Princes of the Holy Roman Empire
Encyclopedia
The term Prince of the Holy Roman Empire denoted a secular or ecclesiastical Imperial State
, who ruled over an immediate fief directly assigned by the Holy Roman Emperor
. There were two principal types of princes; those who had territory and sovereignty
and those who were honorary, having the title but no lands or territories and no claim to sovereignty
.
The estate of imperial princes or Reichsfürstenstand was first established in a legal sense in the Late Middle Ages
. The title of imperial prince and its associated imperial immediacy, however, bestowed a certain degree of legal security that made another, more powerful, nobleman dependent on the prince.
at the Reichstag
of Gelnhausen
, in which he divested Duke Henry the Lion
of Saxony
and Bavaria
. About fifty years later, Eike von Repgow
codified it as a emanation of feudal law recorded in his Sachsenspiegel
. As the term developed into a certain rank of nobility, in its proper sense, the effective princely states of the Holy Roman Empire
had to meet three requirements:
Not all states met all three requirements, so one may distinguish between effective and honorary princes of the Holy Roman Empire.
The Princes of the Empire ranked below the seven Prince-elector
s designated by the Golden Bull of 1356
, but above the Reichsgrafen
(Counts), Freiherr
en (barons) and Imperial prelates, who formed with them the Council of Princes at the Reichstag assemblies, but only held collective votes. About 1180 the secular Princes comprised the Herzöge (Dukes) who generally ruled larger territories within the Empire in the tradtion of the former German stem duchies
, but also the Counts of Anhalt
and Namur, the Landgraves of Thuringia
and the Margraves of Meissen.
From the 13th century onwards, further estates were formally raised to the princely status by the emperor. Among the most important of these were the Welf descendants of Henry the Lion in Brunswick-Lüneburg
, elevated to Princes of the Empire and vested with the ducal title by Emperor Frederick II
in 1235, and the Landgraves of Hesse
in 1292. The resolutions of the 1582 Reichstag at Augsburg
explicitly stated that the status was inextricably linked with the possession of a particular Imperial territory. Later elevated noble families like the Fürstenberg
, Liechtenstein
or Thurn und Taxis
dynasties subsequently began to refer to their territory as a "principality" and assumed the awarded rank of a Prince
(Fürst) as a hereditary title
. Most of the Counts who ruled territories were raised to Princely rank in the decades before the end of the Empire in 1806.
Ecclesiastical Princes were the Prince-Bishop
s (including the Prince-Archbishops of Besançon, Bremen, Magdeburg
and Salzburg
) as well as the actual Prince-abbot
s. They comprised a number of political entities which were secularized and mediatized after the 1648 Peace of Westphalia
, resp. fell to France
or the independent Swiss Confederacy
.
Imperial State
An Imperial State or Imperial Estate was an entity in the Holy Roman Empire with a vote in the Imperial Diet assemblies. Several territories of the Empire were not represented, while some officials were non-voting members; neither qualified as Imperial States.Rulers of Imperial States were...
, who ruled over an immediate fief directly assigned by the Holy Roman Emperor
Holy Roman Emperor
The Holy Roman Emperor is a term used by historians to denote a medieval ruler who, as German King, had also received the title of "Emperor of the Romans" from the Pope...
. There were two principal types of princes; those who had territory and sovereignty
Sovereignty
Sovereignty is the quality of having supreme, independent authority over a geographic area, such as a territory. It can be found in a power to rule and make law that rests on a political fact for which no purely legal explanation can be provided...
and those who were honorary, having the title but no lands or territories and no claim to sovereignty
Sovereignty
Sovereignty is the quality of having supreme, independent authority over a geographic area, such as a territory. It can be found in a power to rule and make law that rests on a political fact for which no purely legal explanation can be provided...
.
The estate of imperial princes or Reichsfürstenstand was first established in a legal sense in the Late Middle Ages
Late Middle Ages
The Late Middle Ages was the period of European history generally comprising the 14th to the 16th century . The Late Middle Ages followed the High Middle Ages and preceded the onset of the early modern era ....
