The Electorate of

Mainz Mainz (; #Names and etymology, see below) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, and with around 223,000 inhabitants, it is List of cities in Germany by population, Germany's 35th-largest city. It lies in ...

( or '; ), previously known in English as Mentz and by its French name Mayence, was one of the most prestigious and influential states 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 ...

. In the hierarchy of the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

, the Archbishop-Elector of Mainz was also the Primate of Germany ('), a purely honorary dignity that was unsuccessfully claimed from time to time by other archbishops. There were only two other ecclesiastical

Prince-elector The prince-electors ( pl. , , ) were the members of the Electoral College of the Holy Roman Empire, which elected the Holy Roman Emperor. Usually, half of the electors were archbishops. From the 13th century onwards, a small group of prince- ...

s in the Empire: the Electorate of Cologne 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 Mainz was also

archchancellor An archchancellor (, ) or chief chancellor was a title given to the highest dignitary of the Holy Roman Empire, and also used occasionally during the Middle Ages to denote an official who supervised the work of chancellors or notaries. The Car ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

(one of the three component titular kingdoms of the Holy Roman Empire, the other two being

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 ...

and

Burgundy Burgundy ( ; ; Burgundian: ''Bregogne'') is a historical territory and former administrative region and province of east-central France. The province was once home to the Dukes of Burgundy from the early 11th until the late 15th century. ...

) and, as such, ranked first among all ecclesiastical and secular princes of the Empire, and was second only to the

Emperor The word ''emperor'' (from , via ) can mean the male ruler of an empire. ''Empress'', the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife (empress consort), mother/grandmother (empress dowager/grand empress dowager), or a woman who rules ...

. His political role, particularly as an intermediary between the Estates of the Empire and the Emperor, was considerable.

History

The episcopal see was established in ancient Roman times in the city of Mainz, which had been a Roman provincial capital, Moguntiacum. The first bishops before the 4th century have legendary names, beginning with

Crescens Crescens ( Greek: Κρίσκης) was an individual who appears in the New Testament. He is traditionally considered one of the 72 disciples sent out by Jesus in Luke 10. He was a missionary in Galatia and became a companion of Paul. The na ...

. The first verifiable Bishop of Mainz was Martinus in 343. The ecclesiastical and secular importance of Mainz dates from the accession of St.

Boniface Boniface, OSB (born Wynfreth; 675 –5 June 754) was an English Benedictine monk and leading figure in the Anglo-Saxon mission to the Germanic parts of Francia during the eighth century. He organised significant foundations of the church i ...

to the see in 747. Boniface was previously an archbishop though without an assigned see, but that ecclesiastical status did not immediately devolve upon the see itself until his successor Lullus; during his reign Mainz became an archdiocese, in 781. Another early bishop of Mainz was Aureus of Mainz. The territory of the Electorate included several non-contiguous blocks of territory: lands near Mainz on both the left and right banks of the Rhine; territory along the Main River above Frankfurt (including the district of

Aschaffenburg Aschaffenburg (; Hessian: ''Aschebersch'', ) is a town in northwest Bavaria, Germany. The town of Aschaffenburg, despite being its administrative seat, is not part of the district of Aschaffenburg. Aschaffenburg belonged to the Archbishopric ...

); the

Eichsfeld The Eichsfeld ( or ; 'Oak-field') is a historical region in the southeast of the state of Lower Saxony (which is called , 'lower Eichsfeld') and northwest of the state of Thuringia (, 'upper Eichsfeld') in the south of the Harz mountains in Germany ...

region in

Lower Saxony Lower Saxony is a States of Germany, German state (') in Northern Germany, northwestern Germany. It is the second-largest state by land area, with , and fourth-largest in population (8 million in 2021) among the 16 ' of the Germany, Federal Re ...

and

Thuringia Thuringia (; officially the Free State of Thuringia, ) is one of Germany, Germany's 16 States of Germany, states. With 2.1 million people, it is 12th-largest by population, and with 16,171 square kilometers, it is 11th-largest in area. Er ...

; and the territory around

Erfurt Erfurt () is the capital (political), capital and largest city of the Central Germany (cultural area), Central German state of Thuringia, with a population of around 216,000. It lies in the wide valley of the Gera (river), River Gera, in the so ...

in Thuringia. As was generally the case in the Holy Roman Empire, the territory of a prince-bishopric or archbishopric differed from that of the corresponding diocese or archdiocese, which was the purely spiritual jurisdiction of the prince-bishop or archbishop. During the early modern age, the archdiocese of Mainz (see map below) was the largest ecclesiastical province of Germany, covering Mainz and 10 suffragant dioceses. During the early modern period the

cathedral chapter According to both Catholic and Anglican canon law, a cathedral chapter is a college of clerics ( chapter) formed to advise a bishop and, in the case of a vacancy of the episcopal see in some countries, to govern the diocese during the vacancy. In ...

of Mainz controlled the election of the archbishop and used its power to ensure only its members were elevated. By this time membership in the chapter had been monopolized by a few families of Imperial Knights, securing their power within the Electorate. In 1802, Mainz lost its archiepiscopal character. In the secularizations that accompanied the ' (

German mediatization German mediatisation (; ) was the major redistribution and reshaping of territorial holdings that took place between 1802 and 1814 in Germany by means of the subsumption and Secularization (church property), secularisation of a large number of ...

