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Electorate of the Palatinate | |||||||||||||||||||||
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| 1085–1803 | |||||||||||||||||||||
_-_Numbered.svg) Map of the districts of the western part of Palatinate-Bavaria around 1789: 1: Frankenthal, 2: Mannheim, 3, 17: Heidelberg, 4: Alzey, 5: Bacharach, 6: Germersheim, 7: Kreuznach, 8: Neustadt, 9: Lautern, 10: Lauterecken, 11: Oppenheim, 12: Simmern, 13: Stromberg, 14: Veldenz, 15: Boxberg, 16: Bretten, 18: Ladenburg, 19: Lindenfels, 20: Mosbach, 21: Otzberg, 22: Umstadt | |||||||||||||||||||||
.svg) Territory of the Electoral Palatinate in 1618, prior to theThirty Years' War | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Status | State of theHoly Roman Empire | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Capital |
49°30′N8°01′E / 49.5°N 8.02°E /49.5; 8.02 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Common languages | German Palatine German | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Religion | Population:Roman Catholic (to 1556),Lutheran (1556–1563) andCalvinist (from 1563). Elector: Catholic (to 1530s, from 1685), Lutheran (1530s–1559, 1575–1583), Calvinist (1559–1575, 1583–1685). | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Government | Hereditary monarchy | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Elector | |||||||||||||||||||||
• 1085–1095 | Henry of Laach (first) | ||||||||||||||||||||
• 1799–1803 | Maximilian Joseph (last) | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Historical era | |||||||||||||||||||||
• Demotion of the Count Palatine ofLotharingia | 1085 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| 10 January 1356 | |||||||||||||||||||||
| 15 May – 24 October 1648 | |||||||||||||||||||||
• Subsumed byBavaria | 30 December 1777 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| 9 February 1801 | |||||||||||||||||||||
| 27 April 1803 | |||||||||||||||||||||
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| Today part of | |||||||||||||||||||||
TheElectoral Palatinate (/pəˈlætɪnɪt/;German:Kurpfalz) or thePalatinate (Pfalz), officially theElectorate of the Palatinate (Kurfürstentum Pfalz), was aconstituent state of theHoly Roman Empire.[1] The electorate had its origins under the rulership of theCounts Palatine of Lotharingia in 915; it was then restructured under theCounts Palatine of the Rhine in 1085. From 1214 until the Electoral Palatinate was merged into theKingdom of Bavaria in 1805, theHouse of Wittelsbach provided the Counts Palatine or Electors. These counts palatine of the Rhine would serve asprince-electors (Kurfürsten) from "time immemorial", and were noted as such in apapal letter of 1261; they were confirmed as electors by theGolden Bull of 1356.
The territory stretched from the left bank of theUpper Rhine, from theHunsrück mountain range in what is today thePalatinate region in the German federal state ofRhineland-Palatinate and the adjacent parts of the French regions ofAlsace andLorraine (bailiwick ofSeltz from 1418 to 1766) to the opposite territory on the east bank of the Rhine in present-dayHesse andBaden-Württemberg up to theOdenwald range and the southernKraichgau region, containing the capital cities ofHeidelberg andMannheim.
The counts palatine of the Rhine held the office ofimperial vicars in the territories underFrankish law (inFranconia,Swabia and theRhineland) and ranked among the most significant secularPrinces of the Holy Roman Empire. In 1541 electorOtto Henry converted toLutheranism. Their climax and decline is marked by the rule of Elector PalatineFrederick V, whose coronation asking of Bohemia in 1619 sparked theThirty Years' War. After the 1648Peace of Westphalia, the ravaged lands were further afflicted by theReunion campaigns launched by KingLouis XIV of France, culminating in theNine Years' War (1688–97). Ruled in personal union with theElectorate of Bavaria from 1777, the Palatinate was finally disestablished with theGerman mediatization and annexation byBaden on 27 April 1803 and the rest eventually to the Kingdom of Bavaria as theCircle of the Rhine.
