• Military Menu                       

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Industry
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

Decline of the Dynastic Nobility

Ever since the Thirty years' War the dynastic nobility steadily declined, until its final collapse in the 19th century. The secularisation of the ecclesiastical principalities, for which the way was prepared by the treaties of peace between the French Republic and the German Empire at Campo Forniio 1797, and Luneville 1801, and confirmed and concluded by the extraordinary decree of a diet of deputation (Reichsdep«tat'ionshaupfschhtsg), Feb. 25, 1803.

The German estates of the ecclesiastical princes were used to compensate the secular princes for their losses on the left bank of the Rhine, and to furnish German territory for Italian princes who were driven out of Italy. Of the three ecclesiastical Electors, only the electoral prince of Mainz retained his position, and he was afterwards transferred as Prince Primate to Regensburg, and then to Aschaffenburg. The Grand Duke of Tuscany received the Archbishopric of Salzburg and the priorate of Berchtesgaden. The Bavarian Palatinate acquired the bishoprics of Wiirzburg, Bamberg, Freising, Augsburg, Passau, &c.; Prussia those of Hildesheim and Paderborn; Baden parts of those of Constanz, Strasburg, Speyer, Basel, &c.

The secularisation was no doubt a breach of the historical rights of the Empire: but it was justified by the change in public opinion, which would no longer tolerate a political sovereignty of the clergy, and by the public needs of the population, which wanted secular government.

The 'mediatisation' of a large number of secular princes 1806. and lords, by the Confederation of the Rhine, July 12, 1806, like the Act of secularisation it was mainly due to Napoleon I, and the ideas of the French Revolution : but at the same time it marked an advance in the political development of Germany, which had been hindered by the petty lords. The seventy-two 'mediatised' princes and lords lost their sovereignty, and became subjects of the great princes; but they still retained an inferior jurisdiction, and many privileges. Of their domains, thirteen fell to Bavaria, twenty-six to Wurtemberg, nine to Baden, seven to Hesse, seven to Nassau, twelve to the Grand Duchy of Berg. Later on, some of those who had survived were 'mediatised,' i.e. they became subjects of other German princes, e.g. the princes of Salm, Isenberg, and the Duke of Aremberg : some survived to the days of the Restoration, when they fell as dependents of Napoleon. The dissolution of the German Empire, August 6, 1806, put an end to their rights as an Imperial estate (Reicfis- standschaft).

The German Confederation of June 8,1815, revived the memory of the imperial privileges of these families by recognising them as equal in birth with those German princely houses which had become sovereign, and guaranteeing them certain honours and privileges, among others the right to sit in the first chamber of their country. The Matricula of the Confederation numbered at first forty-nine princes, forty-nine counts, and one baron : some of these families have since become extinct, others have lost their property.

The development of constitutional law in the different States was unfavourable to the patrimonial rights of these lords. They could not long maintain their special powers of jurisdiction and police in the face of laws which enforced legal equality and a centralised administration. After the Revolution of 1848 it became impossible; and the lords themselves resigned their separate lordship (Sonderherrschaft).

The number of thirty-four sovereign German princedoms, recognised by the Federal Act of 1815, was since diminished by death, by resignation, and by deprivation. The princes of Hohenzollern-Hechingen and Hohenzollern- Sigmaringen voluntarily resigned their sovereign rights in favour of the King of Prussia, Dec. 7, 1849. The royal house of Hanover, the electoral house of Hesse, and the ducal house of Nassau, lost their sovereignty to Prussia by the war of 1866, and the establishment of the North-German Confederation. The present number of Princes in the German Empire, with territorial sovereignty, is twenty-two.