Franconian Empire

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Franconian Empire at the beginning of the 16th century
The Franconian Empire (1789)
Flag of the Frankish Empire circle which of the quotas of the Frankish Empire circle within the Imperial Army at Empire wars of the Empire of the German Nation Holy Roman was used
Map of the Franconian Empire around 1680

The Franconian Imperial Circle was created in 1500 by the German King and later Emperor Maximilian I in the course of the imperial reform in order to be able to better guarantee the peace in the country and to improve the administration in the Holy Roman Empire . The Franconian Imperial Circle was one of a total of ten Imperial Circles that had been established by 1512.

Origin and location

Franconia was already characterized in the Middle Ages by being very close to the king or empire. Located between the Rhenish territories of the empire and the Kingdom of Bohemia , Franconia and the former Duchy of Franconia have been one of the centers of the empire for a long time.

By order of King Ludwig of Bavaria , Bamberg, Würzburg, Eichstätt and Fulda had united for the first time in 1340 with the Zollern burgraves of Nuremberg, the Counts of Henneberg, the Castell and those of Hohenlohe, the three episcopal cities and the imperial cities of Nuremberg and Rothenburg to form a state peace union. But this union (Franconian Landfrieden) did not last long; it disintegrated under the opposition of cities and princes.

On July 2, 1500, at the Reichstag in Augsburg, the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation was divided into six imperial circles. These first circles were originally numbered, whereby the Franconian Reichskreis received the number 1:

“ The first circle includes the princes, principality, country and area described below, namely the bishops of Bamberg , Wirtzburg , Eystett , the Margraves of Brandenburg as burgraves of Nuremberg , also the counts, Freystätt and Reichstätt, who lived and stayed with them located. "

The districts were later given names that corresponded to their geographical location, which gave rise to the name Franconian Imperial Circle, which appeared for the first time in 1522. In the late Middle Ages, Franconia was understood to mean the area between Spessart and Steigerwald, largely including the possessions of the Würzburg monastery.

The Reichskreis extended from the Franconian Saale to the Altmühl and comprised most of the parts around the upper and middle Main , which roughly corresponded to the Bavarian administrative districts of Upper , Middle and Lower Franconia , but without the Electoral Mainz possessions of the Upper Abbey around Aschaffenburg .

The use of the name Franconia resulted in an awareness of inner unity, with an increased feeling of togetherness and unity, which, however, did not exist in the political or sovereign area.

Prehistory and Education

In 1495 , far-reaching imperial reforms were passed at the Diet of Worms in order to improve the poor administrative situation in the Holy Roman Empire . To finance the Reich Chamber Court established there , u. a. a general tax, the common penny , was introduced. At the Reichstag in Augsburg in 1500, the estates were able to convince the German king and later Emperor Maximilian I to switch from a monarchical to an estates form of government . They defied it from him, even if it only lasted for a short time. It was decided to set up this Reich Regiment , a kind of estate government, to whose approval the emperor's government measures were to be bound. This innovation, coldly received by the emperor, did not take hold and was dissolved by him less than two years later.

Thus in addition to the seven electors, the other Imperial provinces were represented in the imperial government of 20 members, six circles were created as electoral districts for one representative. After the dissolution of the Reich Regiment in 1502, however, the districts continued to exist, and from 1507 assessors of the Reich Chamber of Commerce were elected according to this geographical division. Each of the electors sent an assessor to the court. The Roman-German king named two each for Burgundy and Bohemia , and each of the imperial circles formed in 1500 and 1512 was also allowed to send an assessor to the Imperial Court of Justice. The last two seats were elected by the Reichstag on the proposal of the Reich circles, so that half of the assessors of the Reich Chamber Court consisted of representatives of the Reich circles.

Building on the older civil peace districts , four more imperial districts were created in 1512, so in the end there were ten imperial districts.

The Franconian District was constituted in 1517. The imperial cities of Dinkelsbühl , (Schwäbisch) Hall , Wimpfen and Heilbronn were invited to the first district assembly in Schweinfurt ; however, they felt they belonged to the Swabian district .

The circle was structured according to the status of the members, like the imperial order, and divided into four “banks”. The following took part in the constitution meeting:

The institutions listed were independent political and sovereign entities. There was also the Frankish imperial knighthood , which was grouped into six cantons ( Altmühl , Baunach , Gebürg , Odenwald , Rhön-Werra , Steigerwald ) . This imperial knighthood , however, had neither acquired imperial nor district status, but was able to maintain its independent relationship with the emperor and the empire.