) of 1803, the seat of the elector,

Karl Theodor von Dalberg Karl Theodor Anton Maria von Dalberg (8 February 1744 – 10 February 1817) was a Catholic German bishop and statesman. In various capacities, he served as Archbishop of Mainz, Prince of Regensburg, Arch-Chancellor of the Holy Roman Empire, ...

, was moved to

Regensburg Regensburg (historically known in English as Ratisbon) is a city in eastern Bavaria, at the confluence of the rivers Danube, Naab and Regen (river), Regen, Danube's northernmost point. It is the capital of the Upper Palatinate subregion of the ...

, and the electorate lost its left bank territories to

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 ...

, its right bank areas along the Main below Frankfurt to Hesse-Darmstadt and the Nassau princes, and Eichsfeld and Erfurt to the

Kingdom of Prussia The Kingdom of Prussia (, ) was a German state that existed from 1701 to 1918.Marriott, J. A. R., and Charles Grant Robertson. ''The Evolution of Prussia, the Making of an Empire''. Rev. ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1946. It played a signif ...

. Dalberg retained the Aschaffenburg area as the Principality of Aschaffenburg. In 1810 Dalberg merged Aschaffenburg,

Frankfurt Frankfurt am Main () is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Hesse. Its 773,068 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the List of cities in Germany by population, fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located in the forela ...

Wetzlar Wetzlar () is a city in the state of Hesse, Germany. It is the twelfth largest city in Hesse with currently 55,371 inhabitants at the beginning of 2019 (including second homes). As an important cultural, industrial and commercial center, the un ...

Hanau Hanau () is a city in the Main-Kinzig-Kreis, in Hesse, Germany. It is 25 km east of Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main and part of the Frankfurt Rhine-Main, Frankfurt Rhine-Main Metropolitan Region. Its railway Hanau Hauptbahnhof, station is a ma ...

, and

Fulda Fulda () (historically in English called Fuld) is a city in Hesse, Germany; it is located on the river Fulda and is the administrative seat of the Fulda district (''Kreis''). In 1990, the city hosted the 30th Hessentag state festival. Histor ...

, to form the new

Grand Duchy of Frankfurt The Grand Duchy of Frankfurt was a German satellite state of Napoleonic creation. It came into existence in 1810 through the combination of the former territories of the Archbishopric of Mainz along with the Free City of Frankfurt itself. Histo ...

in 1810. Dalberg resigned in 1813 and in 1815 the

Congress of Vienna The Congress of Vienna of 1814–1815 was a series of international diplomatic meetings to discuss and agree upon a possible new layout of the European political and constitutional order after the downfall of the French Emperor Napoleon, Napol ...

divided his territories between the

Kingdom of Bavaria The Kingdom of Bavaria ( ; ; spelled ''Baiern'' until 1825) was a German state that succeeded the former Electorate of Bavaria in 1806 and continued to exist until 1918. With the unification of Germany into the German Empire in 1871, the kingd ...

, the Electorate of Hesse-Kassel (or Hesse-Cassel), the

Grand Duchy of Hesse The Grand Duchy of Hesse and by Rhine () was a grand duchy in western Germany that existed from 1806 to 1918. The grand duchy originally formed from the Landgraviate of Hesse-Darmstadt in 1806 as the Grand Duchy of Hesse (). It assumed the name ...

and the

Free City of Frankfurt Frankfurt was a major city of the Holy Roman Empire, being the seat of imperial elections since 885 and the city for Coronation of the Holy Roman emperor, imperial coronations from 1562 (previously in Free Imperial City of Aachen) until 1792. F ...

. The modern Roman Catholic Diocese of Mainz was founded in 1802 when Mainz lost its archdiocese status and its territory west of the Rhine River became a mere diocese within the territory of

. In 1814 its jurisdiction was extended over the territory of Hesse-Darmstadt. Since then it has had two cardinals and via various

concordat A concordat () is a convention between the Holy See and a sovereign state that defines the relationship between the Catholic Church and the state in matters that concern both,René Metz, ''What is Canon Law?'' (New York: Hawthorn Books, 1960 cathedral chapter According to both Catholic and Anglican canon law, a cathedral chapter is a college of clerics ( chapter) formed to advise a bishop and, in the case of a vacancy of the episcopal see in some countries, to govern the diocese during the vacancy. In ...

electing a successor to the bishop. File:Kurfuerstliches Schloss Mainz Innenhof.jpg"> Schloss Johannisburg in Aschaffenburg File:ThüringerStaatskanzlei.jpg, Palace of the Mainz Governors in

File:Mainzer Dom von Nordosten.jpg, Mainz Cathedral File:Erfurt cathedral and severi church.jpg, Erfurt Cathedral and St. Severus Church in

References

External links

* of the modern Diocese
Map of the Archbishopric of Mainz in 1789
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mainz, Electorate Of 780 establishments 1803 disestablishments in the Holy Roman Empire Dioceses established in the 8th century Electoral Rhenish Circle Electorates of the Holy Roman Empire Former states and territories of Bavaria Former states and territories of Hesse Former states and territories of Rhineland-Palatinate History of Catholicism in Germany

Electorate Electorate may refer to: * The people who are eligible to vote in an election, especially their number e.g. the term ''size of (the) electorate'' * The dominion of a prince-elector in the Holy Roman Empire until 1806 * An electoral district ...

Prince-bishoprics of the Holy Roman Empire in Germany Former monarchies of Europe States and territories disestablished in 1803

History

See also

References

External links