HESSE, HESSEN, or HESSIA, a country of Germany, formerly constituting a province of the empire, under the charge of a landgrave. It formed part of the circle of the Upper Rhine, and was situated on the rivers Rhine and Mayn, to the N. and S. of Frankfort, being about 150 miles in length, with a varying breadth. The northern portion, or Hesse-Proper, was anciently included in the landgraviate of Thuringia; but in the year 1247, it passed by inheritance to Henry the Child, a prince of Brabant, in right of
his mother. From him it descended to Philip the Magnanimous, so well known in the history of the Reformation; and by his sons it was divided into several principalities, the princes of each of which retained the ancestral title of landgrave. After undergoing various changes through family successions and political revolutions, the ancient and acquired territories of the Hessian princes are now divided into three sovereign states, members of the Germanic confederation, and named respectively,—1. Kur-Hessen, called also Hesse-Cassel or Electoral-Hesse; 2. Grand-ducal Hesse, or Hesse-Darmstadt; and 3. Hesse-Homburg.