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TheElector of Mainz[1] was one of the sevenPrince-electors of theHoly Roman Empire. As both the Archbishop of Mainz and the ruling prince of theElectorate of Mainz, the Elector of Mainz held a powerful position during theMiddle Ages. The Archbishop-Elector was president of the electoral college,archchancellor of the empire, and thePrimate of Germany as thepapal legate north of the Alps, until thedissolution of the empire in 1806.
The origin of the title dates back to 747, when the city ofMainz was made the seat of an archbishop, and a succession of able and ambitious prelates made the district under their rule a strong and vigorous state. Among these men were important figures in the history of Germany such asHatto I,Adalbert of Mainz,Siegfried III,Peter of Aspelt andAlbert of Brandenburg. There were several violent contests between rivals for the archbishopric, and their power struggles occasionally moved the citizens of Mainz to revolt. The lands of the elector lay around the city ofMainz on both banks of theRhine; their area reached 3200 sq. miles by the end of the Empire. The last elector wasKarl Theodor von Dalberg, who lost his temporal power when the archbishopric was secularized in 1803.
The Archbishop of Mainz was an influential ecclesiastic and secularprince in theHoly Roman Empire between 780–782 and 1802. In Church hierarchy, the Archbishop of Mainz was theprimas Germaniae, the substitute for the Pope north of the Alps. Aside from Rome, the See of Mainz is the only other see referred to as a "Holy See", although this usage became rather less common.
This archbishopric was a substantialecclesiastical principality of the Holy Roman Empire. The ecclesiastical principality included lands nearMainz on both the left and right banks of theRhine, as well as territory along theMain aboveFrankfurt (including the district ofAschaffenburg), theEichsfeld region in Lower Saxony and Thuringia, and the territory aroundErfurt inThuringia. The archbishop was also, traditionally, one of the ImperialPrince-Electors, theArch-chancellor ofGermany, and presiding officer of theelectoral college technically from 1251 and permanently from 1263 until 1803.
Thesee was established inancient Roman times, in the city ofMainz, which had been a Romanprovincial capital called Moguntiacum, but the office really came to prominence upon its elevation to anarchdiocese in 780/82. The first bishops before the 4th century have legendary names, beginning withCrescens. The first verifiable Bishop of Mainz was Martinus in 343. The ecclesiastical and secular importance of Mainz dates from the accession of St.Boniface to the see in 747. Boniface was previously an archbishop, but the honor did not immediately devolve upon the see itself until his successor Lullus.
In 1802, Mainz lost its archiepiscopal character. In the secularizations that accompanied theReichsdeputationshauptschluss ("German mediatization") of 1803, the seat of the elector,Karl Theodor von Dalberg, was moved toRegensburg, and the electorate lost its left bank territories toFrance, its right bank areas along the Main below Frankfurt toHesse-Darmstadt and theNassau princes, and Eichsfeld and Erfurt toPrussia. Dalberg retained the Aschaffenburg area however, and when the Holy Roman Empire finally came to an end in 1806, this became the core of Dalberg's newGrand Duchy of Frankfurt. Dalberg resigned in 1813 and in 1815 theCongress of Vienna divided his territories between the King ofBavaria, theElector of Hesse, the Grand Duke ofHesse-Darmstadt and the Free City ofFrankfurt.
The modernDiocese of Mainz was founded in 1802, within the territory ofFrance and in 1814 its jurisdiction was extended over the territory of Hesse-Darmstadt. Since then it has had twocardinals and via variousconcordats was allowed to retain the mediæval tradition of thecathedral chapter electing a successor to thebishop.
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