The common security interests, especially the action against feuds , and the growing sense of togetherness in the Franconian area were strengthened by this reform of the empire with the formation of the district.

District council and associated territories

Franconian Empire around 1706 with division into contemporary territories by Frederik de Wit
Excerpt from a directory of the imperial circles with indication of the imperial Turkish aid from the Franconian imperial circle (1532)

In the district convention, the stalls voted on benches, although the validity of the majority resolutions was absolutely certain. In the case of separate deliberations, the foremost stand on each bank, i.e. Bamberg, Brandenburg, Hohenlohe-Neuenstein and Nuremberg, had their board of directors. As the caller, Bamberg always had the last vote. The district convention met in Windsheim , Schweinfurt , Bamberg , Hassfurt , Forchheim, but preferably in the Great Reich Hall in Nuremberg, where the district treasury was also located. The organization of the district was thus modeled on that of the empire, only in contrast to the Reichstag, each of the estates in the district council had a full vote, including the small lordships, the counts, lords and imperial cities.

The territories belonging to the district are listed below, based on the status at the beginning of the 16th century. Like the imperial order, the circle was structured according to the status of the members and divided into four “banks”. Imperial estates that were left before the end of the empire are listed in italics, newly added ones are listed separately. Most of the members also belonged to the imperial estates .

Bank of the Spiritual Princes

Bank of the secular princes

until 1792:

Of the prince counties (besides Henneberg) only Schwarzenberg was also on the Imperial Council of Dukes .

Bank of the Counts and Lords

  • Coat of arms Nellingen on the Fildern.svg County Castell
  • Coat of arms county Erbach.svg County of Erbach
  • Coat of arms Grafschaft Hohenlohe.pngCounty of Hohenlohe ; several lines, one of which was prince in 1746
  • Gifting from Limburg-Scheibler224ps.jpgLimpurg reign
  • Coat of arms Aub.pngReign of Reichelsberg
  • RieneckGrafen.jpg Grafschaft Rieneck , which fell to Kurmainz as a fief after extinction in 1559
  • Coat of arms of the Prince of Schwarzenberg 1792.jpgRule Schwarzenberg ; In 1599 raised to the rank of imperial count; Princes in 1671
  • County of Welzheim 1379–1713; 1728-1732; then the Württemberg Oberamt; Acquired in 1335 from the Schenken zu Limpurg as a Württemberg Reichsafter fief, the first half of which they gave the Count of Württemberg to fief in 1379 at the latest, the other half in 1418; extinct in the male line in 1713; 1718 gift from Duke Eberhard Ludwig von Württemberg to his mistress and former morganatic wife Wilhelmine von Grävenitz (1685 / 1686–1744), Countess von Urach since 1707, who had entered into a fictitious marriage with Count Würben in 1711 (recte: Wrbna); Wilhelmine wanted to apply it to Württemberg as a Kunkellehen (female inheritance) and so she and her brother Friedrich Wilhelm von Grävenitz (1679–1754; 1717 Conference Minister, 1723 Governor von Mömpelgard / Montbéliard) were enfeoffed together with Welzheim in 1726 ; membership in the Frankish Reichskreis as well as the admission into the Frankish Reichsgrafenkollegium with seat and vote in the Reichstag achieved only Friedrich Wilhelm. Wilhelmine was arrested by Eberhard Ludwig while he was still alive; in 1732 she compared herself with him against the transfer of all goods with the exception of Welzheim; her brother became the owner of Welzheim in the form of a man's fief. Even before he compared himself to Eberhard Ludwig's Catholic successor, Duke Carl Alexander , in 1735 and also had to cede his property, Eberhard Ludwig Welzheim had regarded Welzheim as having fallen home . According to files from the Stuttgart State Archives Department, Main State Archive Stuttgart, Findbuch A 441 L, Welzheim was mediatized by Württemberg in 1732 and was then a chamber clerk's office until 1807.
  • Coat of arms Wertheim.png County of Wertheim ; Represented by Löwenstein from 1574 , princes in 1711

until 1792:

Bank of cities

The ecclesiastical bank was headed by the bishopric of Bamberg, which was subordinate to the Pope only. The Prince-Bishop of Bamberg also exercised the directorate of the district and administered the district chancellery and the district archive. The bishop of Bamberg, as director of the district, had the right to open and manage the district assembly and to summarize and publish its resolutions. The Count of Löwenstein-Rochefort, as the emperor's representative, had only held a quasi-honorary chairmanship from the end of the 17th century.

