County of Horne

{{Short description|Historic county of the Holy Roman Empire}}

{{Infobox Former Country

|native_name = {{native name|li|Graofsjap Häör}}
{{native name|nl|Graafschap Horn}}

|conventional_long_name = County of Horne

|common_name = Horne

|era = Middle Ages

|status = County

|empire = Holy Roman Empire

|event_start =

|year_start = 920

|date_start =

|event_end = Annexed by France

|year_end = 1795

|date_end =

|event1 = Personal union

|date_event1 = 1568

|event_post = Concordat

|date_post = 10 September 1801

|p1 = Maasgau

|s1 = Meuse-Inférieure

|s2 = French First Republic

|image_coat = Blason ville nl Horn(Limburg).svg

|image_map = Locator Lordship of Horne (1350).svg

|image_map_caption = Lordship of Horne (1350)

|capital = Horn

|common_languages = Limburgish, Dutch

|religion = Roman Catholicism

}}

File:Comté de Horn, Vaugondy 1748.jpg

Image:Thorn, Horn, Kessenich.PNG

File:HORN-002.JPG

Horne (also Horn, Hoorn or Hoorne) is a small historic county of the Holy Roman Empire in the present day Netherlands and Belgium. It takes its name from the village Horn, west of Roermond. The residence of the counts of Horne was moved from Horn to Weert in the 15th century.

After the execution in 1568 of Philip de Montmorency who died without male heirs, the Prince-Bishop of Liège, as suzerain of Horne, was declared the direct lord and new count. The bishops ruled the county in personal union. Horne maintained its own laws and customs as well as its financial autonomy. The county included the communes of Neer, Nunhem, Haelen, Buggenum, Roggel, Heythuysen, Horne, Beegden, Geystingen and Ophoven.Bulletin de la Commission centrale de statistique, Brussels, 1857, vol. 7, p. 136.

It was suppressed in 1795, when it was occupied by the French, and it became part of the French département Meuse-Inférieure.