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 . Frederick's sister, Liutgarde, married Simon, count of Saar- brticken, 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 landgrave's sister Margaret, wife of Reinhard, lord of Westerburg, and their descendants were known as the family of Leiningen-Westerburg . 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 156o 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 1779 the head of the former line was raised to the rank of a prince of the Empire . In 18or this family was deprived of its lands on the left bank of the Rhine by France, but in 1803 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 . A former head of this family, Prince Emich Charles, married Maria Louisa Victoria, princess of Saxe-Coburg; after his death in 1814 the princess married George III.'s son, the duke of Kent, by whom she became the mother of Queen Victoria . In 1910 the head of the family was Prince Emich (b . 1866) . The family of Leiningen-Dagsburg-Heidesheim was divided into three branches, the two senior of which became extinct during the 18th century . At present it is represented by the counts of Leiningen-Guntersblum and Leiningen-Heidesheim, called also Leiningen-Billigheim and Leiningen-Neidenau . See Brinckmeier, Genealogische Geschichte des Hauses Leiningen (Brunswick, 1890—1891) .