Fugger family

County of Kirchberg and Weissenhorn Grafschaft Kirchberg und Weißenhorn
1536–1806
Coat of arms
Map of Württemberg before the French Revolutionary Wars, showing the County of Fugger, with the Danube shown running through the centre of the image and the Iller forming the border between Württemberger lands (coloured) and Bavarian lands (non-coloured)
Status	County
Capital	Weißenhorn (nominally) Imp. City Augsburg (de facto)
Government	Principality
Historical era	Early modern Europe
• Pledged non-immediate County of Kirchberg and Lordship of Weißenhorn	1507 1536
• Raised to Imperial nobility	1511
• Gained immediate Lordship of Glött	1536
• Fugger lands' immediacy	1541
• Joined Swabian Circle	1563
• Mediatised to Bavaria and Württemberg	1806
Preceded by Succeeded by Duchy of Bavaria Duchy of Württemberg Augsburg Kingdom of Bavaria Kingdom of Württemberg

The House of Fugger (German pronunciation: [ˈfʊɡɐ]) is a German family that was historically a prominent group of European bankers, members of the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century mercantile patriciate of Augsburg, international mercantile bankers, and venture capitalists. Alongside the Welser family, the Fugger family controlled much of the European economy in the sixteenth century and accumulated enormous wealth. The Fuggers held a near monopoly on the European copper market.

This banking family replaced the Medici family who influenced all of Europe during the Renaissance. The Fuggers took over many of the Medicis' assets and their political power and influence. They were closely affiliated with the House of Habsburg whose rise to world power they financed. Unlike the citizenry of their hometown and most other trading patricians of German free imperial cities, such as the Tuchers, they never converted to Lutheranism, as presented in the Augsburg Confession, but rather remained with the Roman Catholic Church and thus close to the Habsburg emperors.^[1]

Jakob Fugger "the Rich" was elevated to the nobility of the Holy Roman Empire in May 1511 and assumed the title Imperial Count of Kirchberg and Weissenhorn in 1514. Today, he is considered to be one of the wealthiest people ever to have lived, with a GDP-adjusted net worth of over $400 billion, and approximately 2% of the entire GDP of Europe at the time. While the company was dissolved in 1657, the Fuggers remained wealthy landowners and ruled the County of Kirchberg and Weissenhorn. The Babenhausen branch became Princes of the Holy Roman Empire in 1803, while the Glött branch of the family became Princes in Bavaria in 1914.