Hesse (their eighth in Germany). Berthold is last attested in 1191, as witness to the establishment of . At his death the House of Malsburg was extinct in the male line. First unification with Ziegenhain (ca. 1205-1250) Louis I After Berthold II's death, the County of Nidda, which remained a fief of Fulda Abbey, passed via his sister Mechthild, who had married Count Rudolf II of Ziegenhain in 1170, to their son Louis I (born 1167 in Nidda, died 1227). Louis had become the Count of Ziegenhain after the death of his older brother Gottfried II in 1205 and he therefore united the two counties. At this time, the County of Nidda extended up the Ohm and Felda rivers in Vogelsberg and included Streubesitz at Rüdesheim in the Rheingau, as well as the Vogtei over the possessions of Fulda Abbey and some of the possessions of the Archbishopric of Mainz in the Wetterau and on the Main river. Louis also made donations in Nidda to the Knights of St John, such as Brungesrode in 1226 (near the modern Am Ruppelshof Straße). As a result of the marriages of his sisters Adelheid and Mechthild, many properties and rights of the County of Nidda passed to their husbands, Ulrich I of Münzenberg and Gerlach II of Büdingen, such as the Vogtei of Schotten. Along with his relatives in Ziegenhain and , Louis donated the former to the Teutonic Order - their first significant branch within the Holy Roman Empire. Louis was a reliable supporter of the Hohenstaufen dynasty and after the election of Philip of Swabia as Emperor in 1198 he is repeatedly attested in his entourage (at Nürnberg in 1205, Boppard in 1206, Gelnhausen and Jülich in 1207). Berthold I and Gottfried IV After Louis died in 1227, his sons Gottfried IV (died 1250) and Berthold I (born 1207, died 1257/58) ruled over both counties together, with Berthold residing in the Ziegenhain ancestral lands and Gottfried in Nidda. Both of them were supporters of the Hohenstaufen, like their father. In the decisive phase of the Hohenstaufens' conflict with the Papacy, however, they switched their support to the Pope, along with their brother , who was Provost of Saint Peter's Church in Fritzlar from 1240 and became Archbishop of Salzburg in 1247, but died the same year, in the camp of the Papal candidate for emperor, Henry Raspe. From 1234, the brothers