Upper Rhine Empire Circle

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Imperial circles at the beginning of the 16th century . The Upper Rhine Reichskreis is shown in purple.

The Upper Rhine Empire was one of the ten imperial circles into which the Holy Roman Empire was divided under King Maximilian I. The Upper Rhine Reichskreis came into being in the first phase of establishment in 1500. The Reichskreis was weakened by the wars with France but also by confessional conflicts and existed for a long time without any major effect until the end of the Old Empire.

Area and population

The area of ​​the Reichskreis was extremely fragmented. It covered areas from Savoy in the south to Hessen-Kassel in the north. Overall, it was between France, the Swabian and Frankish imperial circles . Exclaves (for example Grafschaft Schaumburg ) owned by Hessen-Kassel also existed in the Lower Saxony Reichskreis . It was interspersed with areas of the House of Habsburg , the Electoral Palatinate and areas of clerical principalities in the Kurheinische Reichskreis . Then there were the numerous small areas of imperial knights . The basic idea behind the creation of this imperial circle seemed to have been the protection of the western border of the empire against France, but the reality indicated from the beginning that the circle was not able to do this.

Inwardly, the circle was very differentiated. Initially the circle comprised 72 members. Of these, 42 remained in the 18th century. The population in the 18th century was around 1.45 million people. Of these, about 74% were Protestants, Catholics 25% and Jews 1%.

The circle was weakened relatively quickly by the loss of members. The bishops of Geneva, Lausanne and Sion (Sion), as well as Besançon ( Bisanz ) stayed away from the circle from the beginning (Sitten only took part in a district assembly once - in 1544). In 1552, due to the French expansion policy ( Treaty of Chambord ), the Hochstifte in Lorraine ( Metz , Toul , Verdun ) were eliminated. The Duke of Lorraine, who had negotiated greater freedoms in the Treaty of Nuremberg in 1542, refused to take part in the district meetings and district contributions, despite expressly reduced contribution provisions. In the second half of the 17th century, large parts of Alsace with the financially strong imperial city of Strasbourg were lost to France from the district.

organization

The spiritual directorate lay with the bishops of Worms . This was also the district prince. The Worms diocese was ruled for a long time in personal union with the electorate of Mainz or Trier . The secular directorate lay with the Count Palatine. In this respect, there were close ties to the Kurheinische Reichskreis at this level.

The transition from the Protestant Pfalz-Simmern to the Catholic Pfalz-Neuburg exacerbated the confessional conflicts. Various Protestant estates such as Nassau and Hessen-Kassel in particular hardly took part in the Reichskreis because of the damaged denominational parity , but instead pursued their own goals. Protestant co-directors were created as a result of the War of the Spanish Succession . Nevertheless, Hessen-Kassel remained mostly away from the district councils.

The district archive and the district chancellery were located in Worms or the respective prince-bishop's residence. The district meetings took place first in Worms and later in Frankfurt am Main . The Upper Rhine District Council was divided into four banks. The first bank was reserved for the ecclesiastical territories, followed by the princes, then the counts and lords, and finally the cities. In later times only a few delegates from the estates came together in a narrower district convention, which consisted of four deputies from each of the two denomination groups.

The district was united with the Lower Rhine-Westphalian and the Kurrheinische Reichskreis in a coin circle. However, this merger was not very successful. The relationship with the Kurrheinischer Kreis was particularly close. The common cash register of the districts was in Frankfurt am Main. There was a first association between the two circles as early as 1651. The area later belonged to the Defense Alliance of the Vorderen Reichskreise .

District Lords

The imperial circles determined district bishops who took on both civil and military tasks. For the first time in 1531 Philipp von Daun was appointed captain by the district as commander of the district troops in the fight against the Turks. For fear of too much power, the circle financially poorly endowed the office of district bishop and made it uninteresting for princes, so that the counts of Solms held the office for a long time.

The office of district bishop changed later. Although the Palatinate claimed the office for itself, it was not always able to assert itself. Further district bishops were the Duke of Palatinate-Simmern from 1591, and the Electors of the Palatinate from 1673. Since 1679 the Landgraves of Hessen-Kassel held the office. In contrast to most of the other imperial circles, district bishops were also appointed in the 18th century. From 1722 this was in the hands of the Landgraves of Hesse-Darmstadt.

Because of the denominational differences and the geographical conditions of the district, the office never achieved great importance. During the War of the Spanish Succession , a district general appointed by the district was at the head of the district troops, although all military actions were prescribed by the district council.

In 1681 the district had to provide 491 horsemen and 2,853 infantrymen, in the 18th century several district infantry and cavalry regiments.

Members

Towards the end of the empire (1792), the circle comprised the rulers of the following territories:

Bank of the Spiritual Princes

also represented in the Reichsfürstenrat (spiritual bank):

Bank of the secular princes

There from the beginning and also represented in the Imperial Council of Prince (secular bank):

no imperial estates :

  • Armoiries de Sponheim 1.svgprincely county of Sponheim ; there from the beginning; Owner of Baden and Pfalzbayern
  • DEU Waldeck (am Edersee) COA.svgprincely county of Waldeck ; since 1712, previously with the counts and lords

Former counts, promoted by status, but still only counts in the Reichstag :

Rhenish prelates

The Rhenish prelates were also represented.

Bank of the Counts and Lords

There from the beginning and in the Reichstag (status 1792) counted among the Wetterau counts:

There from the beginning, but not represented in the Reichstag:

added by standing, not in the Reichstag:

Bank of cities

all also represented in the Reichstag (College of Cities)

Former members

Spiritual imperial princes:

Prelates:

Secular imperial princes:

Imperial cities:

See also

literature

  • Winfried Dotzauer: The German Imperial Circles (1383-1806) , Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-515-07146-6 , GoogleBooks
  • Gerhard Köbler : Upper Rhine Empire Circle. In: Historical Lexicon of the German States. The German territories from the Middle Ages to the present. 4th, completely revised edition. CH Beck, Munich 1992, ISBN 3-406-35865-9 , p. 431f.
  • Michael Müller: The development of the Kurrheinische Reichskreis in its connection with the Oberrheinischen Kreis in the 18th century. Frankfurt am Main 2008
  • Gerhard Taddey (ed.): Lexicon of German history . People, events, institutions. From the turn of the times to the end of the 2nd World War. 2nd, revised edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 1983, ISBN 3-520-81302-5 , pp. 902f.

Web links

Wikisource: Print from 1532 and digitization of a directory of the imperial districts and the associated territories with the registration number at that time  - sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Winfried Dotzauer: The German Imperial Circles (1383–1806) . Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-515-07146-6 , Chapter 4.1 Geographical, territorial and regional structure and forces, services, p. 204 ff .
  2. ^ A b Peter Claus Hartmann: Regions in the early modern times. The Kurheinische and the Oberrheinische Reichskreis. In: Michael Matheus (Ed.): Regions and Federalism . Stuttgart 1997, p. 39