of the Palatinate was annexed by the Grand Duchy of Baden, with the remainder becoming the Circle of the Rhine.On Duke Otto II's death in 1253, his sons divided the Wittelsbach possessions between them: Henry became Duke of Lower Bavaria, and Louis II Duke of Upper Bavaria and Count Palatine of the Rhine. When Henry's branch died out in 1340 the Emperor Louis IV, a son of Duke Louis II, reunited the duchy.
The family provided two Holy Roman Emperors: Louis IV and Charles VII, both members of the Bavarian branch of the family, and one German King with Rupert of Germany, a member of the Palatinate branch.
The House of Wittelsbach split into these two branches in 1329: Under the Treaty of Pavia, Emperor Louis IV granted the Palatinate including the Bavarian Upper Palatinate to his brother Duke Rudolf's descendants, Rudolf II, Rupert I and Rupert II. Rudolf I in this way became the ancestor of the older line of the Wittelsbach dynasty, which returned to power also in Bavaria in 1777 after the extinction of the younger line, the descendants of Louis IV.
Through the efforts of Louis IV, the Wittelsbachs controlled the Duchy of Bavaria, the Electorate of the Palatine, the County of Tyrol, the Margraviate of Brandenburg, the County of Holland, County of Zeeland and the County of Hainault. This gave them a chance to dominate the Empire as the previous imperial houses of Hohenstaufen, Salians, Ottonians and Carolingians had. However, in the next generation they were outmaneuvered in Imperial politics by the Habsburgs and the most importantly by the Luxemburgs who both held compact and large possessions in the Duchy of Austria for the former and the Kingdom of Bohemia for the latter that allowed them to expand eastward.
Bavarian branch
The Bavarian branch kept the Duchy of Bavaria until its extinction in 1777.The Wittelsbach Emperor Louis IV acquired Brandenburg, Tyrol, Holland, Zeeland and Hainaut for his House but he had also released the Upper Palatinate for the Palatinate branch of the Wittelsbach in 1329. His six sons succeeded him as Duke of Bavaria and Count of Holland and Hainaut in 1347. The Wittelsbachs lost the Tyrol with the death of Duke Meinhard and the following Peace of Schärding – the Tyrol was finally renounced to the Habsburgs in 1369. In 1373 Otto, the last Wittelsbach regent of Brandenburg, released the country to the House of Luxembourg. On Duke Albert's death in 1404, he was succeeded in the Netherlands by his eldest son, William. A younger son, John III, became Prince-Bishop of Liège. However, on William's death in 1417, a war of succession broke out between John and William's daughter Jacqueline of Hainaut. This last episode of the Hook and Cod wars finally left the counties in Burgundian hands in 1433.
Emperor Louis IV had reunited Bavaria in 1340 but from 1349 onwards Bavaria was split among the descendants of Louis IV, who created the branches Bavaria-Landshut, Bavaria-Straubing, Bavaria-Ingolstadt and Bavaria-Munich. With the Landshut War of Succession Bavaria was reunited in 1505 against the claim of the Palatinate branch under the Bavarian branch Bavaria-Munich.
From 1549 to 1567 the Wittelsbach owned the County of Kladsko in Bohemia.
Strictly Catholic by upbringing, the Bavarian dukes became leaders of the German Counter-Reformation. From 1583 to 1761, the Bavarian branch of the dynasty provided the Prince-electors and Archbishops of Cologne and many other bishops of the Holy Roman Empire, namely Liège. Wittelsbach princes served at times as Bishops of Regensburg, Freising, Münster, Hildesheim, Paderborn and Osnabrück, and as Grand Master of the Teutonic Order.
In 1623 under Maximilian I the Bavarian dukes were invested with the electoral dignity and the duchy became the Electorate of Bavaria. His grandson Maximilian II Emanuel, Elector of Bavaria served also as Governor of the Habsburg Netherlands and as Duke of Luxembourg. His son Emperor Charles VII also claimed the throne of Bohemia. With the death of Charles' son Maximilian III Joseph, Elector of Bavaria the Bavarian branch died out in 1777.
