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The Electoral Palatinate (german: Kurpfalz) or the Palatinate (), officially the Electorate of the Palatinate (), was a state that was part of the Holy Roman Empire. The electorate had its origins under the rulership of the
The comital office of Count Palatine at the Frankish court of King Childebert I was already mentioned about 535. The Counts Palatine were the permanent representatives of the King, in particular geographic areas, in contrast to the semi-independent authority of the dukes (and their successors). Under the Merovingian dynasty, the position had been a purely appointed one, but by the Middle Ages had evolved into an hereditary one.
Up to the 10th century, the Frankish empire was centered at the royal palace () in Aachen, in what had become the Carolingian dynasty, Carolingian kingdom of Lotharingia. Consequently, the Count Palatine of Lotharingia became the most important of the Counts Palatine. Marital alliances meant that, by the Middle Ages, most Count Palatine positions had been inherited by the duke of the associated province, but the importance of the Count Palatine of Lotharingia enabled it to remain as an independent position.
In 985, Herman I, Count Palatine of Lotharingia, Herman I, a scion of the Ezzonids, is mentioned as count palatine of Lotharingia (which by then had been divided into Upper and Lower Lorraine). While his Palatine authority operated over the whole of Lorraine (duchy), Upper Lorraine, the feudal territories of his family were instead scattered around south western Franconia, including parts of the Rhineland around Cologne and Bonn, and areas around the Moselle River, Moselle, and the Nahe (Rhine), Nahe Rivers.
In continual conflicts with the rivalling Archbishops of Cologne, he changed the emphasis of his rule to the southern Eifel region and further to the Upper Rhine, where the Ezzonian dynasty governed several counties on both banks of the river. The southernmost point was near Alzey.
From about 1085/86, after the death of the last Ezzonian count palatine Hermann II, Count Palatine, Herman II, Palatinate authority ceased to have any military significance in Lotharingia. In practice, the Count Palatinate's Palatine authority had collapsed, reducing his successor (Henry of Laach) to a mere feudal magnate over his own territories – along the Upper Rhine in south-western Franconia. From this time on, his territory became known as the County Palatine of the Rhine (not because Palatine authority existed there, but as an acknowledgement that the Count still held the title, if not the authority, of Count Palatine).
Various noble dynasties competed to be enfeoffed with the Palatinate by the Holy Roman Emperor – among them the House of Ascania, the House of Salm (Count Otto I, Count of Salm, Otto I of Salm in 1040) and the House of Babenberg (Henry II, Duke of Austria, Henry Jasomirgott in 1140/41).
The first hereditary Count Palatine of the Rhine was Conrad, Count Palatine of the Rhine, Conrad, a member of the House of Hohenstaufen and younger half-brother of Emperor Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick Barbarossa. The territories attached to this hereditary office in 1156 started from those held by the Hohenstaufens in the Donnersberg, Nahegau, Haardt, Bergstraße Route, Bergstraße and Kraichgau regions (other branches of the Hohenstaufens received lands in the Duchy of Swabia, Franche-Comté, and so forth). Much of this was from their imperial ancestors, the Salian dynasty, Salian emperors, and apart from Conrad's maternal ancestry, the Counts of Saarbrücken. These backgrounds explain the composition of Upper and Rhenish Palatinate in the inheritance centuries onwards. About 1182, Conrad moved his residence from Stahleck Castle near Bacharach up the Rhine River to Heidelberg.
Upon Conrad's death in 1195, the Palatinate passed to the House of Welf through the (secret) marriage of his daughter Agnes of Hohenstaufen, Agnes with Henry V, Count Palatine of the Rhine, Henry of Brunswick. When Henry's son Henry VI, Count Palatine of the Rhine, Henry the Younger died without heirs in 1214, the Hohenstaufen king Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick II enfeoffed the House of Wittelsbach, Wittelsbach duke Louis I, Duke of Bavaria, Louis I of Bavaria. The Bavarian House of Wittelsbach eventually held the Palatinate territories until 1918.
During a later division of territory among the heirs of Duke Louis II, Duke of Bavaria, Louis II, Duke 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 (german: Oberpfalz) became common from the early 16th century in contrast to the Lower Palatinate along the Rhine.
With the Treaty of Pavia (1329), Treaty of Pavia in 1329, the Wittelsbach emperor Louis IV, Holy Roman Emperor, Louis IV, a son of Louis II, returned the Palatinate to his nephews Rudolf II, Duke of Bavaria, Rudolf and Rupert I, Elector Palatine of the Rhine, Rupert.
