Rhenania I was based on territorial filiations and aimed to counteract the freemasonry influenced student orders coming up within the second half of the 18th century.

Rhenania and Franko-Badenia (founded in 1803) joined in 1803 to form the first Senior Convent (SC) and established the oldest bequeathed rules (SC-Comment).

After the re-organization of the university by the elector and Grand Duke Karl Friedrich von Baden, numerous non-residential students immigrated to Heidelberg from 1805 onwards and founded new – but often short lived – fraternities (Suevia, Guestphalia, Curonia, Vandalia, Hannovera, Holsatia, Helvetia, Saxo-Borussia).

The term Corps came up the first time after the partition of the Heidelbergian SC and was used for a group of territorial filiations, including the Niederrheiner (Lower-Rhiners), which later returned to the name Rhenania and dissolved themselves after the wars of liberation.

Many Badenese and Palatine liberals belonged to Rhenania II at this time, such as: Friedrich Wilhelm Knoebel (participant of the Hambach Festival), Friedrich Hecker (revolution leader in Baden) and Joseph Martin Reichard (President of the provisional government of Palatinate).

In renunciation to sectionalism and a system of mini-states in Germany the members of Nassovia dissolved their Corps by 15 January 1849 and endowed on the same day a new Rhenania IV.

Contrary to the SC-Corps Saxo-Borussia, Guestphalia and Vandalia, which were dominated by East-Elbian, Hanoveranian and Mecklenburgian capacious landowners and civil servants, Rhenania developed during this time frame to the Corps of the large scale industrials and the capital with the focal point of recruiting in the areas of Rhine-Ruhr, Frankfurt, Hamburg, and in the mid-German industrial zone.

The German novelist Theodor Fontane used the death of Rhenanian Emil Hartwich (1843- 1886; district judge in Düsseldorf) during a duel with Baron Léon Armand von Ardenne as guideline for his novel Effi Briest in 1894.

The celebration for the 100 year anniversary by the Alte Herren in 1949 took place within a frame appropriate to the circumstances of the post war time.

Shapes of the previous Corps Rhenania in correlation with new approaches for contemporary collegiate cohabit were led by the Rheinländerkreis (Rhinland circle) which was sponsored by the "Verein Heidelberger Rhenanen" (Association of Heidelbergian Rhenanians) in the same year.

In the 1870s and 1880s Rhenania conducted an active policy of relationships and established contacts and socialized official connections to numerous Corps at other universities such as Bonn, Giessen, Marburg, Freiburg, Tübingen, Wurzburg, Munich, Jena, Halle, Breslau, Göttingen, Berlin, Strasburg and Zurich until the beginning of World War I.

Since the Corps did not agree to a certain alignment within the KSCV, stagnation occurred as from 1900, and after World War I even turned into a downright isolation which was not to overcome just before a suspension.

After Corps Rhenania celebrated in alternating taverns throughout Heidelberg (e.g. "Seppl", lastly in "Weinberg" at Marktplatz), a baroque city house at Hauptstrasse 231 was acquired in 1882 as a Corps-house and the foundation of the "Rheinländischen Gesellschaft" as the subject of rights and duties.

As the old house did not comply with altered representation necessities, it was torn down and today's Corps-house was erected in the years 1906-1909 according to the plans of the königlich-bayerischen Hofoberbaurats (Royal Bavarian Chief Government Building Officer), Eugen Drollinger.