House of Luxembourg

The House of Luxembourg (D'Lëtzebuerger Haus; Maison de Luxembourg; Haus Luxemburg) or Luxembourg dynasty was a royal family of the Holy Roman Empire in the Late Middle Ages, whose members between 1308 and 1437 ruled as kings of Germany and Holy Roman emperors as well as kings of Bohemia, Hungary and Croatia. Their rule was twice interrupted by the rival House of Wittelsbach. The family takes it name from its ancestral county of Luxembourg which they continued to hold. As shown below, this royal Luxembourg dynasty were not male-line descendants of the original counts of Luxembourg. They descended instead from the House of Limburg-Arlon, who had been dukes of Lower Lorraine in the 11th century. In 1247 Henry, younger son of Duke Waleran III of Limburg inherited the County of Luxembourg, becoming Count Henry V of Luxembourg, upon the death of his mother Countess Ermesinde. Her father, Count Henry "the blind", was count of Namur through his father, and count of Luxembourg through his mother, who was also named Ermesinde. This elder Ermesinde was a member of the original House of Luxembourg, which was a branch of the House of Ardenne, and had ruled Luxembourg since the late 10th century. There were two other houses descended from the women of the counts of Luxembourg as shown in the family tree in the House of Ardenne–Luxembourg: the Counts of Loon, the Counts of Grandpré, along with the Dukes of Limburg. All three families had a place in relation to the succession of the House of Ardennes. Indeed, the Count of Grandpré was the next heir of Conrad II of Luxembourg, who was the last representative of the Ardennes dynasty. But, Emperor Frederick II preferred that Luxembourg was held by a lord Germanic rather than French and attributed the county to Henry of Limburg-Arlon (see below), son of Conrad's aunt Ermesinde and Count Godfrey I of Namur. The Counts of Loon are also in position to claim the inheritance Luxembourg, albeit weaker position.