Palatinate branch
The Palatinate branch kept the Palatinate until 1918, having succeeded also to Bavaria in 1777. With the Golden Bull of 1356 the Counts Palatine were invested with the electoral dignity, and their county became the Electorate of the Palatinate. Princes of the Palatinate branch served as bishops of the Empire and also as Archbishop-Electors of Mainz and Archbishop-Electors of Trier.After the death of the Wittelsbach king Rupert of Germany in 1410 the Palatinate lands began to split under numerous branches of the family such as Neumarkt, Simmern, Zweibrücken, Birkenfeld, Neuburg, and Sulzbach. When the senior branch of the Palatinate branch died out in 1559, the electorate passed to Frederick III of Simmern, a staunch Calvinist, and the Palatinate became one of the major centers of Calvinism in Europe, supporting Calvinist rebellions in both the Netherlands and France.
The Neuburg cadet branch of the Palatinate branch also held the Duchy of Jülich and Berg from 1614 onwards: when the last duke of Jülich-Cleves-Berg died without direct heirs in 1609, the War of the Jülich succession broke out, ended by the 1614 Treaty of Xanten, which divided the separate duchies between Palatinate-Neuburg and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. Jülich and Berg fell to the Wittelsbach Count Palatine Wolfgang William of Neuburg.
In 1619, the Protestant Frederick V, Elector Palatine became King of Bohemia but was defeated by the Catholic Maximilian I, Elector of Bavaria, a member of the Bavarian branch. As a result, the Upper Palatinate had to be ceded to the Bavarian branch in 1623, along with the Imperial office of Arch-Steward. When the Thirty Years' War concluded with the Treaty of Münster in 1648, a new additional electorate was created for the Count Palatine of the Rhine, along with the new office of Imperial Arch-Treasurer. During their exile Frederick's sons, especially Prince Rupert of the Rhine, gained fame in England.
The house of Palatinate of Zweibrücken-Kleeburg as heir to the Swedish throne ruled simultaneously the Duchy of Bremen-Verden.
In 1685, the Simmern line died out, and the Catholic Philip William, Count Palatine of Neuburg inherited the Palatinate. During the reign of Johann Wilhelm the electoral residence moved to Düsseldorf in Berg. His brother and successor Charles III Philip moved the Palatinate's capital back to Heidelberg in 1718 and then to Mannheim in 1720. To strengthen the union of all lines of the Wittelsbach dynasty Charles Philip organized a wedding on 17 January 1742 when his granddaughters were married to Charles Theodore of Palatinate-Sulzbach and the Bavarian prince Clement. In the imperial election a few days later Charles III Philip voted for his Bavarian cousin Prince-Elector Charles Albert. After extinction of the Neuburg branch in 1742, the Palatinate was inherited by Duke Charles Theodore of the branch Palatinate-Sulzbach.
After the extinction of the Bavarian branch in 1777, a succession dispute and the brief War of the Bavarian Succession, the Palatinate-Sulzbach branch under Elector Charles Theodore succeeded also in Bavaria.
With the death of Charles Theodore in 1799 all Wittelsbach land in Bavaria and the Palatinate was reunited under Maximilian IV Joseph, a member of the Palatinate-Zweibrücken-Birkenfeld branch. At the time there were two surviving branches of the Wittelsbach family: Palatinate-Zweibrücken-Birkenfeld and Palatinate-Birkenfeld-Gelnhausen. Maximilian Joseph inherited Charles Thedore's title of Elector of Bavaria, while William was compensated with the title of Duke in Bavaria. The form "Duke in Bavaria" was selected because in 1506 primogeniture had been established in the House of Wittelsbach resulting in there being only one reigning Duke of Bavaria at any given time. Maximillian Joseph assumed the title of king as Maximilian I Joseph on 1 January 1806. The new king still served as a Prince-elector until the Kingdom of Bavaria left the Holy Roman Empire.