. The title of imperial prince and its associated imperial immediacy, however, bestowed a certain degree of legal security that made another, more powerful, nobleman dependent on the prince.
Imperial state
A particular estate of "the Princes" was first mentioned in the 1180 decree issued by Emperor Frederick BarbarossaFrederick I, Holy Roman Emperor
Frederick I Barbarossa was a German Holy Roman Emperor. He was elected King of Germany at Frankfurt on 4 March 1152 and crowned in Aachen on 9 March, crowned King of Italy in Pavia in 1155, and finally crowned Roman Emperor by Pope Adrian IV, on 18 June 1155, and two years later in 1157 the term...
at the Reichstag
Reichstag (Holy Roman Empire)
The Imperial Diet was the Diet, or general assembly, of the Imperial Estates of the Holy Roman Empire.During the period of the Empire, which lasted formally until 1806, the Diet was not a parliament in today's sense; instead, it was an assembly of the various estates of the realm...
of Gelnhausen
Gelnhausen
Gelnhausen is a town and the capital of the Main-Kinzig-Kreis, in Hesse, Germany. It is located approx. 40 kilometers east of Frankfurt am Main, between the Vogelsberg mountains and the Spessart range at the river Kinzig...
, in which he divested Duke Henry the Lion
Henry the Lion
Henry the Lion was a member of the Welf dynasty and Duke of Saxony, as Henry III, from 1142, and Duke of Bavaria, as Henry XII, from 1156, which duchies he held until 1180....
of Saxony
Duchy of Saxony
The medieval Duchy of Saxony was a late Early Middle Ages "Carolingian stem duchy" covering the greater part of Northern Germany. It covered the area of the modern German states of Bremen, Hamburg, Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia, and Saxony-Anhalt and most of Schleswig-Holstein...
and Bavaria
History of Bavaria
The history of Bavaria stretches from its earliest settlement and its formation as a stem duchy in the 6th century through its inclusion in the Holy Roman Empires to its status as an independent kingdom and, finally, as a large and significant Bundesland of the modern Federal Republic of...
. About fifty years later, Eike von Repgow
Eike von Repgow
Eike von Repgow from Repgow, now Reppichau in Saxony-Anhalt), was a medieval German administrator who compiled the Sachsenspiegel in the Thirteenth Century.-The Sachsenspiegel:...
codified it as a emanation of feudal law recorded in his Sachsenspiegel
Sachsenspiegel
The Sachsenspiegel is the most important law book and legal code of the German Middle Ages. Written ca...
. As the term developed into a certain rank of nobility, in its proper sense, the effective princely states of the Holy Roman Empire
Holy Roman Empire
The Holy Roman Empire was a realm that existed from 962 to 1806 in Central Europe.It was ruled by the Holy Roman Emperor. Its character changed during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period, when the power of the emperor gradually weakened in favour of the princes...
had to meet three requirements:
- the superior territorial rule and derivative regaliaDroit de régaleDroit de régale, a medieval legal term, originally denoted those rights that belonged exclusively to the king, either as essential to his sovereignty , such as royal authority; or accidental , such as the right of the chase, of fishing, mining, etc...
, i.e. royal sovereign rights, over an immediate fief of the Empire - a direct vote (votum virile) and a seat in the Reichstag
- a direct participation in the expenses and the military banBan (medieval)The ban was a political and territorial institution in the Frankish kingdoms, meaning a grant of power to command men. Following its civil, military or religious meanings, it ended up as a metonym for territory where such a grant applied...
of the Empire.
Not all states met all three requirements, so one may distinguish between effective and honorary princes of the Holy Roman Empire.
The Princes of the Empire ranked below the seven Prince-elector
Prince-elector
The Prince-electors of the Holy Roman Empire were the members of the electoral college of the Holy Roman Empire, having the function of electing the Roman king or, from the middle of the 16th century onwards, directly the Holy Roman Emperor.The heir-apparent to a prince-elector was known as an...
s designated by the Golden Bull of 1356
Golden Bull of 1356
The Golden Bull of 1356 was a decree issued by the Reichstag assembly in Nuremberg headed by the Luxembourg Emperor Charles IV that fixed, for a period of more than four hundred years, important aspects of the constitutional structure of the Holy Roman Empire...