In the Golden Bull of 1356, the Palatinate was recognized as one of the secular electorates, and given the hereditary offices of archsteward (german: Erztruchseß, la, Archidapifer) of the Empire and imperial vicar () of Franconia, Swabia, the Rhine, and southern Germany. From that time forth, the Count Palatine of the Rhine was usually known as the Elector Palatine (german: Kurfürst von der Pfalz, la, Palatinus elector).
Due to the practice of dividing territories among different branches of the family, by the early 16th century junior lines of the Palatine Wittelsbachs came to rule in Palatinate-Simmern, Simmern, Palatinate-Lautern, Kaiserslautern, and Palatine Zweibrücken, Zweibrücken in the Lower Palatinate, and in Palatinate-Neuburg, Neuburg and Palatinate-Sulzbach, Sulzbach in the Upper Palatinate. The Elector Palatine, now based in Heidelberg, adopted Lutheranism in the 1530s; when the senior branch of the family died out in 1559, the Electorate passed to Frederick III, Elector Palatine, Frederick III of Palatinate-Simmern, 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.
In 1619, the Protestant Frederick V, Elector Palatine accepted the throne of Bohemia from the Bohemian estates. This initiated the 1618–1648 Thirty Years' War, one of the most destructive conflicts in human history; it caused over eight million fatalities from military action, violence, famine and plague, the vast majority in the German states of the Holy Roman Empire. In terms of proportional German casualties and destruction, it was surpassed only by the period January to May 1945 and remains the single greatest war trauma in German memory.
Frederick was evicted from Bohemia in 1620 following his defeat by the forces of Emperor Ferdinand II at the Battle of the White Mountain. Over the period 1621–1622, the Palatinate was occupied by Spanish and Bavarian troops and Frederick was exiled to the Dutch Republic. His territories and electoral rights were transferred to the distantly related but Catholic Maximilian I, Elector of Bavaria, Maximilian I of Bavaria, who now became Rulers of Bavaria#Electorate of Bavaria, Elector of Bavaria.
After his death in 1632, Frederick's daughter Elisabeth of the Palatinate, Princess Elizabeth and wife Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia, worked tirelessly to have the Palatinate restored to her son Charles Louis, Elector Palatine, Charles Louis and the Protestant cause. When the Peace of Westphalia ended the war in 1648, he regained the Lower Palatinate and the title 'Elector Palatine' but now ranked lower in precedence than the others. He was succeeded by Charles II, Elector Palatine in 1680 but the Simmern family became extinct in the male line after he died in 1685.
In 1670, Charles II's sister Elizabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate married Philippe I, Duke of Orléans, Philippe of Orléans, younger brother of Louis XIV; on this basis, Louis claimed half of the Palatinate for France. The direct heir to the Palatinate was Philip William, Elector Palatine, Philip William, Catholic Count Palatine of Palatinate-Neuburg, Neuburg, Duke of Duchy of Jülich, Jülich and Berg (German region), Berg. His eldest daughter Eleonore-Magdalena of Pfalz-Neuburg, Eleonore married Emperor Leopold, while another, Maria Anna of Neuburg, Maria Anna, married Charles II of Spain in 1690.
Johann Wilhelm, Elector Palatine, Johann Wilhelm succeeded as Elector in 1690, changing his residence first to Düsseldorf, then back to Heidelberg and finally Mannheim in 1720. Like his father, he was a Catholic, which under the 1555 Peace of Augsburg meant the Protestant majority in the Palatine was theoretically obliged to convert to Catholicism. The 1705 'Palatine Church Division' compromised by allocating five-sevenths of public church property to the Reformed or Calvinist church and the remainder to Catholicism, while excluding the Lutheran Church, whose membership exceeded 40% of the population in some areas.
In 1716, Charles III Philip, Elector Palatine, Charles Philip succeeded his brother as Elector and in January 1742, helped his cousin Charles VII, Holy Roman Emperor, Charles Albert become the first non-Habsburg Emperor in over 300 years. He died in December and the Palatinate passed to Charles Theodore, Elector of Bavaria, Charles Theodore, then Duke of Palatinate-Sulzbach, Sulzbach, who also inherited the Electorate of Bavaria in 1777. The title and authority of the two Electorates were combined, Charles and his heirs retaining only the vote and precedence of the Bavarian elector, although continuing to use the title 'Count Palatine of the Rhine'.
