County of Hanau-Lichtenberg

The County of Hanau-Lichtenberg was a territory in the Holy Roman Empire. It emerged between 1456 and 1480 from a part of the County of Hanau and one half of the Barony of Lichtenberg. Following the extinction of the counts of Hanau-Lichtenberg in 1736 it went to Hesse-Darmstadt, minor parts of it to the Hesse-Cassel. Its centre was in the lower Alsace, the capital first Babenhausen, later Buchsweiler.

==History== ===The Lichtenberg inheritance=== In 1452, after a reign of only one year, Count Reinhard III of Hanau (1412–1452) died. The heir was his son, Philip the Younger (1449–1500), only four years old. For the sake of the continuity of the dynasty, his relatives and other important decision-makers in the county agreed not to turn to the 1375 primogenitur statute of the family—one of the oldest in Germany—and to let the heir's uncle and brother of the deceased, Philip I (the Elder) (1417–1480), have the administrative district of Babenhausen from the estate of the County of Hanau as a county in his own right. This arrangement of 1458 allowed him to have a befitting marriage and offspring entitled to inherit, and so increased the chances of survival of the comital house. Philip the Elder was called now "of Hanau-Babenhausen".