The Electorate of Cologne (), sometimes referred to as Electoral Cologne (), was an ecclesiastical principality of the

Holy Roman Empire The Holy Roman Empire, also known as the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation after 1512, was a polity in Central and Western Europe, usually headed by the Holy Roman Emperor. It developed in the Early Middle Ages, and lasted for a millennium ...

that existed from the 10th to the early 19th century. It consisted of the

Hochstift In the Holy Roman Empire, the German language, German term (plural: ) referred to the territory ruled by a bishop as a prince (i.e. prince-bishop), as opposed to his diocese, generally much larger and over which he exercised only spiritual auth ...

—the temporal possessions—of the archbishop of Cologne, and was ruled by him in his capacity as prince-elector. There were only two other ecclesiastical prince-electors in the Empire: the Electorate of Mainz and the

Electorate of Trier The Electorate of Trier ( or '; ) was an Hochstift, ecclesiastical principality of the Holy Roman Empire that existed from the end of the 9th to the early 19th century. It was the temporal possession of the prince-archbishop of Trier (') wh ...

. The archbishop-elector of Cologne was also arch-chancellor of Italy (one of the three component titular kingdoms of the Holy Roman Empire, the other two being Germany and Burgundy) and, as such, ranked second among all ecclesiastical and secular princes of the Empire, after the archbishop-elector of Mainz, and before that of Trier. The capital of the electorate was

Cologne Cologne ( ; ; ) is the largest city of the States of Germany, German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with nearly 1.1 million inhabitants in the city pr ...

. Conflicts with the citizens of Cologne caused the elector to move to

Bonn Bonn () is a federal city in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, located on the banks of the Rhine. With a population exceeding 300,000, it lies about south-southeast of Cologne, in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr region. This ...

. The Free Imperial City of Cologne was recognized after 1475, thus removing it from even the nominal secular authority of the elector. Cologne and Bonn were occupied by France in 1794. The right bank territories of the electorate were secularized in 1803 during the German mediatization. The electorate should not be confused with the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cologne, the area over which the archbishop exercised spiritual authority, which was larger. Even larger was the Ecclesiastical Province of Cologne, which included suffragan dioceses such as Liège and Münster (see map below).

History

was the ancient Roman city of Colonia Agrippina in the province of

Germania Inferior ''Germania Inferior'' ("Lower Germania") was a Roman province from AD 85 until the province was renamed ''Germania Secunda'' in the 4th century AD, on the west bank of the Rhine bordering the North Sea. The capital of the province was Colonia Cl ...

, and has been a bishop's see since Roman times. In 953, the archbishops of Cologne first gained noteworthy secular power, when Bishop Bruno was appointed as duke by his brother Emperor Otto I. To weaken the secular nobility, who threatened his power, Otto endowed Bruno and his successors in the bishop's seat with the prerogatives of secular princes. This was the beginning of the electoral state of Cologne. It was formed from the temporal possessions of the archbishopric and included in the end a strip of territory along the left Bank of the

Rhine The Rhine ( ) is one of the List of rivers of Europe, major rivers in Europe. The river begins in the Swiss canton of Graubünden in the southeastern Swiss Alps. It forms part of the Swiss-Liechtenstein border, then part of the Austria–Swit ...

east of Jülich, and the Duchy of Westphalia on the other side of the Rhine, beyond Berg and Mark. By the end of the 12th century, the Archbishop of Cologne was one of the seven electors of the

Holy Roman Emperor The Holy Roman Emperor, originally and officially the Emperor of the Romans (disambiguation), Emperor of the Romans (; ) during the Middle Ages, and also known as the Roman-German Emperor since the early modern period (; ), was the ruler and h ...

. Besides being prince-elector, he was Arch-chancellor of

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

as well, technically from 1238 and permanently from 1263 until 1803. In the

Battle of Worringen The Battle of Worringen was fought on 5 June 1288 near the town of Worringen (also spelled Woeringen), which is now part of Chorweiler, the northernmost borough (Stadtbezirk) of Cologne. It was the decisive battle of the War of the Limburg Succe ...

(1288), the archbishop was captured by soldiers of the city and was forced to grant the city near-complete autonomy. Eventually, the archbishop moved to

to escape jurisdiction conflicts with the city government. In 1475, Cologne became a Free Imperial City, independent from the archbishop.Harry de Quetteville
"History of Cologne"
''The Catholic Encyclopedia'', Nov 28, 2009. The first

pogrom A pogrom is a violent riot incited with the aim of Massacre, massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe late 19th- and early 20th-century Anti-Jewis ...

against the Jews was in 1349, when they were used as scapegoats for the

Black Death The Black Death was a bubonic plague pandemic that occurred in Europe from 1346 to 1353. It was one of the list of epidemics, most fatal pandemics in human history; as many as people perished, perhaps 50% of Europe's 14th century population. ...