The imperial knights with their smallest territories, particularly numerous in Franconia , were outside the district organization and formed the Franconian knight circle .

District Lords

In the Franconian Empire, the office of district bishop was first established in 1550 and existed permanently from 1555. The district bishop was supervised by five councils of war, two of which represented the clergy and one each the secular princes, counts and the imperial cities. In contrast to the contingents of the district estates, the commander and the officers of the district troops were paid from the district treasury . The execution and enforcement of the district resolutions were entrusted to the district bishop. and in addition to the supreme command of the district troops, he took on both the execution of sentences at the highest courts-martial and the prevention of foreign recruiting in the district. He was mostly chosen from the nobility . The office was traditionally transferred to the Margraves of Zoller, as the most powerful secular district, who usually exercised it through the Bayreuth line.

Defense

The district army as a standing army went back to the imperial defensial order of 1681, according to which the nominal strength of the Franconian imperial circle was set at 5527 men. In addition to the part that the Hochstifte Bamberg and Würzburg provided with the Prince-Bishop's Army as their own troops, the district brought two infantry regiments with 1,600 each, a cuirassier regiment with 520 and a dragoons squadron with 200 men in the joint defense. In 1694 the standing army of the Franconian Reichskreis consisted of 2,940 horsemen and 5,703 infantrymen. They were provided by the various district stands, which also provided the equipment. Only the officers were directly employed by the district. Disastrous in the open field battle was not only the poor and partly outdated equipment; the lack of a uniform exercise regulation also made it difficult to act as a troop formation . In the association with the Swabian District of 1691 the Franconian contingent was 9,000 men (a cuirassier regiment 800 men, two infantry regiments of 1650 men each, additional establishment of a dragoon regiment of 8,000 men and another infantry regiment of 1,650 men. Finally, a second dragoon regiment and a fourth infantry regiment taken over from Würzburg on a subsidy basis).

The proportions of the district status in the team contingents were calculated according to the Reich register and were for the Franconian district:

Imperial estates Cuirassiers dragoon Foot soldiers
Eichstatt 25th 27 440
German medal 48 16 256
Brandenburg (both lines) 110 37 590
Henneberg-Schleusingen 24 8th 126
Henneberg-Römhild 8th 3 44
Henneberg-Schmalkalden 3 1 12
Schwarzenberg and Seinsheim 8th 3 44
Hohenlohe (both lines) 27 9 146
Castell 3 1 16
Wertheim 17th 5 90
Rieneck 5 2 24
Erbach 7th 2 36
Limburg Speckfeld 5 2 30th
Limburg-Gaildorf 7th 2 36
Dernbach 1 - 8th
Nuremberg 159 53 846
Rothenburg 41 14th 218
Windsheim - 6th 96
Schweinfurt 16 5 84
Weissenburg 6th 4th 58
520 200 3200

Source:

Cuirassiers

dragoon

infantry

The district troops recorded no fewer than 30 campaigns in the years 1683 to 1714, although they were always in the forefront and distinguished themselves both in Hungary and on the Rhine line.

The teams of the Franconian Circle were in the Imperial-Habsburg and later the Austro-Hungarian Army, mainly in the regiments of the Imperial and Royal Infantry Regiment “Hoch- und Deutschmeister” No. 4 and the Imperial and Royal Infantry Regiment “Graf von Khevenhüller” No. 7 , where they were in various wars for the emperor were used.

Military budget

The imperial, district and Turkish tax included all expenses for the military and militia in the district budget, for fortifications including the necessary compensation payments for land purchases, for winter billeting in imperial wars and the so-called assignments, the costs of which had to be distributed among all land offices District money ( Roman months ) corresponding to the main tasks of the district in the late 17th century, the expenditures for the military were by far the largest budget item . In some cases they amounted to more than 90 percent of the annual budget of 800,000 to one million Rhenish guilders.

The district's military budget soon reached impressive amounts. As part of the Laxenburg Alliance (1982), the district had to take care of the common facilities, staffs, artillery, etc. proportionately. The contribution amount of the 130 Roman months set for the alliance was 418,908 fl, which was not enough. The maintenance costs for the district alliance of 1691 were certainly too high at 1,138,192 florins. After all, there was also a cost estimate for the budget year 1696/97 for a valve of 12,000 men at 715,438 florins. In the first year of the War of the Spanish Succession , the district wrote 36,000 fl from (90 Roman months), in 1703 the budget had risen to 60,000 fl (Roman months). The arrears of the district treasury amounted to 4,666,500 florins in 1697, at the end of the War of the Spanish Succession to 1,108,750 florins. In the last years of the war the district budget averaged 200 to 250 Roman months (800,000-1 million florins). After the war, the portion of debt servicing and of paying the army suppliers made up almost half of the district budget. Franconia had temporary obligations of 150,000-190,000 florins to the district's important army supplier, Isaac Säckl, the protector from Mainz as the downside to an enormous debt, which could only be gradually reduced again in the 1740s.