, but above the Reichsgrafen
Graf
Graf is a historical German noble title equal in rank to a count or a British earl...
(Counts), Freiherr
Freiherr
The German titles Freiherr and Freifrau and Freiin are titles of nobility, used preceding a person's given name or, after 1919, before the surname...
en (barons) and Imperial prelates, who formed with them the Council of Princes at the Reichstag assemblies, but only held collective votes. About 1180 the secular Princes comprised the Herzöge (Dukes) who generally ruled larger territories within the Empire in the tradtion of the former German stem duchies
Stem duchy
Stem duchies were essentially the domains of the old German tribes of the area, associated with the Frankish Kingdom, especially the East, in the Early Middle Ages. These tribes were originally the Franks, the Saxons, the Alamanni, the Burgundians, the Thuringii, and the Rugii...
, but also the Counts of Anhalt
Anhalt
Anhalt was a sovereign county in Germany, located between the Harz Mountains and the river Elbe in Middle Germany. It now forms part of the state of Saxony-Anhalt.- Dukes of Anhalt :...
and Namur, the Landgraves of Thuringia
Thuringia
The Free State of Thuringia is a state of Germany, located in the central part of the country.It has an area of and 2.29 million inhabitants, making it the sixth smallest by area and the fifth smallest by population of Germany's sixteen states....
and the Margraves of Meissen.
From the 13th century onwards, further estates were formally raised to the princely status by the emperor. Among the most important of these were the Welf descendants of Henry the Lion in Brunswick-Lüneburg
Brunswick-Lüneburg
The Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg , or more properly Duchy of Brunswick and Lüneburg, was an historical ducal state from the late Middle Ages until the late Early Modern era within the North-Western domains of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, in what is now northern Germany...
, elevated to Princes of the Empire and vested with the ducal title by Emperor Frederick II
Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor
Frederick II , was one of the most powerful Holy Roman Emperors of the Middle Ages and head of the House of Hohenstaufen. His political and cultural ambitions, based in Sicily and stretching through Italy to Germany, and even to Jerusalem, were enormous...
in 1235, and the Landgraves of Hesse
Landgraviate of Hesse
The Landgraviate of Hesse was a Landgraviate of the Holy Roman Empire. It existed as a unity from 1264 to 1567, when it was divided between the sons of Philip I, Landgrave of Hesse.-History:...
in 1292. The resolutions of the 1582 Reichstag at Augsburg
Augsburg
Augsburg is a city in the south-west of Bavaria, Germany. It is a university town and home of the Regierungsbezirk Schwaben and the Bezirk Schwaben. Augsburg is an urban district and home to the institutions of the Landkreis Augsburg. It is, as of 2008, the third-largest city in Bavaria with a...
explicitly stated that the status was inextricably linked with the possession of a particular Imperial territory. Later elevated noble families like the Fürstenberg
Fürstenberg (princely family)
Fürstenberg is the name of a noble house in Germany, based primarily in southern Baden-Württemberg. The family derives its name from the fortified town of the line's founder, Count Heinrich von Fürstenberg, today part of Hüfingen...
, Liechtenstein
Princely Family of Liechtenstein
The Liechtenstein dynasty, from which the principality takes its name, is the family which reigns by constitutional, hereditary right over the nation of Liechtenstein...
or Thurn und Taxis
Thurn und Taxis
The Princely House of Thurn and Taxis is a German family that was a key player in the postal services in Europe in the 16th century and is well known as owners of breweries and builders of many castles.- History :...
dynasties subsequently began to refer to their territory as a "principality" and assumed the awarded rank of a Prince
Prince
Prince is a general term for a ruler, monarch or member of a monarch's or former monarch's family, and is a hereditary title in the nobility of some European states. The feminine equivalent is a princess...
