The term (; ) is derived from the verb (to donate) and originally meant 'a donation'. Such donations usually comprised earning assets, originally landed estates with serfs defraying dues (originally often in kind) or with vassal tenants of noble rank providing military services and forwarding dues collected from serfs. In modern times the earning assets could also be financial assets donated to form a fund to maintain an endowment, especially a

charitable foundation A foundation (also referred to as a charitable foundation) is a type of nonprofit organization or charitable trust that usually provides funding and support to other charitable organizations through grants, while also potentially participating d ...

. When landed estates, donated as a to maintain the

college A college (Latin: ''collegium'') may be a tertiary educational institution (sometimes awarding degrees), part of a collegiate university, an institution offering vocational education, a further education institution, or a secondary sc ...

of a monastery, the chapter of a

collegiate church In Christianity, a collegiate church is a church where the daily office of worship is maintained by a college of canons, a non-monastic or "secular" community of clergy, organised as a self-governing corporate body, headed by a dignitary bearing ...

or 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 a diocese, formed a territory enjoying the status of an

imperial state An Imperial Estate (; , plural: ') was an entity or an individual of the Holy Roman Empire with representation and the right to vote in the Imperial Diet (Holy Roman Empire), Imperial Diet ('). Rulers of these Estates were able to exercise signi ...

within 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 ...

then the term often also denotes the territory itself. In order to specify this territorial meaning the term is then composed with as the compound ''

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 ...

'', denoting a

prince-bishopric A prince-bishop is a bishop who is also the civil ruler of some secular principality and sovereignty, as opposed to ''Prince of the Church'' itself, a title associated with cardinals. Since 1951, the sole extant prince-bishop has been the Bi ...

, or for a prince-archbishopric.

Endowment

lural (literally, the 'donation'), denotes in its original meaning the donated or else acquired fund of landed estates whose revenues are taken to maintain a

and the pertaining church (, i.e.

) and its collegiate or capitular canons ''( Stiftsherr n'' or canonesses ''(Stiftsfrau n''.Victor Dollmayr, Friedrich Krüer, Heinrich Meyer and Walter Paetzel, '' Deutsches Wörterbuch'' (started by the

Brothers Grimm The Brothers Grimm ( or ), Jacob Grimm, Jacob (1785–1863) and Wilhelm Grimm, Wilhelm (1786–1859), were Germans, German academics who together collected and published folklore. The brothers are among the best-known storytellers of Oral tradit ...

): 33 vols. (1854–1971), vol. 18 'Stehung–Stitzig', Leipzig: Hirzel, 1941, cols. 2870seq., reprint: Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag (dtv; No. 5945), 1984. . Many as endowments have been secularised in Protestant countries in the course of the

Reformation The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major Theology, theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the p ...

, or later in revolutionary France and the areas later annexed to or influenced by Napoleonic France.

Ecclesiastical endowment

Some survived and still form the endowments of modern mostly Catholic monasteries, then often called " X", such as Stift Melk. is often used –

pars pro toto ; ; ), is a figure of speech where the name of a ''portion'' of an object, place, or concept is used or taken to represent its entirety. It is distinct from a merism, which is a reference to a whole by an enumeration of parts; and metonymy, where ...

– as a synonym for an endowed monastery. If the endowment belongs to a collegiate church it is sometimes called . If the as a fund served or serves to maintain the specific college of a cathedral (a so-called

) then the is often called (i.e. 'cathedral donation und). However, since (like the Italian ''

Duomo ''Duomo'' (, ) is an Italian term for a church with the features of, or having been built to serve as a cathedral, whether or not it currently plays this role. The Duomo of Monza, for example, has never been a diocesan seat and is by definitio ...

'') is in German an expression for churches with a college, thus actual cathedrals and collegiate churches alike, also existed with collegiate churches not being cathedrals, like with the Supreme Parish and Collegiate Church in Berlin, now often translated as

Berlin Cathedral Berlin Cathedral (), also known as the Evangelical Supreme Parish and Collegiate Church, is a monumental Protestant Church in Germany, German Protestant church and dynastic tomb (House of Hohenzollern) at the Lustgarten on the Museum Island ...

, though it never was the seat of a bishop, but endowed with a (in German ''Dom'', as the Italian ''Duomo'', is the main church of a town or a city, not always a Cathedral).

