Electorate of Bavaria

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Electorate of Bavaria
Kurfürstentum Bayern (German)
1623–1806
Coat of arms[1] (1623–1777) of Bavaria
Coat of arms[1]
(1623–1777)
Maximilian IV Joseph, Elector of Bavaria
Historical era
Electorate of the Palatinate

1777
• Raised to kingdom
1806
Preceded by		 Succeeded by
Duchy of Bavaria
Kingdom of Bavaria

The Electorate of Bavaria (German: Kurfürstentum Bayern) was a quasi-independent hereditary electorate of the Holy Roman Empire from 1623 to 1806, when it was succeeded by the Kingdom of Bavaria.[2]

The

Frederick V, Elector Palatine was put under the imperial ban for his role in the Bohemian Revolt against Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor, and the electoral dignity and territory of the Upper Palatinate was conferred upon his loyal cousin, Duke Maximilian I of Bavaria. Although the Peace of Westphalia would create a new electoral title for Frederick V's son, with the exception of a brief period during the War of the Spanish Succession, Maximilian's descendants would continue to hold the original electoral dignity until the extinction of his line in 1777. At that point the two lines were joined in personal union until the end of the Holy Roman Empire. In 1805, after the Peace of Pressburg, the then-elector, Maximilian Joseph, raised himself to the dignity of King of Bavaria
, and the Holy Roman Empire was abolished the year after.

Geography

The Electorate of Bavaria consisted of most of the modern regions of

Passau, and the imperial free city of Regensburg. For administration purposes Bavaria was already from 1507 divided into four stewardships (Rentamt [de]): Munich, Burghausen, Landshut and Straubing. With the acquisition of the Upper Palatinate during the Thirty Years' War the stewardship Amberg was added. In 1802 they were abolished by the minister Maximilian von Montgelas. In 1805 shortly before the elevation Tyrol and Vorarlberg
were united with Bavaria, same as several of these enclaves.

Dignities

By virtue of his electoral title, the Elector of Bavaria was a member of the Council of Electors in the

Palatinate-Veldenz, and other territories.[citation needed] The final Palatine territory of Palatine Zweibrücken
was united with Bavaria in 1799 when its duke inherited the Bavarian and Palatine thrones.

History

Thirty Years' War

When he had succeeded to the throne of the Duchy of Bavaria in 1597, Maximilian I had found it encumbered with debt and filled with disorder, but ten years of his vigorous rule effected a remarkable change. The finances and the judicial system were reorganised, a class of civil servants and a national militia founded, and several small districts were brought under the duke's authority. The result was a unity and order in the duchy which enabled Maximilian to play an important part in the Thirty Years' War; during the earlier years of which he was so successful as to acquire the Upper Palatinate and the electoral dignity which had been enjoyed since 1356 by the elder branch of the Wittelsbach family. In spite of subsequent reverses, Maximilian retained these gains at the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. During the later years of this war Bavaria, especially the northern part, suffered severely. In 1632 the Swedes invaded, and when Maximilian violated the Treaty of Ulm in 1647, the French and the Swedes ravaged the land. After repairing this damage to some extent, the elector died at Ingolstadt in September 1651, leaving his state much stronger than he had found it. The addition of the Upper Palatinate made Bavaria compact; the acquisition of the electoral vote made it influential; and the electorate was able to play a part in European politics which internal strife had rendered impossible for the past four hundred years.

Absolutism

Maximilian II Emanuel
The full coat of arms of the Electorate of Bavaria (1753)

Whatever lustre the international position won by Maximilian I might add to the electoral house, on Bavaria itself its effect during the next two centuries was more dubious. Maximilian's son, Ferdinand Maria (1651–1679), who was a minor when he succeeded, did much indeed to repair the wounds caused by the Thirty Years' War, encouraging agriculture and industries, and building or restoring numerous churches and monasteries. In 1669, moreover, he again called a meeting of the diet, which had been suspended since 1612.

His constructive work, however, was largely undone by his son

Bavarian peasant insurrection, known as Sendling's night of murder
, having been crushed by the Austrian occupiers in 1706.

Untaught by Maximilian II Emmanuel's experience, his son,

Frederick II of Prussia
enabled him to return to Munich, at his death on 20 January 1745 it was left to his successor to make what terms he could for the recovery of his dominions.

Jesuit censorship of the press. At his death, without issue, on 30 December 1777, the Bavarian line of the Wittelsbachs became extinct, and the succession passed to Charles Theodore, the elector palatine. After a separation of four and a half centuries, the Electoral Palatinate, to which the duchies of Jülich and Berg
had been added, was thus reunited with Bavaria.