Not all the estates fulfilled their proportional obligations in full. In 1701, the Würzburg prince-bishop Johann Philipp refused to accept the "numerus rotundus", which was decided as a new cost allocation, and reserved the cheaper matriculation base from 1681, even in the face of - ultimately empty - threats of military execution by the other district estates. Otherwise Johann Philipp took part in the defense efforts by providing the district contingent and general logistics.

Military alliances

After the Thirty Years' War , the Vorderen Reichskreise in the west of the Reich tried to compensate for their military weakness by joining forces in the district associations . In the west of the empire, often unarmored, weaker imperial estates or imperial circles formed associations in order to strengthen their common security and to compensate for deficits in the imperial war constitution. Since 1693 the Franconian and Swabian imperial circles and militarily worked together. They put together around 24,000 men to defend the region on the Upper Rhine during the War of the Palatinate Succession . The troops were commanded by Margrave Ludwig Wilhelm von Baden , who had already excelled in the Turkish Wars. The Imperial War Constitution of 1681/82 did not appear to be very effective. On the initiative of Ludwig Wilhelm von Baden and Johann Georg Kulpis , the Franconian, Kurhein, Upper Rhine, Swabian and Westphalian circles joined forces on January 23, 1697 in Frankfurt am Main in the " Frankfurter Association " to form a more far-reaching defense association. The district associations were also continued beyond the Rastatt Peace to protect against arbitrariness of the armed powers in close reference to the emperor, thus without the sea powers.

Legal system

There were problems with the jurisdiction: Since the jurisdiction was one of the most important privileges for the expansion of the sovereignty, each territory jealously paid attention to its special rights. Therefore, the district did not have its own court of law, but according to the Reich Execution Code it had the task of enforcing legally binding judgments. As the “executive body for the legislature and the jurisdiction of the empire as a whole”, the Franconian district only functioned with certain restrictions.

Coinage

If the Frankish Reichskreis had always endeavored to fulfill its tasks as an organ of the Reich with all conscientiousness (384), this was especially true for the coinage. The output of the coins prescribed by the district was mostly so good that the Franconian coins found their way into the melting pots there as a welcome raw material for foreign coin stands, and in Franconia, even because of a lack of change, the lower-quality foreign varieties had to be allowed Of course, the Franconian District also did not withdraw. In the first half of the 17th century, there were six Franconian district orards , Georg Dieterich Hans Huefnagel, Hans Putzer, Melchior Meschker, Georg Gebhardt and Leonhard Rohleder, who were also special orions of the imperial city of Nuremberg. The latter's brother-in-law, Leonhard Willibald Hoffmann, who had been appointed General Mint Vaudin in 1667, also applied to the Schwabach Mint as a Special Aradein in 1679 and received this position the following year.

History of the Franconian District

Decline and end

When, in 1769, after the Bayreuth line had died out with Friedrich Christian, the two margravates Bayreuth and Ansbach were united in the hands of Margrave Karl Alexander , his resignation in 1791 in favor of the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm II caused a massive disruption in the political balance of the imperial circle , in which a great power had significant influence on the Frankish Empire and broke its fragile balance of power. Baron Karl August von Hardenberg took the Ansbach and Bayreuth votes in the district convention as an authorized minister . At that time, the convention met permanently due to the danger posed by the French revolutionary armies . The aggressive territorial policy of Prussia in Franconia was also an issue, especially for the smaller district estates. For these blazed through the Peace Congress of Rastatt already far-reaching consequences of (division of territory between Bavaria and Prussia), then by the February 25, 1803 in Regensburg adopted and with the imperial ratification came on April 27, 1803 in force Reichsdeputationshauptschluss Became reality.

