Schönburg family
noble family
The House of Schönburg (also Schumburg; Czech: ze Šumburka) is an old noble family of princely and historically sovereign rank. It previously owned large properties in present-day Saxony, Thuringia and Bohemia. As a formerly ruling and mediatized family, it belongs to the Hochadel (German for 'high nobility'). The family today includes two princely branches and a comital branch.
History
For hundreds of years, the lords of Schönburg have appeared in the history of southwestern Saxony, beginning in 1130, with the mention of Ulricus de Schunenberg (also Sconenberg).
Expansion of the house
The lords of Schönburg acquired several possessions over the centuries. Glauchau, where they had built a castle as an imperial fief around 1170, came into their ownership in 1256. They owned Lichtenstein since 1286, Waldenburg since 1378, the county of Hartenstein since 1406 and the lordships of Penig and Wechselburg since 1543. They received the lordship of Rochsburg Castle in 1548 in trade for Lohmen, Wehlen, Hohnstein and Kriebstein.
Jurisdiction and privileges
The territory of Schönburg overlapped into Saxony, Bohemia and eventually Thuringia, and all of it fell under the legal jurisdiction of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation.
The public source identifies “Schönburg family” as noble family. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Schönburg, family and noble.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q872801. VIAF identifies the subject as 30386072. The Library of Congress control number is sh00007024. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1130, 1170, 1256 and 1286.
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This entry incorporates text from “Schönburg family” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.