The comital office of Count Palatine at the Frankish court of KingChildebert I was already mentioned about 535. The Counts Palatine were the permanent representatives of the king in particular geographic areas, in contrast to the semi-independent authority of the dukes (and their successors). Under theMerovingian dynasty, the position had been a purely appointed one, but by the Middle Ages had evolved into an hereditary one.
Up to the tenth century, the Frankish empire was centered at the royal palace (Pfalz) inAachen, in what had become theCarolingian kingdom ofLotharingia. Consequently, the Count Palatine of Lotharingia became the most important of the Counts Palatine. Marital alliances meant that, by the Middle Ages, most Count Palatine positions had been inherited by the duke of the associated province, but the importance of the Count Palatine of Lotharingia enabled it to remain as an independent position.
In 985,Herman I, a scion of theEzzonids, is mentioned as count palatine of Lotharingia (which by then had been divided into Upper andLower Lotharingia). While his Palatine authority operated over the whole ofUpper Lorraine, the feudal territories of his family were instead scattered around south-western Franconia, including parts of the Rhineland aroundCologne andBonn, and areas around the riversMoselle andNahe.
In continual conflicts with the rivallingArchbishops of Cologne, he changed the emphasis of his rule to the southernEifel region and further to the Upper Rhine, where theEzzonid dynasty governed several counties on both banks of the river. The southernmost point was nearAlzey.[2]
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From about 1085/86, after the death of the last Ezzonian count palatineHerman II, Palatinate authority ceased to have any military significance in Lotharingia. In practice, the Count Palatinate's Palatine authority had collapsed, reducing his successor (Henry of Laach) to a mere feudal magnate over his own territories – along the Upper Rhine in south-western Franconia. From this time on, his territory became known as the County Palatine of the Rhine (not because Palatine authority existed there, but as an acknowledgement that the Count still held the title, if not the authority, of Count Palatine).
Various noble dynasties competed to be enfeoffed with the Palatinate by theHoly Roman Emperor – among them theHouse of Ascania, theHouse of Salm (CountOtto I of Salm in 1040) and theHouse of Babenberg (Henry Jasomirgott in 1140/41).
The first hereditary Count Palatine of the Rhine wasConrad, a member of theHouse of Hohenstaufen and younger half-brother of EmperorFrederick Barbarossa. The territories attached to this hereditary office in 1156 started from those held by the Hohenstaufens in theDonnersberg,Nahegau,Haardt,Bergstraße and Kraichgau regions (other branches of the Hohenstaufens received lands in theDuchy of Swabia,Franche-Comté, and so forth). Much of this was from their imperial ancestors, theSalian emperors, and apart from Conrad's maternal ancestry, the Counts ofSaarbrücken. These backgrounds explain the composition of Upper and Rhenish Palatinate in the inheritance centuries onwards. About 1182, Conrad moved his residence fromStahleck Castle nearBacharach up the Rhine river toHeidelberg.
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Upon Conrad's death in 1195, the Palatinate passed to theHouse of Welf through the (secret) marriage of his daughterAgnes withHenry of Brunswick. When Henry's sonHenry the Younger died without heirs in 1214, the Hohenstaufen kingFrederick II enfeoffed theWittelsbach DukeLouis I of Bavaria, whose son,Otto II of Bavaria, marriedAgnes of the Palatinate, daughter ofHenry of Brunswick andAgnes of Hohenstaufen, in 1222. The Bavarian House of Wittelsbach eventually held the Palatinate territories until 1918.
During a later division of territory among the heirs of DukeLouis II, Duke of Upper Bavaria, in 1294, the elder branch of the Wittelsbachs came into possession of both the Rhenish Palatinate and the territories in theBavarian Nordgau (Bavaria north of the Danube river) with the centre around the town ofAmberg. As this region was politically connected to the Rhenish Palatinate, the nameUpper Palatinate (German:Oberpfalz) became common from the early 16th century in contrast to the Lower Palatinate along the Rhine.
