Duchy of Franconia | |||||||||||||
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906–1168 | |||||||||||||
Status | Stem duchy | ||||||||||||
Religion | Roman Catholic (official) Germanic paganism | ||||||||||||
Government | Feudal Duchy | ||||||||||||
History | |||||||||||||
• Established | 906 | ||||||||||||
• Disestablished | 1168 | ||||||||||||
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Today part of | Germany |
The Duchy of Franconia (Middle High German : Herzogtuom Franken) was one of the five stem duchies of East Francia and the medieval Kingdom of Germany emerging in the early 10th century. The word Franconia, first used in a Latin charter of 1053, was applied like the words Francia, France, and Franken , to a portion of the land occupied by the Franks. [1]
It stretched along the valley of the River Main from its confluence with the Upper Rhine up to the Bavarian March of the Nordgau, in the areas of the present-day Bavarian region of Franconia, the adjacent southern parts of the Free State of Thuringia, northern Baden-Württemberg (i.e. Rhine-Neckar and Heilbronn-Franken) and Hesse. It also included several Gaue on the left bank of the Rhine around the cities of Mainz, Speyer and Worms comprising present-day Rhenish Hesse and the Palatinate region.
Located in the centre of what was to become the German kingdom about 919, it bordered the stem Duchy of Saxony in the north, Austrasian Lorraine (Upper and Lower Lorraine) in the west, the Duchy of Swabia in the southwest and the Duchy of Bavaria in the southeast. It was located in Germany.
The duchy evolved during the decline of the Carolingian Empire, when it was a part of the core Frankish realm of Austrasia (i.e. "Eastern Francia"), and got its form when the northwestern parts of Austrasia became a new realm called Lotharingia.
Unlike the other stem duchies, Franconia did not evolve into a stable political entity, though the local Salian counts held large estates in the western parts (Rhenish Franconia). In 906 the Conradine relative Count Conrad the Younger in the Lahngau is mentioned as a dux Franconiae. Upon the extinction of the East Frankish Carolingians in 911, he was elected the first German king and was succeeded as Franconian duke by his younger brother Eberhard. However, the Conradines did not prevail against the rising Saxon Ottonians: In 919 Duke Henry of Saxony succeeded Conrad as German king. Henry's son King Otto I seized the Franconian stem duchy after an unsuccessful revolt of Duke Eberhard was shattered at the 939 Battle of Andernach. King Otto did not appoint a new duke of Franconia, and the duchy was fragmented into several counties and bishoprics, which reported to the German kings directly.
The Salian counts in Rhenish Franconia were sometimes mentioned as Franconian dukes and they became Germany's royal and imperial dynasty in 1024. In 1093 their Franconian territories were granted as a fief to the palatine count of Aachen, which would evolve into the important German principality of Electoral Palatinate (Kurpfalz). With the advancement of Count Conrad the Red, Rhenish Franconia became the heartland of the Salian dynasty, which provided four emperors in the 11th and 12th centuries: Conrad II, Henry III, Henry IV, and Henry V. It contained the cities of Mainz, Speyer and Worms, the latter two being the administrative centres of countships within the hands of the Salian descendants of Conrad the Red. These counts were sometimes referred to as the Dukes of Franconia.
Emperor Conrad II was last to bear the ducal title. When he died in 1039, Rhenish Franconia was governed as a constellation of small states, including the cities of Frankfurt, Speyer and Worms; the Prince-bishoprics of Mainz, Speyer, and Worms; and the Landgraviate of Hesse (then part of Thuringia). Alongside these powerful entities were many smaller, petty states. In 1093, Emperor Henry IV gave the Salian territories in Rhenish Franconia as a fief to Henry of Laach, the count palatine of Lower Lorraine at Aachen. His lands would evolve into the important principality of Electoral Palatinate. While Emperor Frederick Barbarossa in 1168 granted the ducal title to the prince-bishops of Würzburg in Eastern Franconia, Rhenish Franconia was divided and extinguished. Its territories became part of the Imperial Upper Rhenish Circle in 1500.
As of the 13th century, the following states, among others, had formed in the territory of the former Duchy:
In 1168 the duchy of Franconia was bestowed by the Emperor Frederick I on the Bishopric of Würzburg. The bishops continued to rule until the bishopric was secularized in 1803 and absorbed into the Electorate of Bavaria. [1] When the Grand Duchy of Würzburg, the Archbishopric of Mainz and most other parts of Franconia became part of the Kingdom of Bavaria in 1814, the kings assumed the ducal title. The present head of the House of Wittelsbach, Franz, Duke of Bavaria (born 1933) is still traditionally styled as His Royal Highness the Duke of Bavaria, Duke in Swabia and Franconia, Count Palatine of the Rhine.
Franconia is a region of Germany, characterised by its culture and East Franconian dialect. Franconia is made up of the three Regierungsbezirke of Lower, Middle and Upper Franconia in Bavaria, the adjacent, Franconian-speaking South Thuringia, south of the Thuringian Forest—which constitutes the language boundary between Franconian and Thuringian—and the eastern parts of Heilbronn-Franconia in Baden-Württemberg.
