The Holy Roman Empire was a multi-ethnic complex of territories in Western, Central and Southern Europe that developed during the Early Middle Ages and continued until its dissolution in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars.
During the Early Modern period the Holy Roman Empire was divided into Imperial Circles, administrative groupings whose primary purposes were the organization of common defensive structure and the collection of imperial taxes. They were also used as a means of organization within the Imperial Diet and the Imperial Chamber Court. Each circle had a Circle Diet, although not every member of the Circle Diet would hold membership of the Imperial Diet as well.
Imperial Reform is the name given to repeated attempts in the 15th and 16th centuries to adapt the structure and the constitutional order (Verfassungsordnung) of the Holy Roman Empire to the requirements of the early modern state and to give it a unified government under either the Imperial Estates or the emperor's supremacy.
An edict is a decree or announcement of a law, often associated with monarchism, but it can be under any official authority. Synonyms include "dictum" and "pronouncement".
The Catholic League was a coalition of Catholic states of the Holy Roman Empire formed 10 July 1609. While initially formed as a confederation to act politically to negotiate issues vis-à-vis the Protestant Union, modelled on the more intransigent ultra-Catholic French Catholic League (1576), it was subsequently concluded as a military alliance "for the defence of the Catholic religion and peace within the Empire".
The Edict of Restitution, which passed eleven years into the Thirty Years' War on March 6, 1629, in the city of Vienna, following Catholic successes at arms, was a belated attempt by Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor to restore the religious and territorial situations reached in the Peace of Augsburg (1555), whose "Ecclesiastical Reservation" had impeded the secularization of Catholic church lands after 1555, as no further Catholic church lands could legally be transferred to Protestant control. However, for several decades weak emperors had been unable to enforce the "Ecclesiastical Reservation" against Protestant encroachments.
The Franconian Circle was an Imperial Circle established in 1500 in the centre of the Holy Roman Empire. It comprised the eastern part of the former Franconian stem duchy—roughly corresponding with the present-day Bavarian Regierungsbezirke of Upper, Middle and Lower Franconia—while western Rhenish Franconia belonged to the Upper Rhenish Circle. The title of a "Duke of Franconia" was claimed by the Würzburg bishops.
Wettenhausen Abbey was an Imperial Abbey of Augustinian Canons until its secularization in 1802-1803. Being one of the 40-odd self-ruling Imperial Abbeys of the Holy Roman Empire, Wettenhaussen Abbey was a virtually independent state. Its abbot had seat and voice in the Imperial Diet, where he sat on the Bench of the Prelates of Swabia. At the time of secularization, the Abbey's territory covered 56 square kilometers and it had about 5,400 subjects.
The capitulation of Franzburg was a treaty providing for the capitulation of the Duchy of Pomerania to the forces of the Holy Roman Empire during the Thirty Years' War. It was signed on 10 November (O.S.) or 20 November (N.S.) 1627 by Bogislaw XIV, Duke of Pomerania and Hans Georg von Arnim, commander in chief of an occupation force belonging to the army of Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor, led by Albrecht von Wallenstein. While the terms of the capitulation were unfavourable for the Duchy of Pomerania already, occupation became even more burdensome when the occupation force did not adhere to the restrictions outlined in Franzburg. Stralsund resisted with Danish, Swedish and Scottish support, another Danish intervention failed. Imperial occupation lasted until Swedish forces invaded in 1630, and subsequently cleared all of the Duchy of Pomerania of imperial forces until 1631.
The Princely Abbey of Kempten was an ecclesiastical principality of the Holy Roman Empire for centuries until it was annexed to the Electorate of Bavaria in the course of the German mediatization in 1803.
The Imperial Diet was the deliberative body of the Holy Roman Empire. It was not a legislative body in the contemporary sense; its members envisioned it more like a central forum where it was more important to negotiate than to decide.
The Apostolic Nunciature to Bavaria was an ecclesiastical office of the Roman Catholic Church in Bavaria. It was a diplomatic post of the Holy See, whose representative was called the Apostolic Nuncio to Bavaria, a state – consecutively during the nunciature's existence – of the Holy Roman Empire, of its own sovereignty, and then of Imperial, Weimar and finally Nazi Germany. The office of the nunciature was located in Munich from 1785 to 1936. Prior to this, there was one nunciature in the Holy Roman Empire, which was the nunciature in Cologne, accredited to the Archbishop-Electorates of Cologne, Mainz and Trier.
The Army of the Holy Roman Empire was created in 1422 and came to an end when the Holy Roman Empire dissolved in 1806 as the result of the Napoleonic Wars. It must not be confused with the Imperial Army of the Emperor.
The Ewiger Landfriede of 1495, passed by Maximilian I, German king and emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, was the definitive and everlasting ban on the medieval right of vendetta (Fehderecht). In fact, despite being officially outlawed, feuds continued in the territory of the empire until well into the 16th century.
The two main labels that have been used to describe Mozart's nationality are "Austrian" and "German". However, in Mozart's own time, these terms were used differently from the way they are used today, because the modern nation states of Austria and Germany did not yet exist. Any decision to label Mozart as "Austrian" or "German" involves political boundaries, history, language, culture, and Mozart's own views. Editors of modern encyclopedias and other reference sources differ in how they assign a nationality to Mozart in light of conflicting criteria.
The Swabian League of Cities was a primarily military alliance between a number of free imperial cities in and around the area now defined as south-western Germany. Its objective was the maintenance of the privileges, rights, and freedoms of its members, and it therefore also opposed the territorial ambitions of increasingly assertive surrounding states within the Holy Roman Empire such as Bavaria, Württemberg, and Austria.
Circle troops were the contingents of soldiers that the Imperial Circles (Reichskreise) actually placed at the disposal of the Army of the Holy Roman Empire or Reichsarmee. Following the Imperial Defence Order (Reichsdefensionalordnung) all imperial circles in the empire were obliged to provide contingents of troops, although not all did so in the event. The Imperial Register (Reichsmatrikel) laid down how many troops the individual Imperial States had to make available to the Reichsarmee.
The Imperial Military Constitution was the collection of military laws of the Holy Roman Empire. Like the rest of the imperial constitution, it grew out of various laws and governed the establishment of military forces within the Empire. It was the basis for the establishment of the Army of the Holy Roman Empire, which was under the supreme command of the Emperor but was distinct from his Imperial Army, as it could only be deployed by the Imperial Diet. The last Imperial Defence Order (Reichsdefensionalordnung), entitled Reichsgutachten in puncto securitatis, of 13/23 May 1681, completed the military constitution of the Holy Roman Empire.
Timeline of Augsburg, Bavaria, Germany.
Johann von Leuchselring was Chancellor for the Free Imperial City of Augsburg from 1636 through 1645 and a leading Catholic negotiator in the Peace of Westphalia.
