In the early Middle Ages the Hessengau territory (named after the Germanic Chatti tribes) formed the northern parts of the German stem duchy of Franconia along with the adjacent Lahngau.

Upon the extinction of the ducal Conradines, these Rhenish Franconian counties were gradually acquired by Landgrave Louis I of Thuringia and his successors.

After the War of the Thuringian Succession upon the death of Landgrave Henry Raspe in 1247, his niece Duchess Sophia of Brabant secured the Hessian possessions for her minor son Henry the Child, who would become the first landgrave of Hesse and founder of the House of Hesse in 1246.

The remaining Thuringian landgraviate fell to the Wettin margrave Henry III of Meissen.

Henry I of Hesse was raised to princely status by King Adolf of Germany in 1292.