With theTreaty of Pavia in 1329, the Wittelsbach EmperorLouis IV, a son of Louis II, returned the Palatinate to his nephewsRudolf andRupert I.
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In theGolden Bull of 1356, the Palatinate was recognized as one of the secular electorates, and given the hereditary offices of archsteward (German:Erztruchseß,Latin:Archidapifer) of the Empire and imperial vicar (Reichsverweser) of Franconia, Swabia, the Rhine, and southern Germany. From that time forth, the Count Palatine of the Rhine was usually known as the Elector Palatine (German:Kurfürst von der Pfalz,Latin:Palatinus elector). In 1386, Rupert I helped establish theUniversity of Heidelberg, the oldest University inGermany.
In 1400, the Elector Palatine,Rupert III, was elected asKing of the Romans, but he was never crowned as Holy Roman Emperor because he was defeated in Italy while attempting to travel to Rome for a coronation.
Due to the practice of dividing territories among different branches of the family, by the early 16th century junior lines of the Palatine Wittelsbachs came to rule inSimmern,Kaiserslautern, andZweibrücken in the Lower Palatinate, and inNeuburg andSulzbach in the Upper Palatinate. The Elector Palatine, now based in Heidelberg, adopted Lutheranism in the 1530s; when the senior branch of the family died out in 1559, the electorate passed toFrederick III of Simmern, a staunchCalvinist, and the Palatinate became one of the major centers of Calvinism in Europe, supporting Calvinist rebellions in both theNetherlands andFrance. ElectorFrederick IV became the leader of theProtestant Union in 1608.
In 1619, the ProtestantFrederick V, Elector Palatine, accepted the throne ofBohemia from theBohemian Diet. This initiated the 1618–1648Thirty Years' War, one of the most destructive conflicts in human history; it caused over eight million fatalities from military action, violence, famine, and plague in the vast majority in the German states of the Holy Roman Empire.[3] In terms of proportional German casualties and destruction, it was surpassed only by the period January to May 1945 and remains the single greatest war trauma in German memory.[4]
Frederick was evicted from Bohemia in 1620 following his defeat by the forces ofFerdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor, at theBattle of the White Mountain. Over the period 1621–1622, the Palatinate was occupied by Spanish and Bavarian troops and Frederick was exiled to theDutch Republic. His territories and electoral rights were transferred to the distantly related but CatholicMaximilian I of Bavaria, Duke of Bavaria and now Prince Elector Palatine.
After his death in 1632, Frederick's daughterPrincess Elizabeth and wifeElizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia, worked tirelessly to have the Palatinate restored to her sonCharles Louis and the Protestant cause. When thePeace of Westphalia ended the war in 1648, he regained the Lower Palatinate and the title 'Elector Palatine' but now ranked lower in precedence than the others. He was succeeded byCharles II, Elector Palatine, in 1680, but the Simmern branch became extinct in the male line after he died in 1685.
In 1670, Charles II's sisterElizabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate marriedPhilippe of Orléans, younger brother ofLouis XIV; on this basis, Louis claimed the Rhineland territories of the Palatinate for France. However, he was outmaneuvered byLeopold I, Holy Roman Emperor, whose third wife wasEleonore-Magdalena of Pfalz-Neuburg, eldest daughter ofPhilip William, a Catholic who was the closest male heir in the direct line. Leopold installed his father-in-law as Elector Palatine, ensuring that his electoral vote and this strategic region remained in Imperial control.[5]
When France invaded the Palatinate in September 1688 to enforce its claim, these wider connections meant the conflict rapidly escalated, leading to the outbreak of theNine Years' War. The French were forced to withdraw in 1689 but before doing so, destroyed much of Heidelberg, another 20 substantial towns and numerous villages.[6] This destruction was systematically applied across a large section of the Rhineland but especially the Palatinate, which was raided again in 1693; the devastation shocked much of Europe.[7] France later renounced its claim to the region in the 1697Treaty of Ryswick.
