History
Set in the Wolfach River valley, Ortenburg can look back over a 900 year history. In about 1120 it was established by the Princes of Ortenburg. At the same time the upwardly mobile von Kamm family appeared on the scene. However, during the thirteenth century the von Kamms relocated to Hals (now a quarter of Passau). The Ortenburg princes, whose own origins lay with the Spanheimer dynasty, were keen to establish their own separate dynastic centre and it was this Imperial immediacy (commercially privileged territory) which became the principality of Ortenburg.
The Ortenburgs were among the most powerful of the Bavarian nobility, competing in terms of power and position with the Wittelsbach dynasty. During the height of their power, during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the Ortenburgs held lands from as far south as the Brixen valley, that extended also far into the Upper Palatinate.
Read more about this topic: Ortenburg (Bavaria)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“It takes a great deal of history to produce a little literature.”
—Henry James (1843–1916)
“The history of the past is but one long struggle upward to equality.”
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)
“Free from public debt, at peace with all the world, and with no complicated interests to consult in our intercourse with foreign powers, the present may be hailed as the epoch in our history the most favorable for the settlement of those principles in our domestic policy which shall be best calculated to give stability to our Republic and secure the blessings of freedom to our citizens.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)