Bavarian Imperial Circle

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The Bavarian Reichskreis (olive) on a district map of the empire , status around 1630

The Bavarian Imperial Circle (referred to at the time as the Bairischer Kreis ) is one of initially six, later ten Imperial Circles into which King Maximilian I divided most of the territories of the Holy Roman Empire from 1500 onwards . The district existed until 1806.

geography

The Bavarian Empire essentially comprised the area known today as Altbayern (including the Upper Palatinate since 1628 ) and the Salzburg region . Compared to other imperial circles, the Bavarian Empire was a largely closed area, with the Duchy of Bavaria and the Archbishopric of Salzburg as the leading powers.

history

Already King Sigismund had in 1415 in Konstanz submit a first circular design of the four districts (Rhineland, Swabia, Franconia and Central Germany) provided for each with a District Chief and mutual defense commitment. At the Augsburg Reichstag of 1500 , under King Maximilian I, a Reich execution order was created to carry out the Reich execution against violators of the peace as well as to enforce the Reich Chamber Court judgments , and the Reich was divided into six districts, which also included the Bavarian Imperial Circle. Counted the not to Bavarian Circle at the beginning kurpfälzische Oberpfalz that the Kurrheinischen circle was counted. The Upper Palatinate only became part of the Reichskreis when the Duchy of Bavaria itself rose to become an electorate with the transfer of the Palatinate cure to Maximilian I in 1623/28 . As early as 1602, the Degenberg rule fell to the Duchy of Bavaria. Around the middle of the 17th century, a few new secular classes were added.

For the Duchy of Bavaria , the associated imperial circle played an important role in relation to the partly territorially interspersed and neighboring imperial estates. Although the Duchy of Bavaria always remained the dominant power in the district, which in addition to the directorate, which alternated with Salzburg, was also responsible for the supervision of coins and the office of district bishop , the district organization retained its supra-territorial function during its existence. Until the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss 1803, the district not only offered protection in a not always tension-free relationship between the Bavarian Wittelsbachers and the imperial city of Regensburg , which was enclosed by its state territory and which has had a special symbolic value since 1663 as the site of the Perpetual Reichstag and seat of the principal commissioner and European diplomats of high rank for the Reichsverband was overgrown. The district also stabilized the position of the Hochstift Freising , which from the Bavarian point of view was repeatedly referred to as "our pastor". The imperial circle created the basis for the not only constitutionally significant neighboring coexistence with the prince-archbishopric of Salzburg , the monasteries of Passau and Regensburg , the prince-provost of Berchtesgaden or the smaller secular lordships of Ortenburg , Hohenwaldeck and Haag in the vicinity of the duchy . At the end of the 18th century, after numerous territorial acquisitions, the Wittelsbachers were able to pool nine of the twenty votes in the convention, which further increased the predominance of the Duchy of Bavaria in the committee. With the secularization in Bavaria in 1803 and the conversion of the Archbishopric of Salzburg into the Electorate of Salzburg, the importance of the imperial circle dwindled. The final dissolution came with the end of the Holy Roman Empire on August 6, 1806 with the laying down of the imperial crown by Emperor Franz II.

Imperial estates of the district

According to the district division of 1521/1532, the imperial circle included only 21 imperial estates , of which twelve were clergy princes or prelates, namely the archbishop of Salzburg , the bishops of Passau, Freising, Regensburg and Chiemsee, the provost of Berchtesgaden , the abbots of Waldsassen , Rott am Inn, Kaisheim and St. Emmeram as well as the abbesses of Niedermünster and Obermünster in Regensburg. Eight secular princes, counts and lords, in particular the dukes of Bavaria, the dukes of Pfalz-Neuburg and the landgraves of Leuchtenberg, the counts of Haag, Ortenberg (Ortenburg), barons of Stauff and Ehrenfels, the lords of Degenberg , von Wolfstein as Freiherr zu Ober-Sulzbürg (and Pyrbaum) . The only imperial city in the area of ​​the district was Regensburg , after all the seat of the Perpetual Reichstag .