File:Arms of the Palatinate (Palatinate-Bavaria).svg, Arms used by the House of Wittelsbach
File:Arms of the Electoral Palatinate (Variant 1).svg, Arms used by the House of Palatinate-Simmern
File:Arms of the Electoral Palatinate (Variant 2).svg, Arms used by the House of Palatinate-Simmern
File:Wappen Kurpfalz.gif, Greater Coat of arms from 1703
File:Banner of the Palatinate.svg, 1329–1776
Heraldic flag of the Palatinate File:Banner of Bavaria-Landshut.svg, The variant used by House of Wittelsbach, Wittelsbachs who inherited the Palatinate in the mid-14th century File:Flag yellow black 5x3.svg, The colors of the country () ensign (alternative flag) File:Flag of The Electoral Palatinate (1604).svg, 1604 design File:Banner of Bavaria-Landshut.svg, 1776–1789
(merged with Electorate of Bavaria, Bavaria)
In 1806, Baden was raised to a grand duchy and parts of the former Palatinate including Mannheim became part of it. At the Congress of Vienna in 1814 and 1815, southern parts of the left-bank Palatinate were restored and enlarged by mediatisation (consuming the former Bishopric of Speyer, the Free Imperial City of Speyer, and others) up to the new border with France, and given (temporarily) to the Habsburg Austrian Empire; after this time, it was Palatinate (region), this new region that was principally known as "the Palatinate". The right-bank Palatinate remained with Baden while northern parts became part of Kingdom of Prussia, Prussia (Rhine Province) and Grand Duchy of Hesse, Hesse (Rhenish Hesse).
In 1816, the Palatinate became a formal part of the Wittelsbach Kingdom of Bavaria (the or Circle of the Rhine) in a pre-arranged exchange for County of Tyrol, Tirol, which Bavaria ceded to Austria. Most of the area remained a part of Bavaria until after the Second World War (after 1918 the Free State of Bavaria), with Saarpfalz-Kreis, some western parts becoming part of the Territory of the Saar Basin after World War I.
In September 1946 the territory was made part of the federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate, along with former left bank territories of Free State of Prussia, Prussia (southern part of the Rhine Province, including the former Principality of Birkenfeld which had been an exclave of Free State of Oldenburg, Oldenburg until 1937, and western parts of the Province of Nassau) and Rhenish Hesse. The former Territory of the Saar Basin was reinstated and expanded to create the French Saar Protectorate, which returned to Germany in 1956 as the modern state of Saarland.
Counts Palatine of Lotharingia
Count (feminine: countess) is a historical title of nobility in certain European countries, varying in relative status, generally of middling rank in the hierarchy of nobility. Pine, L. G. ''Titles: How the King Became His Majesty''. New Yor ...
from 915, it was then restructured under the Counts Palatine of the Rhine
Count (feminine: countess) is a historical title of nobility in certain European countries, varying in relative status, generally of middling rank in the hierarchy of nobility. Pine, L. G. ''Titles: How the King Became His Majesty''. New York: ...
in 1085. These counts palatine of the Rhine would serve as prince-electors () from "time immemorial", and were noted as such in a papal letter of 1261, they were confirmed as electors by the Golden Bull of 1356.
The territory stretched from the left bank of the Upper Rhine, from the Hunsrück
The Hunsrück () is a long, triangular, pronounced upland in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is bounded by the valleys of the Moselle-Saar (north-to-west), the Nahe (south), and the Rhine (east). It is continued by the Taunus mountains, past ...
mountain range in what is today the Palatinate
Palatinate or county palatine may refer to:
*the territory or jurisdiction of a count palatine
United Kingdom and Ireland
*County palatine in England and Ireland
* Palatinate (award), student sporting award of Durham University
*Palatinate (col ...
region in the German federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate and the adjacent parts of the French regions of Alsace and Lorraine (bailiwick of Seltz from 1418 to 1766) to the opposite territory on the east bank of the Rhine in present-day Hesse and Baden-Württemberg up to the Odenwald range and the southern Kraichgau region, containing the capital cities of Heidelberg and Mannheim.
