Messel is a municipality in the district of Darmstadt-Dieburg in Hesse near Frankfurt am Main in Germany.

Messel was the property of the lords of Groschlag from ca.

After the extinction of the Groschlag male lineage, the village would have passed to the Archbishopric of Mainz but the population refused to accept this transition and paid homage to the daughters of the Groschlag family instead.

The minister of the archbishopric, von Albini, consequently occupied the village with a force of 50 hussars.

The nearby Messel pit is an important site for Eocene fossils.