County of Montbéliard

Origins

Montbéliard guarded the Belfort Gap between the Jura and the Vosges. Around 1042 Louis of Mousson, who also held Bar through his wife Sophie, ruled it as count. Later houses of Montfaucon and Chalon held it, all within the Kingdom of Arles and so in the Holy Roman Empire.

Rule and society

In 1397 the heiress Henriette of Montbéliard was betrothed to Eberhard IV of Württemberg, and the county passed to the Württemberg dynasty. Guillaume Farel preached there in 1524–1525, and under the Württemberg rulers it later became Lutheran, an unusual Protestant enclave between Catholic Franche-Comté and Alsace. Duke Frederick I ruled it from 1581 and brought in the architect Heinrich Schickhardt.

Decline and legacy

French troops occupied the county several times, and in 1793 the French First Republic annexed it. Württemberg recognised the loss in 1796. The region kept its Lutheran heritage and later became the home of the Peugeot industrial dynasty.