Ansbach-Bayreuth

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Ansbach-Bayreuth (after territorial reorganization) in 1805

Ansbach-Bayreuth or Margraviate Ansbach-Bayreuth is the abbreviation for a former Prussian administrative area that existed from 1792 until the end of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation in 1806. It consisted of the territories of the Principality of Ansbach and the Principality of Bayreuth , which were independent until 1791/1792 , but had been ruled by the last Franconian-Hohenzollern Margrave since 1769 . Although these two areas continued to exist formally independently after the takeover by Prussia , they were still administered centrally by a Prussian provincial administration based in Ansbach .

history

Ansbach-Bayreuth after being taken over by Prussia in 1792

Emergence

The Prussian administrative area of ​​Ansbach-Bayreuth was formed in 1792, after Karl Alexander, the last Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach (or, since 1769, also of Brandenburg-Bayreuth) in December 1791 in return for financial compensation (in the form of an annuity annually) 300,000 guilders) renounced his residency and ceded his domain to the Kingdom of Prussia. First, Karl August von Hardenberg took over the administration of the two territories. This resulted in a de facto reunification of the Hohenzollern burgraviate of Nuremberg under Hohenzollern-Prussian sovereignty, from whose division the three lines of the principalities and the electorate had emerged in the course of the 15th century.

This change began a turbulent time for the neighboring imperial rulers, because Prussia tried to create a closed national territory in Franconia:
The Peace of Teschen was concluded on May 13, 1779 in Teschen between Austria and the Kingdom of Prussia and ended the War of the Bavarian Succession . The provisions stipulated, among other things, that Austria received from Bavaria the areas of the Burghausen Rent Office located east of the Inn and Salzach , i.e. an area strip from Passau to the northern border of the Archbishopric of Salzburg . In return, Prussia's claims to the two Hohenzollern margravates of the Principality of Brandenburg-Ansbach and Brandenburg-Bayreuth were recognized (Articles 10 and 11, primogeniture and amalgamation in the event of settlement, treatment of associated fiefs in Bohemian areas).

The Principality of Ansbach was ruled several times in personal union with the Principality of Kulmbach (or Bayreuth since 1604) (1495–1515, 1557–1603 and 1769–1791), but it remained an independent territory under constitutional law until the end of the old empire . With the Principality of Bayreuth it was annexed to the Prussian state in 1791/1792 and jointly administered as Ansbach-Bayreuth initially by Karl August von Hardenberg . On June 9, 1791, Margrave Karl Alexander, he was already out of the country, gave Hardenberg full sovereign power, and on December 2, the abdication patent was signed in Bordeaux . On January 15, 1792, the Berlin cabinet ministry instructed Hardenberg to publish the change of government by publishing the abdication patent, as well as to make known the patent in office of Friedrich Wilhelm II dated January 5 . The leading minister Karl August Freiherr von Hardenberg (he had been in Ansbach in an advisory capacity since 1790) initially tried to amicably and contractually consolidate the area in the Franconian knight circle (territorium non clausum) by buying up rulers , but this only partially succeeded. He increased the pressure on the territories of the imperial knights through selective interventions and military actions, which for the most part opposed imperial law and the legal status of imperial knights . However, this idea of ​​a comprehensive contractual settlement to create a closed state territory had already failed in March 1793, which insisted on an unbridgeable gap between the constitutional and political views of the power-state oriented Prussian monarchy and the imperial knights. In a questionable way, Hardenberg drew the state sovereignty from the exercised blood jurisdiction ("Fraisch") (this claim was in part a point of contention with other rulers for centuries, for example with the imperial city of Nuremberg or the diocese of Eichstätt ) and derived the complete sovereign rights from it . Against the increasing attacks in the area of ​​the "policey" and the military and tax system, the knights sought support from the Franconian Circle and the Imperial Court, which initially limited itself to diplomatic initiatives. Apart from protests and lawsuits in Vienna and the notices there, including execution orders, nothing could be obtained in this way, let alone enforce these execution orders. Finally, towards the end of 1795 , the Reichshofrat, called on by the canton of Altmühl , issued two mandates in favor of the knighthood, ignored by Prussia, with the execution of which Bamberg and Saxe-Gotha were entrusted, and the protest notes in Berlin that several electors received under pressure from the Hofburg in Vienna were equally unimpressive addressed to the king. For example, almost all files in the archives and registry of the canton Altmühl were seized by an attack on November 22, 1796 by a government commission from Ansbach and taken to Ansbach in order to deprive the imperial knights of important documents for the conduct of the litigation. Soldiers were also used. This had been preceded by Prussian patent applications in the knightly lordships and imperial cities bordering Ansbach-Bayreuth (for example in the area in front of the city ​​walls in Dinkelsbühl and Nuremberg ) in February and March 1792. In 1798 the size of the Franconian knight circle was reduced by about a quarter to a third. The canton of Altmühl, which had been almost completely mediated, was particularly affected. In the Treaty of Schönbrunn of December 15, 1805, Prussia had to surrender the Principality of Ansbach-Bayreuth to France in exchange for the Electorate of Hanover .