, and therefore burnt in an '' auto-da-fé''. Political tensions arose from issues of taxation, public spending, regulation of business, and market supervision, as well as the limits of corporate autonomy. Long-distance trade in the Baltic grew, as the major trading towns came together in the

Hanseatic League The Hanseatic League was a Middle Ages, medieval commercial and defensive network of merchant guilds and market towns in Central Europe, Central and Northern Europe, Northern Europe. Growing from a few Northern Germany, North German towns in the ...

, under the leadership of Lübeck. It was a business alliance of trading cities and their guilds that dominated trade along the coast of Northern Europe and flourished from the 1200 to 1500 and continued with lesser importance after that. The chief cities were Cologne on the Rhine River,

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...

and Bremen on the North Sea, and Lübeck on the Baltic. The economic structures of medieval and early modern Cologne were based on the city's major harbor, its location as a transport hub and its entrepreneurial merchants who built ties with merchants in other Hanseatic cities.Joseph P. Huffman, ''Family, Commerce, and Religion in London and Cologne'' (1998) covers from 1000 to 1300. During the 16th century, two Archbishops of Cologne converted to

Protestantism Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that emphasizes Justification (theology), justification of sinners Sola fide, through faith alone, the teaching that Salvation in Christianity, salvation comes by unmerited Grace in Christianity, divin ...

. The first, Hermann von Wied, resigned the archbishopric on converting, but Gebhard Truchsess von Waldburg, who converted to

Calvinism Reformed Christianity, also called Calvinism, is a major branch of Protestantism that began during the 16th-century Protestant Reformation. In the modern day, it is largely represented by the Continental Reformed Christian, Presbyteri ...

in 1582, attempted to secularize the archbishopric. His marriage the following February, and his refusal to relinquish the territory resulted in the election of a competing archbishop and prince-elector, Ernst of Bavaria, brother of the Wittelsbach Duke of Bavaria. In the Cologne War that followed, the pope funded Italian and Spanish mercenaries and the Catholic Bavarians also sent an army to support Ernst, while the Protestant

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

supported von Waldburg. The war ruined most of the Electoral economy, and many villages and towns were besieged and destroyed. The Siege of Godesberg in November–December 1583 ended with the destruction of Godesberg Castle and the slaughter of most of its inhabitants. After several more sieges, von Waldburg gave up his claim to the see and retired to

Strasbourg Strasbourg ( , ; ; ) is the Prefectures in France, prefecture and largest city of the Grand Est Regions of France, region of Geography of France, eastern France, in the historic region of Alsace. It is the prefecture of the Bas-Rhin Departmen ...

with his wife. Ernst became archbishop–the first major success of the Counter-Reformation in Germany. Under Ernst's direction,

Jesuit The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

s supervised the reintroduction of Catholicism in the Electorate. From 1583 to 1761, the archbishopric was effectively a secundogeniture of the Bavarian branch of the House of Wittelsbach. As the archbishop in this period usually also held the Bishopric of Münster (and often the Bishopric of Liège), he was one of the most important princes of northwestern Germany. From 1597 until 1794,

was the residence the Elector, and consequently the capital of the Electorate. File:Universität Bonn.jpg, The Electoral Palace at

File:Schloss Augustusburg, Hof.JPG, Augustusburg Palace After 1795, the electorate's territories on the left bank of the Rhine were occupied by

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

and were formally annexed in 1801. Cologne was part of the ''département'' of Roer; Bonn was part of the ''département'' of Rhin-et-Moselle. The ''

Reichsdeputationshauptschluss The ' (formally the ', or "Principal Conclusion of the Extraordinary Imperial Delegation"), sometimes referred to in English as the Final Recess or the Imperial Recess of 1803, was a resolution passed by the ' (Imperial Diet) of the Holy Roman Em ...

'' of 1803 secularized the rest of the archbishopric, giving the Duchy of Westphalia to the

Landgraviate of Hesse-Darmstadt The Landgraviate of Hesse-Darmstadt () was a Imperial State, State of the Holy Roman Empire, ruled by a younger branch of the House of Hesse. It was formed in 1567 following the division of the Landgraviate of Hesse among the four sons of Landgr ...

and Vest Recklinghausen to the Duke of Arenberg. Cologne was, however, reestablished as the seat of a Catholic archbishop in 1824, and is an archdiocese to the present day.

List of electors

Notes

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Electorate Of Cologne 1803 disestablishments in the Holy Roman Empire Cologne, Electorate

953 establishments 10th-century establishments in East Francia Former states and territories of Rhineland-Palatinate Former monarchies of Europe