Dispositio Achillea

Albrecht Achilles of Brandenburg

As Dispositio Achillea (also Constitutio Achillea , Achilleisches House Act) refers to the testamentary down, with the Margrave Albrecht Achilles of Hohenzollern 1473 ranking governed his heirs.

In the Dispositio Achillea Albrecht Achilles designated his eldest son Johann Cicero as his successor in the entire and undivided Mark Brandenburg . This was prescribed by the principles of the Golden Bull , because in 1356 the indivisibility of all electorates (in this case the Mark Brandenburg) was made binding. The two other sons of Albrecht Achilles, Friedrich and Siegmund , were determined to be the heirs of the Franconian margravates of Brandenburg-Ansbach and Brandenburg-Kulmbach (or later Brandenburg-Bayreuth), the allocation of the two principalities was drawn by lot. Any further male descendants of Albrecht Achilles (who, however, were no longer born) should no longer receive their own land, but instead should pursue a spiritual career instead.

At the time of its creation, the Dispositio Achillea initially only actually determined the order of succession among the three sons of the then margrave. Over time, however, it became a generally respected principle of inheritance of the Hohenzollern family and in 1541 the stipulations associated with it were recognized by the Regensburg Partition Treaty as a binding house law of the Hohenzollern dynasty .

The central element of the Dispositio Achillea was the principle of the indivisibility of the Mark Brandenburg, which was now also prescribed in the Hohenzollern domiciliary rights (and not only - as before - in the Golden Bull). At the same time, the foundation stone was laid with it for a development that ultimately led to the progressive separation of the Mark Brandenburg from the previous ancestral lands of the Hohenzollern in Franconia . In these two independent territories emerged with the two margraviates Brandenburg-Ansbach and Brandenburg-Kulmbach (or later Bayreuth), which were only reunited with the Mark (or its Prussian successor state) in 1792 .

literature

• 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 .
• M. Spindler, A. Kraus: History of Franconia up to the end of the 18th century , Munich 1997. ISBN 3-406-39451-5