Johann Wilhelm succeeded as elector in 1690, changing his residence first toDüsseldorf, then back to Heidelberg and finallyMannheim in 1720. Like his father, he was a Catholic, which under the 1555Peace of Augsburg meant the Protestant majority in the Palatinate was theoretically obliged to convert to Catholicism. The 1705 'Palatine Church Division' compromised by allocating five-sevenths of public church property to the Reformed or Calvinist church and the remainder to Catholicism, while excluding the Lutheran Church, whose membership exceeded 40% of the population in some areas.[8]
In 1716,Charles Philip succeeded his brother as elector and in January 1742, helped his cousinCharles Albert become the first non-Habsburg emperor in over 300 years.[9] He died in December and the Palatinate passed toCharles Theodore, then Duke ofSulzbach, who also inherited theElectorate of Bavaria in 1777. The title and authority of the two electorates were combined, Charles and his heirs retaining only the vote and precedence of the Bavarian elector, although continuing to use the title 'Count Palatine of the Rhine'.
The Palatine territories on theleft bank of the Rhine were annexed byFrance in 1795, mainly becoming part of theMont-Tonnerre department. In 1799 Elector Charles Theodore died and the territory was inherited by the Duke ofPalatine Zweibrücken, uniting all the Wittelsbach lands. The loss of the left bank territories was accepted by the new ElectorMaximilian Joseph in theTreaty of Paris.[10] Those on the right were taken by theElector of Baden, after the 1805Peace of Pressburg dissolved the Holy Roman Empire; the remaining Wittelsbach territories were united by Maximilian Joseph as theKingdom of Bavaria.[11]
| Coat of arms of the Electoral Palatinate | |
|---|---|
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| Armiger | Elector of the Palatinate |
In 1156Conrad of Hohenstaufen, brother of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, became Count Palatine. The old coat of arms of theHouse of Hohenstaufen, the single lion, became coat of arms of the Palatinate.[citation needed]
By marriage, the Palatinate's arms also became[year needed] quartered with those of Welf and later Wittelsbach.[12] The arms of Bavaria were used with reference to the elector's holdings in Bavaria. This was extended to quartering of the lion and the Bavarian Arms upon the ascension ofMaximilian I to the position of elector of the Palatinate in 1623, used concurrently with the arms shown. From 1356 onwards, theorb represented their position as Arch-Steward of the Holy Roman Empire.
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In 1806,Baden was raised to a grand duchy and parts of the former Palatinate including Mannheim became part of it. At theCongress of Vienna in 1814 and 1815, southern parts of the left-bank Palatinate were restored and enlarged by mediatisation (consuming the formerPrince-Bishopric of Speyer, the Free Imperial City ofSpeyer, and others) up to the new border with France, and given (temporarily) to the HabsburgAustrian Empire; after this time, it wasthis new region that was principally known as "the Palatinate". The right-bank Palatinate remained with Baden while northern parts became part ofPrussia (Rhine Province) andHesse (Rhenish Hesse).
In 1816, the Palatinate became a formal part of the WittelsbachKingdom of Bavaria (theRheinkreis orCircle of the Rhine) in a pre-arranged exchange forTyrol, which Bavaria returned to Austria. Most of the area remained a part of Bavaria until after the Second World War (after 1918 theFree State of Bavaria), withsome western parts becoming part of theTerritory of the Saar Basin after World War I.
In September 1946 the territory was made part of the federal state ofRhineland-Palatinate, along with former left bank territories ofPrussia (southern part of the Rhine Province, including the formerPrincipality of Birkenfeld which had been an exclave ofOldenburg until 1937, and western parts of theProvince of Nassau) and Rhenish Hesse. The former Territory of the Saar Basin was reinstated and expanded to create the FrenchSaar Protectorate, which returned to Germany in 1956 as the modern state ofSaarland.
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