The Salian dynasty or Salic dynasty was a dynasty in the High Middle Ages. The dynasty provided four kings of Germany (1024–1125), all of whom went on to be crowned Holy Roman emperors (1027–1125).
The House of Babenberg was a noble dynasty of Austrian Dukes and Margraves. Originally from Bamberg in the Duchy of Franconia, the Babenbergs ruled the imperial Margraviate of Austria from its creation in 976 AD until its elevation to a duchy in 1156, and from then until the extinction of the line in 1246, whereafter they were succeeded by the House of Habsburg.
The Duchy of Saxony was originally the area settled by the Saxons in the late Early Middle Ages, when they were subdued by Charlemagne during the Saxon Wars from 772 AD and incorporated into the Carolingian Empire (Francia) by 804. Upon the 843 Treaty of Verdun, Saxony was one of the five German stem duchies of East Francia; Duke Henry the Fowler was elected German king in 919.
Conrad I, called the Younger, was the king of East Francia from 911 to 918. He was the first king not of the Carolingian dynasty, the first to be elected by the nobility and the first to be anointed. He was chosen as the king by the rulers of the East Frankish stem duchies after the death of young King Louis the Child. Ethnically Frankish, prior to this election he had ruled the Duchy of Franconia from 906.
Eberhard III, a member of the Conradine dynasty, was Duke of Franconia, succeeding his elder brother, King Conrad I, in December 918. From 926 to 928, he also acted as ruler of Lotharingia.
Conrad, called the Red, was Duke of Lorraine from 944 until 953. He became the progenitor of the Imperial Salian dynasty.
The Duchy of Bavaria was a frontier region in the southeastern part of the Merovingian kingdom from the sixth through the eighth century. It was settled by Bavarian tribes and ruled by dukes (duces) under Frankish overlordship. A new duchy was created from this area during the decline of the Carolingian Empire in the late ninth century. It became one of the stem duchies of the East Frankish realm, which evolved as the Kingdom of Germany and the Holy Roman Empire.
East Francia or the Kingdom of the East Franks was a successor state of Charlemagne's empire ruled by the Carolingian dynasty until 911. It was created through the Treaty of Verdun (843) which divided the former empire into three kingdoms.
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.
The Duchy of Swabia was one of the five stem duchies of the medieval German Kingdom. It arose in the 10th century in the southwestern area that had been settled by Alemanni tribes in Late Antiquity.
The title Duke(and Prince)of the Franks (Latin: dux(et princeps)Francorum) has been used for three different offices, always with "duke" implying military command and "prince" implying something approaching sovereign or regalian rights. The term "Franks" may refer to an ethnic group or to the inhabitants of a territory called Francia.
Otto I, called Otto of Worms, a member of the Salian dynasty, was Duke of Carinthia from 978 to 985 and again from 1002 until his death.
Conrad I, a member of the Salian dynasty, was Duke of Carinthia from 1004 until his death.
Rhenish Franconia or Western Franconia denotes the western half of the central German stem duchy of Franconia in the 10th and 11th century, with its residence at the city of Worms. The territory located on the banks of Rhine river roughly corresponded with the present-day state of Hesse and the adjacent Palatinate region in the south.
The Conradines or Conradiner were a dynasty of Franconian counts and dukes in the 8th to 11th Century, named after Duke Conrad the Elder and his son King Conrad I of Germany.
Werner V was a Rhenish Franconian count in Nahegau, Speyergau and Wormsgau. He is one of the earliest documented ancestors of the Salian dynasty that provided German kings and emperors of the Holy Roman Empire from 1024 to 1125.
Speyergau was a medieval county in the East Frankish (German) stem duchy of Franconia. It was centred around the administrative centre of Speyer and roughly covered the former Roman administrative area of Civitas Nemetum, which is today the south-eastern portion of the Palatinate region between the Rhine river, the Palatinate Forest range, and some smaller parts of northern Alsace. The Speyergau, together with the neighbouring Wormsgau and Nahegau, was part of the major possessions held by the Salian dynasty of German kings and Holy Roman Emperors.
The Wormsgau was a medieval county in the East Frankish (German) stem duchy of Franconia, comprising the surroundings of the city of Worms and further territories on the left bank of the Upper Rhine river. Together with the neighbouring Nahegau and Speyergau, it belonged to the central Rhenish Franconian possessions of the Imperial Salian dynasty.
Franconia is a region that is not precisely defined, but which lies in the north of the Free State of Bavaria, parts of Baden-Württemberg and South Thuringia and Hesse in Germany. It is characterised by its own cultural and linguistic heritage. Its history began with the first recorded human settlement about 600,000 years ago. Thuringii, Alemanni and Franks, who gave the region its name, settled the area in the Early Middle Ages. From the mid-9th century, the Stem Duchy of Franconia emerged as one of the five stem duchies of the Empire of East Francia. On 2 July 1500, during the reign of Emperor Maximilian I, as part of the Imperial Reform, the empire was divided into Imperial Circles. The Franconian Circle, which was formed as a result of this restructuring, became decisive in the creation of a Franconian national identity. A feature of Franconia in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Period was its Kleinstaaterei, an extreme fragmentation into little states and territories. In the 19th century under Napoleon, large parts of Franconia were incorporated into the newly created Kingdom of Bavaria.