(Fürst) as a hereditary title
Hereditary Title
Hereditary titles, in a general sense, are titles, positions or styles that are hereditary and thus tend or are bound to remain in particular families....
. Most of the Counts who ruled territories were raised to Princely rank in the decades before the end of the Empire in 1806.
Ecclesiastical Princes were the Prince-Bishop
Prince-Bishop
A Prince-Bishop is a bishop who is a territorial Prince of the Church on account of one or more secular principalities, usually pre-existent titles of nobility held concurrently with their inherent clerical office...
s (including the Prince-Archbishops of Besançon, Bremen, Magdeburg
Archbishopric of Magdeburg
The Archbishopric of Magdeburg was a Roman Catholic archdiocese and Prince-Bishopric of the Holy Roman Empire centered on the city of Magdeburg on the Elbe River....
and Salzburg
Archbishopric of Salzburg
The Archbishopric of Salzburg was an ecclesiastical State of the Holy Roman Empire, its territory roughly congruent with the present-day Austrian state of Salzburg....
) as well as the actual Prince-abbot
Prince-abbot
A Prince-Abbot is a title for a cleric who is a Prince of the Church , in the sense of an ex officio temporal lord of a feudal entity, notably a State of the Holy Roman Empire. The secular territory ruled by the head of an abbey is known as Prince-Abbacy or Abbey-principality...
s. They comprised a number of political entities which were secularized and mediatized after the 1648 Peace of Westphalia
Peace of Westphalia
The Peace of Westphalia was a series of peace treaties signed between May and October of 1648 in Osnabrück and Münster. These treaties ended the Thirty Years' War in the Holy Roman Empire, and the Eighty Years' War between Spain and the Dutch Republic, with Spain formally recognizing the...
, resp. fell to France
Early Modern France
Kingdom of France is the early modern period of French history from the end of the 15th century to the end of the 18th century...
or the independent Swiss Confederacy
Old Swiss Confederacy
The Old Swiss Confederacy was the precursor of modern-day Switzerland....
.
Honorary title
The honorary status of prince of the Holy Roman Empire might be granted to certain individuals. These individuals included:- Independent sovereigns outside the Empire (such as the Sovereign Military Order of Malta)
- Sovereigns who were vassals, but outside its territory (i.e. the Prince of PiombinoPrincipality of PiombinoThe Principality of Piombino was a state of Italy, which existed from 1399 to 1805, when Napoleon absorbed it into the Principality of Lucca and Piombino...
) - Members of the Empire, like the Princes Kinsky or Paar, and those who never had a vote or seat, but held a seat as count in one or several of the four comital councils, or those who had neither a vote nor a seat in the Imperial DietImperial DietImperial Diet means the highest representative assembly in an empire, notably:* the historic institution of the Imperial Diet , either the estates in the Holy Roman Empire...
(as Salm-Reifferscheidt-Raitz) - Foreigners of note, such as the Princes of Belmonte, the Princes ChigiChigi-Albaniframe|Portrait of the later Agostino Chigi, nephew of Alexander VII.Chigi is a Roman princely family of Sienese extraction descended from the counts of Ardenghesca, which possessed castles in the Maremma, southern Tuscany...
, the Princes Orsini, the Princes OrloffOrlovOrlov is the name of a Russian noble family which produced several distinguished statesmen, diplomatists and soldiers. The family first gained distinction in the person of four Orlov brothers, of whom the senior was Catherine the Great's paramour, and the two junior were notable military...
, the Princes Potemkin, LubomirskiLubomirskiLubomirski family is a Polish szlachta family. The family used the "Szreniawa without a cross" arms and their motto was: Nil conscire sibi ....
, or RadziwillRadziwillThe Radziwiłł family is an noble family of Lithuanian origin. The descendants of Kristinas Astikas, a close associate of the 14th century Lithuanian ruler Vytautas, were highly prominent for centuries, first in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, later in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the...
, or the Dukes of Marlborough