Elected Bishop
As elected bishops and elected archbishops were after the Reformation in the 16th century in the evangelical become rich immediate ecclesiastical principalities in the Empire Holy Roman the place of the former Catholic prince-bishops of the cathedral chapters or pen chapters referred chosen and used church leaders because they, of course, no papal Could obtain a license to practice medicine.
Like their Catholic predecessors, they exercised landlord and secular functions on the one hand and spiritual bishop functions on the other . The latter, however, sometimes went over to the respective chapters.
If the majority of the capitulars of a collegiate chapter were Protestants, the chapter now elected a Protestant one after the death of the previous bishop according to the same rules as in previous episcopal elections.
In Protestant, as has always been the case in Catholic dioceses, pressure was often exerted on the election by secular princes, who saw this as an opportunity to create supply posts for their (sometimes not yet adult) sons. Even before the Reformation, it was customary to prepare second and third sons of ruling princes for a clerical office, so as not to split up one's own territory through inheritance . With this placement of close relatives, the striving for increased influence of the own dynasty in the monastery area was connected. Sometimes a bishop's election took place during the predecessor's lifetime, so that the successor initially assumed the position of coadjutor . The bishops from the high nobility were not fundamentally incompetent, but there were more lawyers than theologians among the evangelicals.
If they held other bishopric seats, both Protestant and Catholic bishops were to be called administrators (literally administrators ) in their second dioceses . The information that can be read in various encyclopedias that Protestant church princes have basically been designated as administrators contradicts historically documented practice.
The transition of princely power from Catholic to Protestant bishops was not recognized by the Holy Roman Empire until the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, so that the elected bishops of the archbishopric and dynasty concerned could not exercise their votes in the Imperial Princes College of the Reichstag . However, the peace treaty also provided that most of the Protestant clerical principalities were secularized and attached to the rulership of neighboring princes. They then took over the imperial or electoral rights of the now extinct bishoprics.
Principalities
The following Protestant spiritual principalities existed:
- Brandenburg bishopric , 1571 to Brandenburg
- Archbishopric Bremen , 1648 secular duchy of Bremen under Swedish rule, see under Bremen-Verden
- Hochstift Cammin , 1556 in Pomerania
- Halberstadt bishopric 1648 secular principality of Halberstadt under Brandenburg rule
- Hochstift Havelberg , 1571 in Brandenburg
- Lübeck bishopric , 1803 secular principality of Lübeck under Oldenburg rule
- Archbishopric Magdeburg , 1680 secular duchy of Magdeburg under Brandenburg rule
- Hochstift Merseburg , 1565 to Saxony
- Hochstift Minden , 1648 secular principality of Minden under Brandenburg rule
- Hochstift Naumburg , 1562 to Saxony, from 1657 Secondogeniture Saxony-Zeitz , 1718 with the extinction of the line back to the Albertines
- Osnabrück Monastery , alternating between Catholic and Protestant bishops, 1803 in Hanover
- Ratzeburg bishopric , 1648 secular principality of Ratzeburg , under Mecklenburg rule
- Hochstift Schwerin , 1648 secular principality of Schwerin , under Mecklenburg rule
- Hochstift Verden , 1648 secular principality of Verden under Swedish rule, see under Bremen-Verden
Remarks
- ^ Administrator postulatus. In: Johann Heinrich Zedler : Large complete universal lexicon of all sciences and arts . Volume 1, Leipzig 1732, column 530.
- ↑ Eike Wolgast: Hochstift and Reformation. Studies on the history of the imperial church between 1517 and 1648 , Stuttgart 1995