German mediatisation

Instead, the Holy Roman Empire remained a feudal patchwork comprising "polyglot congeries of literally hundreds of nearly sovereign states and territories ranging in size from considerable to minuscule".

In recent decades, some historians have maintained that the fragmentation of Germany was not to be found in the misfortunes, weakness or mistakes of imperial dynasties, but rather in the huge geographical extent of the Empire and the vigor of aristocratic and ecclesiastical rule in its localities.

The emperors expanded the power of the Church, and especially of the bishops, with land grants and numerous privileges of immunity and protection as well as extensive judicial rights, which eventually coalesced into a distinctive temporal principality: the Hochstift.

In the end, the Peace of Westphalia confirmed the secularisation of a score of prince-bishoprics, including the archbishoprics of Bremen and Magdeburg and six bishoprics with full political powers,[note 3] which were assigned to Sweden, Brandenburg and Mecklenburg.

[11] Owing to the traumatic experience of the Thirty Years' War and in order to avoid a repetition of this catastrophe, the German rulers great or small were now inclined to value law and legal structures more highly than ever before in the history of the Empire.

The continued existence of independent prince-bishoprics, an anomalous phenomenon unique to the Holy Roman Empire, was increasingly considered an anachronism especially, but not exclusively, by the Protestant princes, who also coveted these defenceless territories.

Thus, secret proposals by Prussia to end the War of the Austrian Succession called for increasing the insufficient territorial base of the Wittelsbach Emperor Charles VII through his annexation of some prince-bishoprics.

It was actively discussed during the Seven Years' War, and again during Joseph II's maneuverings over the Bavarian inheritance[15] and during his later exchange plan to swap Bavaria for the Austrian Netherlands, which included a secret provision for the secularisation of the Archbishopric of Salzburg and the Provostry of Berchtesgaden.

Yet, none of these projects ever came close to be implemented because, in the end, key actors appreciated that the secularisation of one single prince-bishopric would open a Pandora's box and have severe repercussions on the institutional stability of the Empire.

[17] After Revolutionary France had declared war on Prussia and Austria in April 1792, its armies invaded and by the end of 1794, they had consolidated their hold over the Austrian Netherlands and the rest of the left bank of the Rhine.

[18][19] Already, the Franco-Prussian Treaty of Basel of April 1795 spoke of "a compensation" in case a future general peace with the Holy Roman Empire surrendered to France the German territories west of the Rhine, including the Prussian provinces.

[20] In addition, Article 3 of the convention provided that the Prince of Orange-Nassau, dynastically related to the king of Prussia, who actively defended his interests, would be compensated with the Prince-Bishoprics of Würzburg and Bamberg if his loss of the Dutch hereditary stadtholdership, which followed the creation of the French-backed Batavian Republic, was to become permanent.

[23][24] Indeed, on 9 March 1798, the delegates at the congress at Rastatt formally accepted the sacrifice of the entire left bank and, on 4 April 1798, approved the secularisation of all the ecclesiastical states save the three Electorates of Mainz, Cologne and Trier, whose continued existence was an absolute red line for Emperor Francis II.

[25] The congress, which lingered on well into 1799, failed in its other goals due to disagreement among the delegates on the repartition of the secularized territories and insufficient French control over the process caused by the mounting power struggle in Paris.

[28] The sudden realization in the wake of Campo Formio that the Empire was on the threshold of radical changes initiated a debate on the issues of compensation and secularisation conducted in pamphlets, in the press, in the political correspondence within and amongst the territories and at the Imperial Diet.

[29] Among other arguments, the defenders of the ecclesiastical states insisted that it was fundamentally illegal and unconstitutional to dissolve any imperial estates, and that the notion of compensating rulers for lost territory was contrary to all past treaties, where "each had to bear his own fate".

[31] For its part, Austria was to be consistently hostile to secularisation, particularly in its wholesale form, since it realized it had more to lose than to gain from it as it would result in the disappearance of the ecclesiastical princes and prelates from the Imperial Diet and the loss of their traditional support for the Emperor.

[citation needed] Hard pressed by Bonaparte, now firmly at the helm in France as First Consul, the Empire was obliged soon after Lunéville to take on the task of drafting a definitive compensation plan (Entschädigungsplan).

[42][43] A "general compensation plan" combining the various formal and informal accords concluded in Paris was drafted by Talleyrand in June 1802, approved by Russia with minor changes,[44] and submitted almost as an ultimatum to the Imperial Deputation when it finally convened at Regensburg for its first meeting on 24 August 1802.

It was said that the plan, "based on calculations of unquestionable impartiality" endeavored to effect compensation for recognized losses while "maintaining the pre-war balance of power between the key German rulers", two goals that were somewhat contradictory.

[citation needed] The Imperial Deputation, originally entrusted with the compensation process but now reduced to a subordinate role, tended to be seen by the mediating Powers and the key German States as mere constitutional window dressing.

The same month, Bavarian troops entered Bamberg and Würzburg a week after Elector Maximilian IV Joseph had written to their respective prince-bishops to inform them of the imminent occupation of their principalities.

[50] For their parts, the lesser princes and the counts, with little manpower and resources, generally had to wait until the Final Recess was issued before they could take possession of the territories – if any – that were awarded to them as compensation, usually a secularized abbey or one of the smaller imperial cities.

[citation needed] On 8 October 1802, the mediating Powers transmitted to the Deputation their second general compensation plan whose many modifications reflected the considerable number of claims, memoirs, petitions and observations they had received from all quarters.

However, due to the influence of the Enlightenment, growing anticlericalism and a desire to strengthen and modernize the state, exemplified by the policies of Count Maximilian von Montgelas, the influential minister of Elector Max Joseph of Bavaria, as well as the expectation of substantial financial gains, the German rulers decided at the last moment and on their own accord to include in the Final Recess of February 1803 a radical extension of the secularization process – Article 35 – which authorized the secularization of all the non-immediate monasteries, abbeys, convents and other religious houses throughout the empire which were legally subordinate to a territorial ruler.

[62] Following the simultaneous secularization of so many monasteries by Bavaria and other states and the hurried sale of their assets, including monastic buildings and lands, the market was saturated and the expected financial gain did not materialize.

[64] In 2003, on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the Final Recess, Cardinal Karl Lehmann, bishop of Mainz, pointed out that the secularization of 1803 had brought about the greatest territorial upheaval that Germany had experienced up to then, "more drastic than the Protestant Reformation and the Peace of Westphalia" and he emphasized that its implementation had taken place with brute force and reckless violation of religious feeling, at its most brutal in Bavaria, Württemberg and Baden.

While the secret compensation provisions of the treaties of 1796 with Prussia, Baden and Württemberg targeted only ecclesiastical territories, by the time the Congress of Rastatt opened in late 1797, there were widespread rumors about the abolition of at least some cities.

In reluctant recognition of Napoleon's dismemberment of imperial territory, on 6 August 1806, the Holy Roman Emperor Francis II declared the Empire abolished, and claimed as much power as he could retain as ruler of the Habsburg realms.

Instead, the former rulers who held a vote within the Imperial Diet were to enjoy an improved aristocratic status, being deemed equal to the still-reigning monarchs for marital purposes, and entitled to claim compensation for their losses.