Elector of Mainz

Among these men were important figures in the history of Germany such as Hatto I, Adalbert of Mainz, Siegfried III, Peter of Aspelt and Albert of Brandenburg.

There were several violent contests between rivals for the archbishopric, and their power struggles occasionally moved the citizens of Mainz to revolt.

The archbishop was also, traditionally, one of the Imperial Prince-Electors, the Arch-chancellor of Germany, and presiding officer of the electoral college technically from 1251 and permanently from 1263 until 1803.

In the secularizations that accompanied the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss ("German mediatization") of 1803, the seat of the elector, Karl Theodor von Dalberg, was moved to Regensburg, and the electorate lost its left bank territories to France, its right bank areas along the Main below Frankfurt to Hesse-Darmstadt and the Nassau princes, and Eichsfeld and Erfurt to Prussia.

Dalberg resigned in 1813 and in 1815 the Congress of Vienna divided his territories between the King of Bavaria, the Elector of Hesse, the Grand Duke of Hesse-Darmstadt and the Free City of Frankfurt.

Coat of arms of Mainz
Albert, Cardinal Elector of Mainz at the foot of the Cross
Lothar Franz Schönborn, Elector of Mainz (1695-1729)
Old boundary stone showing the Wheel of Mainz ( Mainzer Rad ), the coat of arms of the Electorate