The imperial immediacy of the Chiemsee Monastery was soon successfully contested by the Archbishop of Salzburg and the Rott am Inn Abbey by the Bavarian Duke. In contrast, the Hohen-Waldeck rule was added as a new imperial and district estate in 1559. The Elector Palatinate had successfully achieved that his property in Northern Bavaria, the Upper Palatinate, was not part of the Bavarian District, but - in accordance with the personal character of the estate and despite the geographical remoteness - like the rest of the electoral domain, was part of the Kurheinische Kreis . He also succeeded in subjugating the Waldsassen Abbey on the northern edge of the Upper Palatinate to his bailiwick and thus alienating it from the Bavarian district. After the defeat of Elector Frederick V in the Battle of White Mountain near Prague on November 8, 1620, the Upper Palatinate fell to the Duchy of Bavaria and was re-Catholicized .

Around the middle of the 17th century, some new classes were added, such as the dominions Breiteneck (Count Tilly) and Störnstein (Prince Lobkowitz ). The Wittelsbach branch of the Pfalz-Sulzbach family also gained its own sovereignty in 1656 and - albeit not until 1697 - a seat and vote not only in the Reichstag, but also in the Bavarian district council.

Since the Bavarian dukes knew how to secure the revocation of their fiefdoms or prospective rights in the event of the extinction of other noble families directly from the empire, the Elector of Bavaria finally led nine of the twelve secular district votes (see below). The abbeys of Rott, Waldsassen, Niederaltaich, Benediktbeuern, Ebersberg, Steingaden and Tegernsee tried in vain to gain imperial or at least district status in the 18th century.

Towards the end of the empire (1792) the district comprised the following territories.

Spiritual bank
Secular bank

organs

District council

The district council was the decision-making and advisory body for the members of the Reichskreis. It was convened by the princes who wrote the circle. After the district division of 1521/1532, in addition to Bavaria and Salzburg, only 19 other imperial estates were represented in the Bavarian imperial circle, including the Hochstifte Passau , Freising and Regensburg .

District advertising office

The most important office in the district was the district advertising office, which had to fix the place and time as well as the subject of discussion of a general or narrow district assembly and arrange for it to be convened via the bank chairmen. The two highest-ranking estates, the Duke of Bavaria as a secular prince and the Archbishop of Salzburg, had the common law function of the princes who wrote the district and together they formed the district advertising office as a district body. The spiritual prince had first rank, the secular the power (mouth and pen) . In the internal relationship between the two princes there were always differences of opinion (cf. Ochsenkrieg 1611 ), which then also had an impact on the district. The princes who wrote the district were also commissioned by the Reich Chamber Court and the Reichshofrat to execute their judgments.

District Lords

The district bishop had both civil and military tasks. Its importance in the Bavarian Empire was limited. In 1531, Duke Ludwig of Bavaria became the first captain of the district, followed by Count Palatine Philipp von Neuburg. From 1580 the dukes and electors of Bavaria were also district bishop.

District troops

The district troops of the Bavarian Imperial Circle were essentially provided by the Duchy of Bavaria and the Archbishopric of Salzburg. The target (Simplum) of the contingents of the Bavarian Reichskreis in the Reichsarmee was in 1681 800 cavalry and 1,494 infantry.

literature

  • Peter Claus Hartmann : The Bavarian Reichskreis (1500 to 1803): structures, history and meaning in the context of the district constitution and the general institutional development of the Holy Roman Empire. Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-428-09057-8 .
  • Winfried Dotzauer: The German Imperial Circles (1383-1806) . Franz Steiner, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-515-07146-6 .
  • Wolfgang Wüst (Ed.): The "good" Policey in the Reichskreis. On the early modern setting of standards in the core regions of the Old Reich , Vol. 3: The Bavarian Reichskreis and the Upper Palatinate . Akademie Verlag, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-05-003769-5 .
  • Wolfgang Wüst : Useless debates? - European role models? The convents of the southern German imperial districts as premodern parliaments . In: Konrad Amann, Ludolf Pelizaeus, Annette Reese, Helmut Schmahl (eds.): Bavaria and Europe. Festschrift for Peter Claus Hartmann on the occasion of his 65th birthday . Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 3-631-53540-6 , pp. 225-243.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Gerhard Nüske: Imperial circles and Swabian district estates around 1800 , p. 2.
  2. ↑ See Military History Research Office, Military History - Journal for Historical Education , Edition 3/2006, table p. 7.

Web links

Wikisource: Topographia Bavariae  - Sources and full texts
Wikisource: Print from 1532 and digitization of a directory of the imperial districts and the associated territories with details of the troops to be deployed for Turkish aid  - sources and full texts