The Three Bishoprics (french: les Trois-Évêchés ) constituted a
government
A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state.
In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government i ...
of the
Kingdom of France consisting of the
dioceses of
Metz,
Verdun, and
Toul within the
Lorraine region. The three dioceses had been
Prince-bishoprics of the
Holy Roman Empire until they were seized by King
Henry II of France between April and June 1552. At the end of the
Thirty Years' War, they were officially ceded to France by the 1648
Peace of Westphalia.
History
In the course of the rebellion against the
Habsburg emperor
Charles V, several
Protestant
Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
Imperial
princes
A prince is a male ruler (ranked below a king, grand prince, and grand duke) or a male member of a monarch's or former monarch's family. ''Prince'' is also a title of nobility (often highest), often hereditary, in some European states. The ...
met at
Lochau
Lochau is a municipality in the westernmost Austrian state of Vorarlberg. It is located on Lake Constance, in the Bregenz district, near the border to Germany.
About 50.3% of the municipality's area is forest. The Pfänder, the landmark moun ...
Castle near
Torgau
Torgau () is a town on the banks of the Elbe in northwestern Saxony, Germany. It is the capital of the district Nordsachsen.
Outside Germany, the town is best known as where on 25 April 1945, the United States and Soviet Armies forces fi ...
in May 1551. Here the receiving
Wettin elector
Maurice of Saxony
Maurice (21 March 1521 – 9 July 1553) was Duke (1541–47) and later Elector (1547–53) of Saxony. His clever manipulation of alliances and disputes gained the Albertine branch of the Wettin dynasty extensive lands and the electoral dignity.
...
forged an alliance with Duke
John Albert I of Mecklenburg
John Albert I, Duke of Mecklenburg, in older literature known as ''John'' or'' Johann'' (23 December 1525 – 12 February 1576), was the reigning Duke of Mecklenburg-Güstrow from 1547 to 1556 and of Mecklenburg-Schwerin from 1556 to 1576. ...
, Prince
William IV of Hesse, whose father Landgrave
Philip I was jailed by the emperor, the
Hohenzollern margrave
Albert Alcibiades of Brandenburg-Kulmbach and his cousin Duke
Albert of Prussia.
Dissatisfied with the
Interim decreed by Charles V at the 1548
Diet of Augsburg, the insurgents were full of resolution to defend Protestantism and–not least–their autonomy against the Imperial central authority. They agreed to establish contacts with the Catholic French king Henry II, disregarding his oppression of the Protestant
Huguenots. In autumn Henry declared
war against Charles V and prepared to march against the Empire up to the
Rhine River. On 15 January 1552, he signed the
Treaty of Chambord with Maurice of Saxony and his Protestant allies, whereby the French conquests were legitimised ahead of time. The princes acknowledged the king's lordship as "
Vicar of the Empire" over the
Imperial cities
In the Holy Roman Empire, the collective term free and imperial cities (german: Freie und Reichsstädte), briefly worded free imperial city (', la, urbs imperialis libera), was used from the fifteenth century to denote a self-ruling city that ...
of
Metz,
Toul and
Verdun, as well as
Cambrai "and other towns of the Empire that do not speak German". The insurgents in turn received subsidies and military assistance from the French, their troops moved into the Habsburg hereditary lands and laid siege to the emperor at
Innsbruck, while his brother
Ferdinand I entered into negotiations that led to the revocation of the Augsburg Interim by the 1552
Peace of Passau.
Image:Cathedrale metz 2003.jpg, Metz Cathedral
Image:Cathédrale de Toul-Façade.JPG, Toul Cathedral
Toul Cathedral (''Cathédrale Saint-Étienne de Toul'') is a Roman Catholic church in Toul, Lorraine, France. It is a classic example of late Gothic architecture in the Flamboyant style. The cathedral has one of the biggest cloisters in France.
...
Image:55 VERDUN Cathedrale+Cloitre.JPG, Verdun Cathedral
Verdun Cathedral (french: Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Verdun) is a Roman Catholic church located in the town of Verdun, Lorraine, France. The cathedral is the seat of the Bishops of Verdun. It was declared a ''monument historique'' on 30 October ...
Backed by Duke
Francis of Guise and his brother Cardinal
Charles of Lorraine, King Henry II of France upon his agreement with the Protestant princes had started his ''Voyage d’Allemagne'' "for the sake of German liberties". On
Palm Sunday 1552 French troops under the command of
Anne de Montmorency
Anne, Duke of Montmorency, Honorary Knight of the Garter (15 March 1493, Chantilly, Oise12 November 1567, Paris) was a French soldier, statesman and diplomat. He became Marshal of France and Constable of France and served five kings.
Early lif ...
in a surprise attack moved into the walls of Metz, followed by the occupation of Toul on 13 April. Henry then turned against the
Lorraine capital
Nancy, where he had the minor duke
Charles III abducted to the French court in
Paris. On 18 April the king celebrated his entry into Metz and, after a failed attack on the
Imperial City of Strasbourg, returned from the Rhine to move into Verdun on 12 June. At that time, the French had occupied the three Imperial cities as well as the territory of the surrounding Prince-bishoprics.
As from the emperor's perspective, Elector Maurice and his allies had no right to legally dispose of Imperial territory, Charles V started a campaign against the French in order to reconquer the occupied dioceses culminating in the
Siege of Metz from 19 October 1552 to 2 January 1553. The expedition ultimately failed, when the Imperial troops were defeated by the French forces under Duke Francis of Guise in the 1554
Battle of Renty. When the emperor, worn out and exhausted, abdicated in 1556, his successor Ferdinand I discontinued all attempts to regain the Three Bishoprics.
King Henry II left a permanent garrison in each of the cities and gradually subjected its citizens to his royal authority. Especially the Metz townsmen filed several petitions to the
Imperial Diet, however, the retrieval of the lost Three Bishoprics was no longer a main concern of the disintegrating Empire during the ongoing
confessionalization
In Protestant Reformation history, confessionalization is the parallel processes of "confession-building" taking place in Europe between the Peace of Augsburg (1555) and the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648). During this time prior to the Thirty Y ...
. Initiated by
Cardinal Richelieu, the ''Trois-Évêchés'' received a certain autonomy with a provincial
parlement installed in 1633 in Metz, dominated by the city's
patriciate. Civil commotions decreased as the cities prospered under French rule, though the implementation of the
gabelle of salt
The ''gabelle'' () was a very unpopular tax on salt in France that was established during the mid-14th century and lasted, with brief lapses and revisions, until 1946. The term ''gabelle'' is derived from the Italian ''gabella'' (a duty), itself ...
sparked some unrest in Metz. When King
Louis XIV acceded to the throne in 1643, he confirmed the privileges of the Metz, Toul and Verdun citizens as his "good and faithful subjects".
After the acquisition of the Three Bishoprics was finally recognized by the Holy Roman Empire in the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, the province's territory was further enlarged by parts of the
Duchy of Luxembourg around
Thionville (''Diedenhofen''), ceded to France according to the 1659
Treaty of the Pyrenees, and several Lorraine villages annexed in 1661.
The
Diocese of Saint-Dié, created in 1777 and sometimes called the "Fourth Bishopric of Lorraine" ("''le Quatrième Évêché lorrain''"), is not related historically to the Three Bisphoprics.
Sources
*
Trois-Évêchés on the
French Wikipedia
*
450th anniversary celebrationson the
French Ministry of Culture's website
*
Biography of Henry II
{{Authority control
Former provinces of France
Prince-bishoprics of the Holy Roman Empire in France