Palatinate-Bavaria

Charles Theodore

So great an accession of strength to a neighbouring state, whose ambition she had so recently had just reason to fear, proved intolerable to Austria, which laid claim to a number of lordships —forming one-third of the whole Bavarian inheritance – as lapsed fiefs of the Bohemian, Austrian, and imperial crowns. These were at once occupied by Austrian troops, with the secret consent of Charles Theodore himself, who was without legitimate heirs, and wished to obtain from the emperor the elevation of his natural children to the status of princes of the Empire. The protests of the next heir,

War of Bavarian Succession. By the peace of Teschen (13 May 1779) the Innviertel
was ceded to Austria, and the succession secured to Charles of Zweibrücken.

For Bavaria itself Charles Theodore did less than nothing. He felt himself a foreigner among foreigners, and his favourite scheme, the subject of endless intrigues with the Austrian cabinet and the immediate cause of

Frederick II's League of Princes (Fürstenbund) of 1785, was to exchange Bavaria for the Austrian Netherlands and the title of king of Burgundy. For the rest, the enlightened internal policy of his predecessor was abandoned. The funds of the suppressed order of Jesus, which Maximilian Joseph had destined for the reform of the educational system of the country, were used to endow a province of the knights of St John of Jerusalem, for the purpose of combating the enemies of the faith. The government was inspired by the narrowest clericalism, which culminated in the attempt to withdraw the Bavarian bishops from the jurisdiction of the great German metropolitans and place them directly under that of the pope. On the eve of the French Revolution
the intellectual and social condition of Bavaria remained that of the Middle Ages.

Revolutionary and Napoleonic periods

The Electorate (1778) and the Kingdom of Bavaria (1816)

In 1792 the

Austrian defeat at Hohenlinden, and Moreau once more occupied Munich. By the Treaty of Lunéville (9 February 1801) Bavaria lost the Palatinate and the duchies of Zweibrücken and Jülich
.

In view of the scarcely disguised ambitions and intrigues of the Austrian court, Montgelas now believed that the interests of Bavaria lay in a frank alliance with the

de Martens
, Recueil, vol. vii. p. 365).

In 1803, accordingly, in the

Passau, the territories of twelve abbeys, and seventeen cities and villages, the whole forming a compact territory which more than compensated for the loss of her outlying provinces on the Rhine. Montgelas now aspired to raise Bavaria to the rank of a first-rate power, and he pursued this object during the Napoleonic epoch with consummate skill, allowing fully for the preponderance of France – so long as it lasted – but never permitting Bavaria to sink, like so many of the states of the Confederation of the Rhine
, into a mere French dependency.

End of the Electorate of Bavaria

In September 1805, Bavaria signed the Bogenhausen Treaty with France. The primary consequence of the treaty was Bavaria's military support for Napoleon. Bavarian troops under General Karl Philipp von Wrede fought the Austrians at Iglau in Bohemia, which contributed to the simultaneous French victory at Austerlitz on 2 December 1805.

In the

elector of Salzburg in exchange for Tyrol . By the 1st article of the treaty the emperor already acknowledged the assumption by the elector of the title of king, as Maximilian I. The price which Maximilian had reluctantly to pay for this accession of dignity was the marriage of his daughter Augusta with Eugène de Beauharnais
.

The electorate existed until 1806, when Bavaria was proclaimed a kingdom. It had its origins in the Franco-Bavarian Treaty of Brno of 10–12 December 1805 and in the Peace of Pressburg on 26 December 1805 between the plenipotentiaries of the French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte and the Holy Roman and Austrian Emperor Francis II & I concluded a peace treaty, because Austria now had to cede the counties of Tyrol and Vorarlberg to Bavaria. Duke and Elector Maximilian IV Joseph was proclaimed King Maximilian I Joseph on 1 January 1806 in Munich as the first king of Bavaria. From 1 January 1806, the Bavarian royal title initially read:

"By the grace of God, King of Bavaria, Archpalatine Count of the Holy Roman Empire, Archtruchsess and Elector."

The formal exit of Bavaria from the Holy Roman Empire, renouncing the electoral dignity, did not take place until July 1806 with the Rheinbund Act. The new king still served as an elector until Bavaria left the Holy Roman Empire (1 August 1806). On 15 March 1806 Max Joseph had ceded the Duchy of Berg to Napoleon. Shortly thereafter, the Confederation of the Rhine was formed and Maximilian Joseph, with the other princes who joined that body, announced his secession from the Holy Roman Empire. On 6 August 1806, the Holy Roman Empire was dissolved after surviving for a thousand years.

See also

References

  1. ^ Based on original preserved depictions:
    • The catholic Church of St. Johann Baptist in Oberviechtach
      The catholic Church of St. Johann Baptist in Oberviechtach
    • The catholic Church of the Visitation of the Virgin Mary in Gottmannshofen
      The catholic Church of the Visitation of the Virgin Mary in Gottmannshofen
  2. ISBN 978-0-85045-373-7. Retrieved 4 July 2012.[permanent dead link
    ]
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