Endowment for unmarried Protestant women

In some Lutheran states the endowments of women's monasteries were preserved, with the nunneries converted into secular

convent A convent is an enclosed community of monks, nuns, friars or religious sisters. Alternatively, ''convent'' means the building used by the community. The term is particularly used in the Catholic Church, Lutheran churches, and the Anglican ...

s in order to maintain unmarried or widowed noble women (the so-called conventuals, ), therefore called ladies' foundations () or noble damsels' foundations (, , ). Many of these convents were dissolved in

Communist Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, di ...

countries after the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, but, in Denmark and the former West Germany, many continue to exist, such as the Stift Fischbeck. In Lower Saxony the former endowments of many Lutheran women's convents are collectively administered by the Klosterkammer Hannover, a governmental department, while others maintain their endowments independently or their endowments are administered by a collective body consisting of the noble families of a former principality (e.g. Neuenwalde Convent or Preetz Priory). Some of these charitable institutions which previously accepted only female members of noble families now also accept residents from other social classes.

General charitable endowment

Many secular or religious ancient or modern charitable endowments of earning assets in order to maintain hospitals or homes for the elderly, for orphans, for widows, for the poor, for the blind or for people with other handicaps bear the name , often combined with the name of the main donators or the beneficiaries, such as (endowment for the elderly; see e.g. Cusanusstift, a hospital).

Educational endowment

Similar to the English development, where canon-law colleges with their endowments became sometimes the nuclei for secular educational

s the former Augustinian collegiate endowment in

Tübingen Tübingen (; ) is a traditional college town, university city in central Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated south of the state capital, Stuttgart, and developed on both sides of the Neckar and Ammer (Neckar), Ammer rivers. about one in ...

is maintained until today as the Tübinger Stift, a foundation of the Lutheran Evangelical State Church in Württemberg for the theological education. The Catholic church has similar institutions, such as the Wilhelmsstift, also in Tübingen. A modern example is the , which despite the term is not ecclesiastical, but a civic charitable establishment maintaining the Goethe House in Frankfurt upon Main.

Collegial body or building

is also used – totum pro parte – as the expression for the collegial body of persons (originally canons or canonesses) who administered it and for the building (compound) they used to meet or live in. If the served or serves to maintain the specific college of a cathedral (a so-called cathedral chapter) then the building can be also called .

Territorial entity

Territory of statehood

If a canon-law college or the chapter and/or the bishop of a cathedral managed not only to gain estates and their revenues as a but also the feudal overlordship to them as a secular ruler with imperial recognition, then such ecclesiastical estates (

temporalities Temporalities or temporal goods are the secular properties and possessions of the church. The term is most often used to describe those properties (a '' Stift'' in German or ''sticht'' in Dutch) that were used to support a bishop or other religious ...

) formed a territorial principality within the

with the rank of an

. The secular territory comprising the donated landed estates () was thus called (analogously translated as

) as opposed to an area of episcopal spiritual jurisdiction, called diocese (). The boundaries of secular prince-bishoprics did usually not correspond to that of the spiritual dioceses. Prince-bishoprics were always much smaller than the dioceses which included (parts of) neighbouring

s such as principalities of secular princes and Free Imperial Cities. Prince-bishoprics could also include areas belonging in ecclesiastical respect to other dioceses. (plural: ) is a compound with ('high') literally meaning 'a high anking ecclesiasticalendowment', whereas , a compound with ('arch '), is the corresponding expression for a prince-archbishopric. For the three

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- ...

ates of Cologne (Kurköln), Mainz (Kurmainz) and Trier (Kurtrier), which were simultaneously archbishoprics the corresponding expression is (electorate-archbishopric). The adjective pertaining to as a territory is ('of, pertaining to a prince-bishopric; prince-episcopal'). Similar developments as to statehood allowed a number of monasteries (the so-called imperial abbeys) or regular canon colleges (e.g. Berchtesgaden Provostry) with feudal overlordship to (part of) their estates to gain imperial recognition as a principality () too. Specific prince-bishoprics were often called , as in '' Hochstift Ermland'' or in '' Erzstift Bremen'', with meaning 'of/pertaining to the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen', as opposed to ('of/pertaining to the city of Bremen'). The spiritual entities, the dioceses, are called in German ('diocese') or ('archdiocese'). The difference between a and a is not always clear to authors so that texts, even scholarly ones, often translate or incorrectly simply as ''diocese/bishopric'' or ''archdiocese/archbishopric'', respectively.

