Causa palatina
The so-called Causa palatina (fourth article of the Osnabrück Peace Treaty ) ended a 300-year constitutional conflict over the election of a king in the Holy Roman Empire in 1648 .
The conflict was originally a dispute between the Palatinate and the Bavarian line of the Wittelsbachers about which line should participate as elector in the election of the Roman-German king. After the church split, the conflict widened in the 16th century, as the Palatinate Wittelsbachers adopted Calvinist Protestantism, while the Bavarian line stayed with the Catholic faith. During the Thirty Years War , the two lines were at the head of the Catholic League and the Protestant Union and, not least, fought for electoral dignity. The Peace of Westphalia brought a solution to the Palatinate question through the creation of an eighth electoral dignity .
history
In the house contract of Pavia 1329, the Upper Bavarian and Palatinate lines of the Wittelsbachers had agreed to alternately exercise their electoral dignity in royal elections. In 1356, however, this regulation was overlaid by the Golden Bull , in which Emperor Charles IV , who was an enemy of the Bavarian Wittelsbachers, laid down the right to elect a king by seven electors and included the Rhineland Count Palatine, but not the Duke of Bavaria, among the electors.
The situation became explosive when, after the Elector of Saxony and Brandenburg, in 1560, the Palatinate also converted to Protestantism . Although the Catholic side still had a majority of one vote with the three ecclesiastical electors and the Habsburg King of Bohemia, the risk of a Protestant majority in the electoral college and the election of a Protestant as emperor increased. Attempts to win the electorate of Cologne for Protestantism despite the spiritual reservation failed, but in 1619 Friedrich V of the Palatinate , head of the Protestant Union, was elected King of Bohemia by the rebellious Bohemian estates , whereby the Catholic majority was lost .
Duke Maximilian I of Bavaria , head of the Catholic League, now saw his chance, with the support of Emperor Ferdinand II , to obtain the long-awaited Palatinate cure. The two achieved their common goals for the good of the Catholic cause. After the catastrophic defeat at White Mountain in 1620, Frederick V was ostracized for accepting the Bohemian crown. All his possessions, including his electoral dignity, fell back to the empire, which the emperor could now freely dispose of.
The emperor, who himself re-entered the Bohemian electoral dignity, expanded the Catholic majority in the electoral college by transferring the Palatinate electoral dignity to Maximilian I in February 1623 , thus replacing a Protestant prince with a Catholic prince. However, Maximilian was initially only awarded the Palatinate electoral dignity, but not the Palatinate lands. Thus, there was a risk that the electoral dignity would fall back to the Palatinate after Maximilian's death, since the electoral dignity was clearly linked to the Palatinate near Rhine according to the Golden Bull.
In 1628 the Palatinate had to accept the final loss of the first secular electoral dignity. The hereditary transfer of the Palatinate electoral dignity as well as the Palatinate on the right bank of the Rhine and the Upper Palatinate to the Bavarian line of the Wittelsbachers was decided for 30 years. The restitution of the Upper Palatinate and the electoral dignity seemed to be ruled out when it was decided in the Peace of Prague of 1635 that the Palatinate would remain excluded from a general amnesty .
In 1640 the electors began to negotiate peace. At the urging of England, Denmark and the Kurkolleg, the emperor was finally ready to agree to compromise negotiations on the Palatinate question. A solution was a long way off, however, as neither party was able to deviate from their starting position. Only the inclusion of the problem in the Westphalian peace negotiations brought a solution.
The positions before the peace negotiations
For the negotiations in 1647 on the Palatinate question, the parties with their different positions faced each other:
- On the one hand Bavaria, France and the Kaiser, who maintained the former Palatinate electoral dignity with Bavaria and demanded a new, eighth electoral dignity for the Palatinate. Bavaria was to keep the Upper Palatinate, the Rhine Palatinate could be reimbursed if necessary.
- On the other side stood the Count Palatine, supported by Sweden and various Protestant imperial estates. They demanded the fullest possible restitution of the Count Palatine in the state and electoral dignity. Bavaria was to receive an eighth cure and part of the Upper Palatinate.
