Counts Waldbott von Bassenheim

The Counts of Waldbott von Bassenheim were descended from an old aristocratic family of what is now the Rhineland-Palatinate in Western Germany.  The family seems to have originated from Waltmannhausen near Limburg (Hesse) in or before the 12th century but then acquired various lands and titles in the region.  Around 1300 they also obtained through marriage the castle and manor of Bassenheim, near Koblenz.  In 1720, Franz Emmerich Wilhelm Waldbott von Bassenheim was made an Imperial Count by Emperor Charles VI.

As a consequence of the Treaty of Lunéville between France and the Holy Roman Empire in 1801, the family lost those of their lands which lay on the west bank of the Rhine (territory ceded to the French) but received in compensation certain estates in Swabia.  They also received a regular payment derived from the estate of the former Carthusian monastery at Buxheim, which had been secularised in 1802 and was now in the possession of the Counts of Ostein.  In 1809, on the death of the Count of Ostein, the whole estate at Buxheim - with its famous library - passed into the possession of Count Friedrich Waldbott von Bassenheim.

Count Friedrich died in 1830 and was succeeded by his son Hugo Philipp (1820-1895).  This last maintained such a lavish life-style that he was forced over the years to sell off many of his ancestral estates.  In 1883, the historic library from Buxheim was sold by Carl Förster at auction in Munich, and in 1884 the Munich booksellers Ludwig and Nathan Rosenthal acquired most of the remaining books in the family's library.