Palatinate

A palatinate is a territory administered by a count palatine, originally the direct representative of the sovereign, but later the hereditary ruler of the territory subject to the crown's overlordship. This article discusses the historical territory of the Holy Roman Empire known as the Palatinate of the Rhine or Electoral Palatinate ().

The historical Electoral Palatinate was a much larger territory than that which later became known as the Rhenish Palatinate (Rheinpfalz), on the left bank of the Rhine. The Electoral Palatinate also included territory that lay on the right bank of the Rhine, containing the cities of Heidelberg and Mannheim.

History

The Palatinate emerged from the County Palatine of Lotharingia, which came into existence in the 10th century. During the 11th century it was dominated by the Ezzonian dynasty, who governed several counties on both banks of the Rhine. From about 1085/1086, after the death of the last Ezzonian palatine count, Herman II of Lotharingia (+1085), the Palatinate lost its military importance in Lotharingia. The territorial authority of the count palatine was reduced to his counties along the Rhine, from then on called County Palatine of the Rhine.

The first hereditary Count Palatine of the Rhine was Conrad of Hohenstaufen who was the younger brother of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa. The territories attached to this hereditary office started from those held by the Hohenstaufens in Franconia and Rhineland (other branches of the Hohenstaufens received Swabian lands, Franche-Comté, and so forth). Much of this was from their imperial ancestors, the Franconian emperors, and a part from Conrad's maternal ancestry, the Saarbrucken. These backgrounds explain the composition of Upper and Rhenish Palatinate in the inheritance centuries onwards.

In the early 13th century, the territory fell to the Wittelsbach Dukes of Bavaria, who were also counts palatine of Bavaria. During a later division of territory among the heirs of Duke Louis II of Upper Bavaria in 1294, the elder branch of the Wittelsbachs came into possession of both the Rhenish Palatinate and the territories in the Bavarian "Nordgau" (Bavaria north of the Danube river) with the centre around the town of Amberg. As this region was politically connected to the Rhenish Palatinate, the name Upper Palatinate (Oberpfalz) became common from the early 16th century in contrast to the Lower Palatinate along the Rhine.

In the Golden Bull of 1356, the Palatinate was recognized as one of the secular electorates, and given the hereditary offices of Archsteward (Erztruchseß) of the Empire and Imperial Vicar (Reichsverweser) of the western half of Germany. From this time forth, the Count Palatine of the Rhine was usually known as the Elector Palatine (Kurfürst von der Pfalz). The position as prince-elector had existed already earlier (see the record of how votes went when there was an outcome of two kings becoming elected in 1257) though it is difficult to pinpoint any exact start of that office.

Due to the practice of division of territories among different branches of the family, by the early 16th century junior lines of the Palatine Wittelsbachs came to rule in Simmern, Kaiserslautern, and Zweibrücken in the Lower Palatinate, and in Neuburg and Sulzbach in the Upper Palatinate. The Elector Palatine, now based in Heidelberg, converted to Lutheranism in the 1530s.

When the senior branch of the family died out in 1559, the Electorate passed to Frederick III of Simmern, a staunch Calvinist, and the Palatinate became one of the major centers of Calvinism in Europe, supporting Calvinist rebellions in both the Netherlands and France. Frederick III's grandson, Frederick IV, and his adviser, Christian of Anhalt, founded the Evangelical Union of Protestant states in 1608. In 1619 Elector Frederick V (the "Winter King") (the son-in-law of King James I of England) accepted the throne of Bohemia from the Bohmian estates. He was soon defeated by the forces of Emperor Ferdinand II at the Battle of White Mountain in 1620, and Spanish and Bavarian troops soon occupied the Palatinate itself. In 1623, Frederick was put under the ban of the Empire, and his territories and Electoral dignity granted to the Duke (now Elector) of Bavaria, Maximilian I.

By the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, Frederick V's son, Charles Louis, was restored to the Lower Palatinate, and given a new electoral title, but the Upper Palatinate and the senior electoral title remained with the Bavarian line. In 1685, the Simmern line died out, and the Palatinate was inherited by Philip William, Count Palatine of Neuburg ( and who was also Duke of Jülich and Berg), a Catholic. The Neuburg line, which moved the capital from Heidelberg to Mannheim in 1720, lasted until 1742, when it, too, became extinct, and the Palatinate was inherited by Duke Karl Theodor of Sulzbach. The childless Karl Theodor also inherited Bavaria when its electoral line became extinct in 1777. His heir, Maximilian Joseph, Duke of Zweibrücken (on the French border), brought all the Wittelsbach territories under a single rule in 1799. The Palatinate was dissolved in the Wars of the French Revolution - first its left bank territories were occupied, and then annexed, by France starting in 1795, and then, in 1803, its right bank territories were taken by the Margrave of Baden. In 1806, Baden was raised to a Grand Duchy.

At the Congress of Vienna in 1814 and 1815, the Left Bank Palatinate enlarged by other regions (e.g. the former bishopric of Speyer) was returned to the Wittelsbachs and became a formal part of the Kingdom of Bavaria in 1816 and after this time, it was this region that was principally known as the Palatinate. The area remained a part of Bavaria until after the Second World War, when it was separated and became a part of the new state of Rhineland-Palatinate, along with former left bank territories of Prussia and Hessen-Darmstadt.