The two parties agreed that a new cure would be created. The only question was who should take this last place in the Kurkolleg.
The solution to the Palatinate question
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On October 24, 1648, a general amnesty was issued in the Westphalian peace negotiations. The most important exception to the restitution was the Palatinate.
The male line of the Bavarian line of the Wittelsbacher finally received the former Palatinate electoral dignity with all affiliations as well as the entire Upper Palatinate including the county of Cham. For these concessions Maximilian had to forego all claims against the emperor for himself and his heirs. Both Maximilian and the Kaiser had taken advantage of the negotiations. The only flaw in Maximilian's achievements is that if the male line of Bavaria died out, the Upper Palatinate and the Bavarian electoral dignity should be revoked.
An eighth electoral dignity was created for the Heidelberg Wittelsbacher, Karl I. Ludwig , and at the same time all claims associated with the now Bavarian electoral dignity were denied him. So the Palatinate lost his first secular electoral dignity and, with the creation of the eighth electoral dignity, slipped into the last position of the Kurkolleg. So he did not achieve his restitution in office and country and, despite the complete restitution of the Lower Palatinate to the status of 1618, can be regarded as the loser of the negotiations.
1777
When the Bavarian elector died on December 30, 1777 , Karl Theodor (from 1742 as Karl IV. Palatine and Elector Palatinate) succeeded him and united the two electors in his person. The new dual state was commonly called Pfalz-Baiern or Kurpfalz-Bavaria .
The position of the electors after the Peace of Westphalia
Duke Ernst August von Braunschweig-Lüneburg claimed the establishment of a ninth cure for his house, which he was allowed to practice from 1708. The Elector George I was even elected British King in 1714, so that in the 18th century the kings of England were able to help decide the German election. Because the electoral dignity of Bavaria fell to the Palatinate Wittelsbachers through inheritance in 1777, the number of royal voters in the Electoral College was eight again. In 1803 there were further changes in the main electoral college in the Reichsdeputationskolleg , which however became irrelevant with the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806.
literature
swell
- Collection of sources on the history of the German Imperial Constitution in the Middle Ages and Modern Times, ed. v. Karl Zeumer , 2nd edition Tübingen 1913, No. 197 (IPO).
- Johann Gottfried von Miegen , Acta Pacis Westphalicae publica, or Westphalian peace negotiations and history in a historically strengthened with correct documents. Context written and described, Vol. IV, Hanover 1734
Representations
- Dieter Albrecht, Bavaria and the Palatinate question at the Westphalian Peace Congress. In: The Peace of Westphalia. Diplomacy, political caesura, cultural environment, reception history, ed. by Heinz Duchhardt, Munich 1998, pp. 461–468.
- Gerhard Immler , Elector Maximilian I of Bavaria and the Westphalian Peace Congress. Bavarian foreign policy from 1644 to the Ulm armistice. Munster 1992.
- Klaus-Frédéric Johannes , Prolegomena on the house contract of Pavia (1329) and its importance for the Palatinate, in: Mobilitas. Festschrift for Werner Schreiner's 70th birthday , ed. v. Klaus-Frédéric Johannes, (= series of publications of the Neustadt district group in the Historisches Verein der Pfalz, NF 1), Neustadt an der Weinstraße 2017, pp. 71–92.
- Heinhard Steiger, The Peace of Westphalia - Basic Law for Europe? In: The Peace of Westphalia. Diplomacy, political caesura, cultural environment, reception history , ed. by Heinz Duchhardt , Munich 1998, pp. 33–81.
- Jürgen Steiner, The Palatine electoral dignity during the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) , Speyer 1985.
Web links
- Full text (pax-westphalica.de) of the peace treaties of Münster ( Instrumentum Pacis Monasteriensis , IPM) and Osnabrück ( Instrumentum Pacis Osnabrugensis , IPO). In addition, German, English, French, Italian, Spanish and Swedish translations.
- Osnabrück Peace Treaty in German full text (lwl.org) , directly to Article IV relevant to the Causa Palatina .