The counts palatine of the Rhine held the office of imperial vicars in the territories under Salic law, Frankish law (in Franconia, Swabia and the Rhineland) and ranked among the most significant secular Princes of the Holy Roman Empire. In 1541 elector Otto Henry, Elector Palatine, Otto Henry converted to Lutheranism. Their climax and decline is marked by the rule of Elector Palatine Frederick V, Elector Palatine, Frederick V, whose coronation as List of rulers of Bohemia, king of Bohemia in 1619 sparked the Thirty Years' War. After the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, the ravaged lands were further afflicted by the War of the Reunions, "Reunion" campaigns launched by King Louis XIV of France, culminating in the Nine Years' War (1688–97). Ruled in personal union with the Electorate of Bavaria from 1777, the Palatinate was finally disestablished with the German mediatization and annexation by Electorate of Baden, Baden on 27 April 1803.
History
Background
The comital office of Count Palatine at the Frankish court of King Childebert I was already mentioned about 535. The Counts Palatine were the permanent representatives of the King, in particular geographic areas, in contrast to the semi-independent authority of the dukes (and their successors). Under the Merovingian dynasty, the position had been a purely appointed one, but by the Middle Ages had evolved into an hereditary one.
Up to the 10th century, the Frankish empire was centered at the royal palace () in Aachen, in what had become the Carolingian dynasty, Carolingian kingdom of Lotharingia. Consequently, the Count Palatine of Lotharingia became the most important of the Counts Palatine. Marital alliances meant that, by the Middle Ages, most Count Palatine positions had been inherited by the duke of the associated province, but the importance of the Count Palatine of Lotharingia enabled it to remain as an independent position.
In 985, Herman I, Count Palatine of Lotharingia, Herman I, a scion of the Ezzonids, is mentioned as count palatine of Lotharingia (which by then had been divided into Upper and Lower Lorraine). While his Palatine authority operated over the whole of Lorraine (duchy), Upper Lorraine, the feudal territories of his family were instead scattered around south western Franconia, including parts of the Rhineland around Cologne and Bonn, and areas around the Moselle River, Moselle, and the Nahe (Rhine), Nahe Rivers.
In continual conflicts with the rivalling Archbishops of Cologne, he changed the emphasis of his rule to the southern Eifel region and further to the Upper Rhine, where the Ezzonian dynasty governed several counties on both banks of the river. The southernmost point was near Alzey.
From about 1085/86, after the death of the last Ezzonian count palatine Hermann II, Count Palatine, Herman II, Palatinate authority ceased to have any military significance in Lotharingia. In practice, the Count Palatinate's Palatine authority had collapsed, reducing his successor (Henry of Laach) to a mere feudal magnate over his own territories – along the Upper Rhine in south-western Franconia. From this time on, his territory became known as the County Palatine of the Rhine (not because Palatine authority existed there, but as an acknowledgement that the Count still held the title, if not the authority, of Count Palatine).
Various noble dynasties competed to be enfeoffed with the Palatinate by the Holy Roman Emperor – among them the House of Ascania, the House of Salm (Count Otto I, Count of Salm, Otto I of Salm in 1040) and the House of Babenberg (Henry II, Duke of Austria, Henry Jasomirgott in 1140/41).
The first hereditary Count Palatine of the Rhine was Conrad, Count Palatine of the Rhine, Conrad, a member of the House of Hohenstaufen and younger half-brother of Emperor Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick Barbarossa. The territories attached to this hereditary office in 1156 started from those held by the Hohenstaufens in the Donnersberg, Nahegau, Haardt, Bergstraße Route, Bergstraße and Kraichgau regions (other branches of the Hohenstaufens received lands in the Duchy of Swabia, Franche-Comté, and so forth). Much of this was from their imperial ancestors, the Salian dynasty, Salian emperors, and apart from Conrad's maternal ancestry, the Counts of Saarbrücken. These backgrounds explain the composition of Upper and Rhenish Palatinate in the inheritance centuries onwards. About 1182, Conrad moved his residence from Stahleck Castle near Bacharach up the Rhine River to Heidelberg.
Upon Conrad's death in 1195, the Palatinate passed to the House of Welf through the (secret) marriage of his daughter Agnes of Hohenstaufen, Agnes with Henry V, Count Palatine of the Rhine, Henry of Brunswick. When Henry's son Henry VI, Count Palatine of the Rhine, Henry the Younger died without heirs in 1214, the Hohenstaufen king Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick II enfeoffed the House of Wittelsbach, Wittelsbach duke Louis I, Duke of Bavaria, Louis I of Bavaria. The Bavarian House of Wittelsbach eventually held the Palatinate territories until 1918.
