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Article: Hohenzollern Dynasty
- Article from:
- Europe, 1450 to 1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World
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HOHENZOLLERN DYNASTY
HOHENZOLLERN DYNASTY.
The ruling house of Brandenburg-Prussia, the House of Hohenzollern is most famous for providing rulers of the kingdom of Prussia and later of the German empire. The ancestral home of the House of Hohenzollern is in Swabia near the sources of the Danube and Neckar Rivers, about eighty miles south of today's Stuttgart. The Hohenzollerns began their climb to dynastic fame in 1417 when Holy Roman emperor Sigismund of Luxembourg awarded the Mark of Brandenburg in what was then the far northeast to Frederick of Hohenzollern as a reward for loyal service. Although Frederick found his new land to be poor, unproductive, and exposed to danger, he ...