Ecclesiastical diocese

In Danish, Norwegian and Swedish the term was adopted as a

loan word A loanword (also a loan word, loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language (the recipient or target language), through the process of borrowing (linguistics), borrowing. Borrowing ...

from German. In an ecclesiastical respect it simply denotes a

diocese In Ecclesiastical polity, church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided Roman province, prov ...

of a bishop.

Territorial subdivision

At times in Nordic countries, a formed an administrative jurisdiction under a ''Stiftamtmand'' (Danish).

Toponym

In the Netherlands the term is usually denoting the Prince-bishopric of Utrecht, which consisted of two separate parts ( and , i.e. upper and lower prince-bishopric) with other territories in between. The German corresponding terms are and . * Electorate-Archbishopric of Cologne (Kurerzstift Köln): ** ''Oberstift'', southerly area west of the Rhine with Bonn and Brühl; **, a more northerly, separate area with Rheinberg * Electorate-Archbishopric of Mainz (Kurerzstift Mainz): **, the easterly territorially separate

Lower Franconia Lower Franconia (, ) is one of seven districts of Bavaria, Germany. The districts of Lower, Middle and Upper Franconia make up the region of Franconia. It consists of nine districts and 308 municipalities (including three cities). History After ...

n, Hessian and Thuringian part with Aschaffenburg and Erfurt **, the westerly Rhenish part with Mainz *

Prince-Bishopric of Münster The Prince-Bishopric of Münster (, or ) was a large ecclesiastical principality in the Holy Roman Empire, located in the northern part of today's North Rhine-Westphalia and western Lower Saxony. From the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, ...

(Hochstift Münster): **, the southerly Westphalian part with Münster in Westphalia **, the northerly part, in ecclesiastical respect part of the diocese of Osnabrück *Prince-Bishopric of Utrecht (Sticht Utrecht): **''

Oversticht Overijssel (; ; ; ) is a province of the Netherlands located in the eastern part of the country. The province's name comes from the perspective of the Episcopal principality of Utrecht, which held the territory until 1528. The capital city of ...

'', the northerly territorially separate part **'' Nedersticht'', the southerly part with Utrecht

In compound nouns

As a component the term today usually takes the copulative "s" when used as a preceding compound.Victor Dollmayr, Friedrich Krüer, Heinrich Meyer and Walter Paetzel, '' Deutsches Wörterbuch'' (started by the

): 33 vols. (1854–1971), vol. 18 'Stehung–Stitzig', Leipzig: Hirzel, 1941, col. 2874, reprint: Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag (dtv; No. 5945), 1984. . Composite terms frequently found are such as ('vassal nobility of a prince-bishopric'), ('official of a '), ('library riginallyfinanced with the funds of a collegiate '), ('conventual in a Lutheran women's endowment'), ('

feud A feud , also known in more extreme cases as a blood feud, vendetta, faida, clan war, gang war, private war, or mob war, is a long-running argument or fight, often between social groups of people, especially family, families or clans. Feuds begin ...

with a prince-bishopric involved'), ('collegiate canoness'),Victor Dollmayr, Friedrich Krüer, Heinrich Meyer and Walter Paetzel, '' Deutsches Wörterbuch'' (started by the

): 33 vols. (1854–1971), vol. 18 'Stehung–Stitzig', Leipzig: Hirzel, 1941, cols. 2895seq., reprint: Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag (dtv; No. 5945), 1984. . ('conventual in a Lutheran women's endowment'), '' Stiftsgymnasium'' ('high school riginallyfinanced with the funds of a collegiate '), '' Stiftsherr'' ('collegiate canon'), (plural: 'vassal tenant of an estate of a '),Victor Dollmayr, Friedrich Krüer, Heinrich Meyer and Walter Paetzel, '' Deutsches Wörterbuch'' (started by the

): 33 vols. (1854–1971), vol. 18 'Stehung–Stitzig', Leipzig: Hirzel, 1941, cols. 2897seq., reprint: Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag (dtv; No. 5945), 1984. . ('subject/inhabitant of a prince-bishopric'), (' estates of a prince-bishopric as a realm'),Victor Dollmayr, Friedrich Krüer, Heinrich Meyer and Walter Paetzel, '' Deutsches Wörterbuch'' (started by the

): 33 vols. (1854–1971), vol. 18 'Stehung–Stitzig', Leipzig: Hirzel, 1941, col. 2900, reprint: Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag (dtv; No. 5945), 1984. . or ('diet of the estates of a prince-bishopric').

References

{{Authority control Prince-bishoprics of the Holy Roman Empire Church organization Monasteries Donation