During a later division of territory among the heirs of Duke Louis II, Duke of Bavaria, Louis II, Duke 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 (german: Oberpfalz) became common from the early 16th century in contrast to the Lower Palatinate along the Rhine.
With the Treaty of Pavia (1329), Treaty of Pavia in 1329, the Wittelsbach emperor Louis IV, Holy Roman Emperor, Louis IV, a son of Louis II, returned the Palatinate to his nephews Rudolf II, Duke of Bavaria, Rudolf and Rupert I, Elector Palatine of the Rhine, Rupert.
In the Golden Bull of 1356, the Palatinate was recognized as one of the secular electorates, and given the hereditary offices of archsteward (german: Erztruchseß, la, Archidapifer) of the Empire and imperial vicar () of Franconia, Swabia, the Rhine, and southern Germany. From that time forth, the Count Palatine of the Rhine was usually known as the Elector Palatine (german: Kurfürst von der Pfalz, la, Palatinus elector).
Due to the practice of dividing territories among different branches of the family, by the early 16th century junior lines of the Palatine Wittelsbachs came to rule in Palatinate-Simmern, Simmern, Palatinate-Lautern, Kaiserslautern, and Palatine Zweibrücken, Zweibrücken in the Lower Palatinate, and in Palatinate-Neuburg, Neuburg and Palatinate-Sulzbach, Sulzbach in the Upper Palatinate. The Elector Palatine, now based in Heidelberg, adopted Lutheranism in the 1530s; when the senior branch of the family died out in 1559, the Electorate passed to Frederick III, Elector Palatine, Frederick III of Palatinate-Simmern, 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.
Thirty Years' War
In 1619, the Protestant Frederick V, Elector Palatine accepted the throne of Bohemia from the Bohemian estates. This initiated the 1618–1648 Thirty Years' War, one of the most destructive conflicts in human history; it caused over eight million fatalities from military action, violence, famine and plague, the vast majority in the German states of the Holy Roman Empire. In terms of proportional German casualties and destruction, it was surpassed only by the period January to May 1945 and remains the single greatest war trauma in German memory.
Frederick was evicted from Bohemia in 1620 following his defeat by the forces of Emperor Ferdinand II at the Battle of the White Mountain. Over the period 1621–1622, the Palatinate was occupied by Spanish and Bavarian troops and Frederick was exiled to the Dutch Republic. His territories and electoral rights were transferred to the distantly related but Catholic Maximilian I, Elector of Bavaria, Maximilian I of Bavaria, who now became Rulers of Bavaria#Electorate of Bavaria, Elector of Bavaria.
After his death in 1632, Frederick's daughter Elisabeth of the Palatinate, Princess Elizabeth and wife Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia, worked tirelessly to have the Palatinate restored to her son Charles Louis, Elector Palatine, Charles Louis and the Protestant cause. When the Peace of Westphalia ended the war in 1648, he regained the Lower Palatinate and the title 'Elector Palatine' but now ranked lower in precedence than the others. He was succeeded by Charles II, Elector Palatine in 1680 but the Simmern family became extinct in the male line after he died in 1685.
In 1670, Charles II's sister Elizabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate married Philippe I, Duke of Orléans, Philippe of Orléans, younger brother of Louis XIV; on this basis, Louis claimed half of the Palatinate for France. The direct heir to the Palatinate was Philip William, Elector Palatine, Philip William, Catholic Count Palatine of Palatinate-Neuburg, Neuburg, Duke of Duchy of Jülich, Jülich and Berg (German region), Berg. His eldest daughter Eleonore-Magdalena of Pfalz-Neuburg, Eleonore married Emperor Leopold, while another, Maria Anna of Neuburg, Maria Anna, married Charles II of Spain in 1690.
Nine Years' War
When France invaded the Palatinate in September 1688 to enforce its claim, these wider connections meant the conflict rapidly escalated, leading to the outbreak of the Nine Years' War. The French were forced to withdraw in 1689 but before doing so, destroyed much of Heidelberg, another 20 substantial towns and numerous villages. This destruction was systematically applied across a large section of the Rhineland but especially the Palatinate, which was raided again in 1693; the devastation shocked much of Europe. France later renounced its claim to the region in the 1697 Treaty of Ryswick.