The End

The Principality of Ansbach became Bavarian against the will of its population, who wanted to remain Prussian, in the course of the Napoleonic land consolidation in 1806.

The Third Coalition War ended with the Peace of Pressburg (December 26, 1805) and Bavaria received the Principality of Ansbach, among other things. The Bavarian King Max Joseph announced in the ownership patent dated May 20, 1806 that he was now the legal owner of the principality. In it he demanded of “the clergy, the knighthood, feudal people, inmates, civil and military servants, magistrates of the cities, and from all subjects, inhabitants, whose rank or dignity they may be, so graciously as seriously: that they should become ours Submit government, [...] ”. The king sent Carl Friedrich Graf von Thürheim (1762 / 63-1832, Bavarian Minister of the Interior from 1817) as the highest representative of the Bavarian authorities. The acquisition was significant as the territory of the margraviate / principality of Ansbach formed a land bridge between the old Bavarian and Swabian areas and the newly acquired Franconian areas.

The Principality of Bayreuth, on the other hand, remained under Prussian rule for another year, until after the defeat of Prussia in the fourth coalition war in 1807 it had to be ceded to the French Empire . As a so-called pays reservés (i.e. an area that should be available as negotiating assets) initially under French military administration for three years, it finally fell to the Kingdom of Bavaria in 1810 as well . This ended the history of this short-lived Prussian administrative area.

Administrative structure

See also

literature

  • Address manual for the Franconian principalities of Ansbach and Bayreuth . Publishing house of the two orphanages, Ansbach and Bayreuth 1801 ( digitized version ).
  • Johann Kaspar Bundschuh : Ansbach or Onolzbach, the principality . In: Geographical Statistical-Topographical Lexicon of Franconia . tape 1 : A-egg . Verlag der Stettinische Buchhandlung, Ulm 1799, DNB  790364298 , OCLC 833753073 , Sp. 88-137 ( digitized version ).
  • Friedrich Gottlob Leonhardi : Ansbach-Bayreuth . In: Earth description of the Franconian principalities of Bayreuth and Anspach . Hemmerde and Schwetschke, Halle 1797 ( digitized ).
  • M. Spindler, G. Diepolder: Bayerischer Geschichtsatlas , Munich 1969
  • M. Spindler, A. Kraus: History of Franconia up to the end of the 18th century , Munich 1997, ISBN 3-406-39451-5
  • Gerhard Taddey (ed.): Lexicon of German history . Events, institutions, people. From the beginning to the surrender in 1945. 3rd, revised edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-520-81303-3 .
  • Manfred Jehle: Ansbach . The margravial top offices Ansbach, Colmberg-Leutershausen, Windsbach, the Nuremberg Pflegamt Lichtenau and the German Order Office (Wolframs-) Eschenbach (=  Historical Atlas of Bavaria, Part I francs . Band 35 ). Commission for Bavarian State History, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-7696-6856-8 .
  • Teresa Neumeyer: Dinkelsbühl . The former district (=  Historical Atlas of Bavaria, Part I francs . Band 40 ). Commission for Bavarian State History, Munich 2018, ISBN 978-3-7696-6562-8 ( limited preview in Google book search).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.deutsche-biographie.de/sfz39014.html German biography: Karl Alexander
  2. ↑ Michael Puchta Mediatization "with skin and hair, body and life": The submission of the Imperial Knights by Ansbach-Bayreuth (1792–1798) Verlag Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2012; Page 183 ISBN 978-3-525-36078-1
  3. ↑ Michael Puchta Mediatization "with skin and hair, body and life": The submission of the Imperial Knights by Ansbach-Bayreuth (1792–1798) Verlag Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2012; Pages 183-515 ISBN 978-3-525-36078-1
  4. ↑ Michael Puchta Mediatization "with skin and hair, body and life": The submission of the Imperial Knights by Ansbach-Bayreuth (1792–1798) Verlag Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2012; Pages 517-688 ISBN 978-3-525-36078-1
  5. ↑ The House of Hohenzollern. A patriotic memorial book in pictures and words, Repr. D. Originals v. 1910, Europ.Geschichtsverlag 2011, ISBN 978-3-86382-072-5 , pages 175–176
  6. ^ "Possession-seizure patent for the Margraviate of Ansbach" from May 20, 1806