claim to succeed his father as Vogt of Bingenheim, which he did in 1087. He transferred his main residence from the Fuldan castle in Bingenheim to the castle built at Nidda by him and/or his father, which he owned outright. Volkold is recorded as "Count of Nidda" from 1104 at the latest. Subsequently, as a result of a feud, Volkold was imprisoned in Mainz and he and has brother Udalrich had to surrender their castles, Malsburg and to Adalbert I, Archbishop of Mainz, from whom they then received them back as fiefs. Volkold II remained at Nidda and left administration of the fiefs to his brother. After Udalrich died childless, the whole county returned to him. Berthold I Volkold's son, Berthold I (ca. 1110-1162) succeeded his father as Count of Nidda. He expanded his possessions around Nidda by exchanging properties that he had inherited in North Hesse and Westphalia with local properties of Helmarshausen Abbey and . In 1154, he lost his remaining Westphalian territories at Atteln and to Abdinghof Abbey in a legal case decided by Duke Henry the Lion. In 1155, he also lost the castles of Malsburg and Schartenberg to Archbishop Arnold of Mainz, since he had taken the side of Count Palatine in a feud. Several other counts who had supported the Count Palatine were convicted of breach of the peace by Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa, placed under the Imperial ban, and subjected to the humiliating punishment of the , but Berthold ignored the summons to Gelnhausen and the judgement. He instead established himself as a robber baron and bandit. For this, he used the Alteburg at Kohden as a base. He was finally forced to accept punishment by an Imperial command. According to folklore, after an attempt by his wife to save him, he was forced to accept punishment. Berthold II The next Count of Nidda, Berthold II (dead by 1205), probably Berthold I's son, was a close follower of Frederick Barbarossa. He gifted extensive possessions in Nidda, including the parish of Nitehe (Nidda) and its daughter churches in and Reichelshausen (now abandoned, east of ), as well as the revenues of twenty-six other places in the area between and in the north and , und in the south to the Order of St. John in 1187, for the protection of his parents' souls. The Order used this gift to establish their first commandery in