The Franconian dioceses of Würzburg and Bamberg became Bavarian in 1803 . The Hochstift Eichstätt was assigned to the Grand Duchy of Tuscany as compensation funds in 1802 , until it also fell to Bavaria in 1805. The Electorate of Bavaria mediated the imperial cities of Dinkelsbühl , Kaufbeuren , Kempten , Memmingen , Nördlingen , Rothenburg , Schweinfurt , Ulm , Weißenburg and Windsheim and heard their voices in the Franconian and Swabian Empire . On December 15, 1805, the Principality of Ansbach was given to France in exchange for the Electorate of Hanover and to the Kingdom of Bavaria in 1806 . With Article 17 of the Rhine Confederation Act concluded in Paris on July 12, 1806, the imperial city of Nuremberg came to Bavaria and thus lost its imperial immediacy . The deposition of the imperial crown on August 6, 1806 by Emperor Franz II brought about the dissolution of the empire and the old imperial constitution. On August 16, 1806, the Bavarian envoy declared the Frankish Reichskreis dissolved on the instructions of Minister Montgelas .

See also

literature

General

  • Gerhard Köbler : Historical lexicon of the German countries. The German territories from the Middle Ages to the present. 7th, completely revised edition. CH Beck, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-406-54986-1 . Article: Fränkischer Reichskreis p. 192 on Google Book
  • Fabian Schulze: The Imperial Circles in the Thirty Years' War: War Financing and Alliance Policy in the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation de Gruyter, Oldenburg 2018 - Google Book

Lexicons

Monographs

  • Rudolf Endres : The Franconian Empire , House of Bavarian History, Issue 29/03, Augsburg 2004, the issue is available on the Internet as a PDF file: Part 1 (PDF; 2.5 MB); Part 2 (PDF; 1.5 MB)
  • Fritz Hartung : The history of the Franconian district , first volume: The history of the Franconian district from 1521-155 , Leipzig 1910, digitized in: Virtual Library, University of Würzug
  • Hanns Hubert Hofmann : Imperial Circle and District Association. Prolegomena to a history of the Franconian district, at the same time as a contribution… . In: Journal for Bavarian State History # 25 (1962) Digitized at Munich Digitization Center
  • Winfried Romberg: GERMANIA SACRA : THIRD FOLLOWING, 8 THE BISTUM WÜRZBURG PDF Gruyter 2014 ISBN 978-3-11-030537-1 .
  • Bernhard Sicken : The Franconian Imperial Circle. Its offices and institutions in the 18th century (= publications of the Society for Franconian History , photo print series: Volume 1). Schöningh, Würzburg 1970
  • Bernhard Sicken: The defense system of the Frankish Reichskreis. Structure and structure (1681–1714) . 2 volumes, Spindler, Nuremberg 1967.
  • 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. 2: The Franconian Reichskreis . Akademie Verlag, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-05-003651-6 (source collection with introduction) Google Book
  • Wolfgang Wüst : The Franconian Imperial Circle - A European Regional Model? (Fränkische Arbeitsgemeinschaft eV, issue 9) Fürth 2018. ISBN 978-3-940804-10-5 .
  • Wolfgang Wüst: Windsheim - district days as places of remembrance of an early modern imperial constitution in Franconia , in: Ferdinand Kramer (Ed.), Places of Democracy in Bavaria ( Journal for Bavarian State History 81/1) Munich 2018, pp. 87-104. Digital copy (extract)
  • Wolfgang Wüst / Michael Müller (eds.): Imperial circles and regions in early modern Europe - horizons and borders in a "spatial turn" . Conference at the Academy of the Diocese of Mainz, Erbacher Hof, 3. – 5. September 2010 (Mainz Studies on Modern History 29) Frankfurt am Main u. a. 2011. In it: Several essays on the Frankish Reichskreis. ISBN 978-3-631-60963-7 .

items

  • Winfried Dotzauer : Die deutschen Reichskreise (1383–1806) , Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-515-07146-6 , GoogleBooks Fränkischer Kreis: Constitution and institutions , page 81.
  • Rudolf Endres: On the history of the Franconian Reichskreis , in: Würzburger Diözesan-Geschichtsblätter, 29th volume, 1967, p. 168 ff. Special print available on the Internet as a PDF file: PDF at Monumenta Germaniae Historica
  • Rudolf Endres: V. From the formation of the Franconian Empire and the beginning of the Reformation , p. 451 ff in: Andreas Kraus (Hrsg): History of Franconia up to the end of the 18th century , Volume 1; Volume 3, Munich 1997 Google Book
  • Rudolf Endres: § 37. The Franconian Reichskreis pp . 473 ff in: Andreas Kraus (Hrsg): History of Franconia up to the end of the 18th century , Volume 1; Volume 3, Munich 1997 Google Book
  • Rudolf Endres: § 45. End of the Franconian Reichskreis p. 512 ff in: Andreas Kraus (Hrsg): History of Franconia up to the end of the 18th century , Volume 1; Volume 3, Munich 1997 Google Book
  • Richard Fester : Franconia and the district constitution . Stürtz, Würzburg (1906)
  • Claus Grimm : Imperial Cities in Franconia , Volume 15, publications on Bavarian history and culture, publisher: Bavarian State Chancellery 1987; Essays 1, Constitution and Administration: pp. 9–387.
  • Ferdinand Magen: The Imperial Circles in the Epoch of the Thirty Years' War . In: Journal for historical research # 9 (1982) Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, Vol. 9 (1982), pp. 409-460 PDF at JSTOR

