Stadion (state)

Stadion was a small state of the Holy Roman Empire, located around Thannhausen in the present-day Bavarian administrative region of Swabia, Germany.
History.
According to the legend this Swabian Stadion dynasty was first mentioned in the area of Oberstadion in 1197 when "Heinricus de Lapide" was mentioned as descendant of who have similar coat of arms as those of Stadion family. However, the first certain documented ancestor of the family can be traced back to the knight "Waltherus de Stadegun" who was mentioned first on 13 May in 1270. His descendants later built the castle in Oberstadion which served as the family seat and bears the name after the family which built it.
Titles and status.
Johann Philipp of (1652–1741), high steward of the archbishops of Mainz, was elevated to the rank of a "Freiherr" (Baron) in 1686. In 1705, he acquired the immediate lordship of Thannhausen and thereby was raised to a "Count of the Holy Roman Empire". Upon his death in 1741, the estates were partitioned between the lines of Stadion-Thannhausen and Stadion-Warthausen. After the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, their immediate territories lost its sovereignty. Stadion-Thannhausen became mediatized by the Kingdom of Bavaria in 1806 and Stadion-Warthausen was mediatised to Austria and Württemberg in 1806. After that, as all other German mediatized houses, they kept some of its privileges, among most important ones being their equal status to all reigning families for marriage purposes. At the beginning of the 20th century, Stadions became extinct upon the death of the last male representative, Count Philipp Franz Joseph von Stadion-Thannhausen (1847-1908).