FURSTENBERG, the name of two noble houses of Germany.
I. The more important ruled in a mediatized principality in the district of the Black Forest and the Upper Danube, which com prises the countship of Heiligenberg, about 7 m. N. of the Lake of Constance, the landgraviates of Stiihlinger and Baar, and the lord ships of Jungnau, Trochtelfingen, Hauser and Moskirch or Mess kirch. The territory is discontinuous; and lies partly in Baden, partly in Wurttemberg, and partly in the Prussian province of Sig maringen. The relations of the principality with Baden are defined by the treaty of May 1825, and its relations with Wurttemberg by the royal declaration of 1839. The Stammort or ancestral seat of the family is Furstenberg in the Black Forest, but the principal residence of the Fiirstenbergs is at Donaueschingen.
The family of Furstenberg claims descent from a certain Count Unruoch, a contemporary of Charlemagne, but their authentic pedigree is only traceable to Egino II., count of Urach, who died before 1136. In 1218 his successors built the town and castle of Fiirstenberg. Of the two sons of Egino V. of Urach, Conrad, the elder, inherited the Breisgau and founded the line of the counts of Freiburg, while the younger, Heinrich (1215-1284), received the territories lying in the Kinzigthal and Baar, and from 1250 onward styled himself first lord, then count, of Furs tenberg. His territories were subsequently divided, though tem porarily reunited under Count Friedrich III., whose wife, Anna, heiress of the last count of Wardenberg, brought him the count ship of Heiligenberg and lordships of Jungnau and Trochtelfingen in 1534. On Friedrich's death (1559) his territories were divided between his two sons, Joachim and Christof I. Of these the former founded the line of Heiligenberg, the latter that of Kinzigthal.
In 1909 there were two branches of the princely house of Furstenberg: (I) the main branch, that of Fiirstenberg-Donaue schingen, the head of which was Prince Maximilian Egon (b. 1863) , who succeeded his cousin Karl Egon III. in 1896; (2) that of Fiirstenberg-Konigshof, in Bohemia, the head of which was Prince Emil Egon (b. 1876), chamberlain and secretary of legation to the Austro-Hungarian embassy in London (1907). The cadet line of the landgraves of Furstenberg is now extinct, its last representative having been the landgrave Joseph Frie drich Ernst of FUrstenberg-Weitra (186o-1896), son of the land grave Ernst (1816-1889) by a morganatic marriage. He was not recognized as ebenbiurtig by the family. The landgraves of Furs tenberg were in 1909 represented only by the landgravines Theresa (b. 1839) and Gabrielle (b. 1844), daughters of the landgrave Johann Egon (1802-1879).
From the days of Heinrich of Urach, a relative and notable supporter of Rudolph of Habsburg, the Fiirstenbergs have played a stirring part in Germany history as statesmen, ecclesiastics and notably soldiers. There was a popular saying that "the emperor fights no great battle but a Fiirstenberg falls." In the Heiligenberg line the following may be more particularly noticed.