Web links

Wikisource: Topographia Franconiae  - 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

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Rudolf Endres: On the history of the Franconian Reichskreis , page 168
  2. ↑ Gerhard Pfeiffer : The royal land peace opinions in Franconia in: Lectures and research: The German territorial state in the 14th century II (1986, 2nd edition) Vol. 14 (1971): Lectures and research: The German territorial state in the 14th century II (1986, 2nd edition) Konstanz Working Group for Medieval History e. V. (Ed.), Page 231
  3. ↑ Cf. Maximilian I .: No. 177. (152). Regimental order of Maximilian I (Augsburg Reichstag). - 1500, July 2; in: Karl Zeumer (Ed.): Collection of sources on the history of the German Imperial Constitution in the Middle Ages and Modern Times , Tübingen, pp. 297–307, here: § 6, p. 299
  4. ^ Claus Grimm: Reichsstädte in Franken , Vol. 15, publications on Bavarian history and culture, publisher: Bavarian State Chancellery 1987; Peter Fleischmann I. The creation of the Franconian district , p. 115
  5. ^ Claus Grimm: Reichsstädte in Franken , Vol. 15, publications on Bavarian history and culture, publisher: Bavarian State Chancellery 1987; Peter Fleischmann I. The Origin of the Franconian Circle , pp. 115–118; II. The Organization of the Circle , pp. 118–119
  6. ↑ Friedrich Carl Moser , Des highly commendable Franconian Crayses partings and conclusions: from the year 1600. bit 1748 , Nuremberg 1752 Google Book
  7. ↑ a b Endres: On the history of the Frankish Reichskreis, page 175
  8. ^ Files of the district convents in the Bamberg State Archives
  9. ↑ a b c Endres: On the history of the Franconian Reichskreis , page 176
  10. ↑ Christine Jeske: Insurgents and Murderers Main Post from August 11, 2014
  11. ↑ Endres: On the history of the Frankish Reichskreis , page 174
  12. ↑ a b Keyword Kreisobrist in: Glossary of the House of Bavarian History
  13. ↑ Rudolf Endres : The Franconian Empire Circle. (PDF) House of Bavarian History , 2003, accessed on August 6, 2015 .
  14. ↑ a b Dotzauer: page 89
  15. ↑ Endres: Franconian Imperial Circle , page 14
  16. ↑ Endres: On the history of the Frankish Reichskreis, page 178
  17. ^ Winfried Romberg: p. 147
  18. ↑ Rudolf Endres: The Franconian Empire Circle . (PDF) page 21
  19. ^ Winfried Romberg: Page 221
  20. ^ Winfried Romberg: Page 221
  21. ↑ Helmut Neuhaus : The empire in the early modern times. 2nd Edition. Munich 2003, pp. 48, 94.
  22. ^ Winfried Romberg: p. 217
  23. ^ State archive Wertheim R-Rep. 102 No. 1790 : Frankfurt Convention of the Associated Imperial Circles (Kurrhein, Upper Rhine, Austria, Swabia, Franconia) a. a. on the district constitution and the Peace of Rastatt , 1714
  24. ↑ Endres: Der Franconian Reichskreis , p. 21
  25. ↑ a b Gerhard Schön: Coin and Monetary History of the Principality of Ansbach and Bayreuth in the 17th and 18th Centuries PDF Dissertation at the Ludwig Maximilians University 2008 p. 65 ff
  26. ↑ Rawhide
  27. ↑ Rheinbundakte with the complete text in German and French
  28. ^ Claus Grimm: Reichsstädte in Franken , Vol. 15, publications on Bavarian history and culture, publisher: Bavarian State Chancellery 1987; Peter Fleischmann I. The Origin of the Franconian Circle , pp. 121–123
  29. ^ Rudolf Endes: On the history of the Franconian Reichskreis in Würzburger Diözesangeschichtsblätter 29, 1969; Pp. 168-183