sentences:  Some historians link them to an even older dynasty, the Ezzonen, going back to the 9th century.The Limburg-Stirum were imperial counts within the Holy Roman Empire, until they were mediatised in 1806 by the Confederation of the Rhine.Although undisputedly a mediatised comital family, having enjoyed a dynastic status for over 600 years until the collapse of the Empire, they were omitted from the "Almanach de Gotha" because the branches of the family possessing mediatised lands were extinct by the time (1815) that the Congress of Vienna established the German Confederation's obligation to recognise their dynastic status.