User:Sponneck/Sponneck

The House of Sponeck / Sponneck

The surname Sponeck was originally derived from the name of an Imperial Knight, Hilderbrand Spenli, who was granted the first occupancy of the Imperial Castle built in 1285 on a hillock overlooking the Rhine at the little village of Jechtingen, in Kaiserstuhl, Germany. He called the castle ‘Spanecke’ and by 1333 it had become known as Castle Sponeck. The first family to use this name hereditarily was the siblings von Hedwiger, a family of Knights from Silesia, in East Germany dating back to the 13th Century. The patriarch was one – Balthazar von Hedwiger, born 1510 in Silesia. The Holy Roman Emperor, Leopold I, elevated the siblings Von Hedwiger to the rank and title of ‘Counts-of-the-Empire’ with the title name, ‘of Sponeck’ on the 2nd August 1701 in Vienna. They were Georg Wilhelm, Johann Christoph, Johann Rudolph and their sister, Anna Sabina who was married to Duke Leopold Eberhard von Württemberg-Mömpelgard.

In an Imperial Decree by the same Emperor Leopold I, dated 4th July 1702, the spelling of the name as ‘von Sponneck’ was used.

Colonel Georg Wilhelm von Hedwiger, Reichsgraf von Sponeck resigned the presidency of Mömpelgard and entered Denmark in the year 1703 in order to take up command of the Danish Troops to fight with the British, Austrian and Dutch under John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene of Savoy in the ‘War of the Spanish Succession’, against the French King, Louis XIV. Georg Wilhelm took up residence in Copenhagen. On the 11th July 1889 the Sponneck family were incorporated into the Danish nobility with the Danish equivalent title by decree of King Christian IX of Denmark. Johann Rudolph then became president of the Duchy of Mömpelgard under the Duke of Württemberg-Mömpelgard in the year 1703.

The present two lines of this House consist of the Danish family ‘Sponneck’ and the German family ‘Sponeck’. The Patriarch of the Danish line was Georg Wilhelm von Hedwiger. The Patriarch of the German line was Johann Rudolph von Hedwiger, Reichsgrafen von Sponeck.

Blazen of Arms: Quartery 1st & 4th Gules, ‘rampant lion queue-forche’ ‘Or’, 2nd & 3rd Azure, ‘mullet of 6 points’, ‘moon’, ‘stream with natural coloured fish’. Inescutcheon: Or ‘crowned sea- eagle’ displayed Sable.

Helmet: Argent two helmets in profile with five grilles.

Crests: Dexter: ‘Demi-lion’ Or; sinister: ‘fish in stream’ with ‘mullet’ and ‘moon’ Azure displayed on ‘eagles wing’.

Supporters & Compartment: Two natural coloured ‘leopards’ – ‘rampant-guardant’. Compartment of plain yellow board.