Riedesel

In later centuries, the men served a wide variety of higher nobility as men-at-arms, administrators, and counselors.

Lines of the family are known to have had residences and offices throughout Hesse including Frankfurt, Josbach, Camberg, Bellersheim, Melsungen, as well as in Westphalia.

Hermann II (1407–1463) of this line married Margareta von Röhrenfurth after establishing himself as an able knight and adviser in the service of Landgrave Ludwig.

Their holdings were substantial in comparison with those of most free knights, but still quite minor within the patchwork of German states, secular and ecclesiastical.

Nevertheless, few had enough income to support the lifestyle of even minor nobility without entering the service of greater powers in their armies or administration.

The best-known member of the family, in the English-speaking world at least, is probably General Friedrich Adolph Riedesel, Freiherr zu Eisenbach (1738–1800).

The noble Riedesels lost their sovereignty (and feudal rents and services) in the wake of the Napoleonic wars, so pursued other enterprises included brewing and forestry.

A suggested ancestor was from the Riedesel zu Josbach line and settled in Wittgenstein perhaps a century earlier.

Vom ersten Auftreten des Namens bis zum Tode Hermanns III.

Vom Tode Konrads II 1593 bis zum Vertrag mit Hessen-Darmstadt 1593-1713 (Dr. Fritz Zschaeck, 1957) 5.