LEININGEN, the name of an old German family, whose lands lay principally in Alsace and Lorraine. The first count of Leiningen about whom anything certain is known was a certain Emicho (d. 1117), whose family became extinct in the male line when Count Frederick, a Minnesinger, died about 1220. Frede rick's sister, Liutgarde, married Simon, count of Saarbriicken, and Frederick, one of their sons, inheriting the lands of the counts of Leiningen, took their arms and their name. Having increased its possessions the Leiningen family was divided about 1317 into two branches; the elder of these, whose head was a landgrave, died out in 1467. On this event its lands fell to a female, the last land grave's sister Margaret, wife of Reinhard, lord of Westerburg, and their descendants were known as the family of Leiningen-Wester burg. Later this family was divided into two branches, those of Alt-Leiningen-Westerburg and Neu-Leiningen-Westerburg, both of which are represented to-day.
Meanwhile the younger branch of the Leiningens, known as the family of Leiningen-Dagsburg, was flourishing, and in 1560 this was divided into the lines of Leiningen-Dagsburg-Hartenburg, founded by Count John Philip (d. 1562), and Leiningen-Dagsburg Heidesheim or Falkenburg, founded by Count Emicho (d. 1593). In the head of the former line was raised to the rank of a prince of the Empire. In 1801 this family was deprived of its lands on the left bank of the Rhine by France, but in 5803 it received ample compensation for these losses. A few years later its possessions were mediatized, and they are now included mainly in Baden, but partly in Bavaria and in Hesse.
See Brinckmeier, Genealogische Geschichte des Hawes Leiningen (Brunswick, 189o-91).