Johann Wilhelm, Elector Palatine, Johann Wilhelm succeeded as Elector in 1690, changing his residence first to Düsseldorf, then back to Heidelberg and finally Mannheim in 1720. Like his father, he was a Catholic, which under the 1555 Peace of Augsburg meant the Protestant majority in the Palatine was theoretically obliged to convert to Catholicism. The 1705 'Palatine Church Division' compromised by allocating five-sevenths of public church property to the Reformed or Calvinist church and the remainder to Catholicism, while excluding the Lutheran Church, whose membership exceeded 40% of the population in some areas.
In 1716, Charles III Philip, Elector Palatine, Charles Philip succeeded his brother as Elector and in January 1742, helped his cousin Charles VII, Holy Roman Emperor, Charles Albert become the first non-Habsburg Emperor in over 300 years. He died in December and the Palatinate passed to Charles Theodore, Elector of Bavaria, Charles Theodore, then Duke of Palatinate-Sulzbach, Sulzbach, who also inherited the Electorate of Bavaria in 1777. The title and authority of the two Electorates were combined, Charles and his heirs retaining only the vote and precedence of the Bavarian elector, although continuing to use the title 'Count Palatine of the Rhine'.
Mediatisation
The Palatine territories on the left bank of the Rhine were annexed by France in 1795, mainly becoming part of the Mont-Tonnerre department. The loss of these territories was accepted by Elector Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria, Maximilian Joseph in the Treaty of Paris (1802), Treaty of Paris. Those on the right were taken by the Elector of Baden, after the 1805 Peace of Pressburg (1805), Peace of Pressburg dissolved the Holy Roman Empire; the remaining Wittelsbach territories were united by Maximilian Joseph as the Kingdom of Bavaria.Coat of arms and flag
In 1156 Conrad of Hohenstaufen, brother of emperor Frederick Barbarossa became Count Palatine. The old coat of arms of the House of Hohenstaufen, the single lion, became coat of arms of the Palatinate. By marriage, the Palatinate's arms also became quartered with those of Welf and later Wittelsbach. The arms of Bavaria were used with reference to the elector's holdings in Bavaria. This was extended to quartering of the lion and the Bavarian Arms upon the ascension of Maximilian I, Elector of Bavaria, Maximilian I to the position of elector of the Palatinate in 1623, used concurrently with the arms shown. From 1356 onwards, the globus cruciger, orb represented their position as Arch-Steward (office), Steward of the Holy Roman Empire.Heraldic flag of the Palatinate File:Banner of Bavaria-Landshut.svg, The variant used by House of Wittelsbach, Wittelsbachs who inherited the Palatinate in the mid-14th century File:Flag yellow black 5x3.svg, The colors of the country () ensign (alternative flag) File:Flag of The Electoral Palatinate (1604).svg, 1604 design File:Banner of Bavaria-Landshut.svg, 1776–1789
(merged with Electorate of Bavaria, Bavaria)
Legacy
In 1806, Baden was raised to a grand duchy and parts of the former Palatinate including Mannheim became part of it. At the Congress of Vienna in 1814 and 1815, southern parts of the left-bank Palatinate were restored and enlarged by mediatisation (consuming the former Bishopric of Speyer, the Free Imperial City of Speyer, and others) up to the new border with France, and given (temporarily) to the Habsburg Austrian Empire; after this time, it was Palatinate (region), this new region that was principally known as "the Palatinate". The right-bank Palatinate remained with Baden while northern parts became part of Kingdom of Prussia, Prussia (Rhine Province) and Grand Duchy of Hesse, Hesse (Rhenish Hesse).
In 1816, the Palatinate became a formal part of the Wittelsbach Kingdom of Bavaria (the or Circle of the Rhine) in a pre-arranged exchange for County of Tyrol, Tirol, which Bavaria ceded to Austria. Most of the area remained a part of Bavaria until after the Second World War (after 1918 the Free State of Bavaria), with Saarpfalz-Kreis, some western parts becoming part of the Territory of the Saar Basin after World War I.
In September 1946 the territory was made part of the federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate, along with former left bank territories of Free State of Prussia, Prussia (southern part of the Rhine Province, including the former Principality of Birkenfeld which had been an exclave of Free State of Oldenburg, Oldenburg until 1937, and western parts of the Province of Nassau) and Rhenish Hesse. The former Territory of the Saar Basin was reinstated and expanded to create the French Saar Protectorate, which returned to Germany in 1956 as the modern state of Saarland.
See also
* Count palatine * German PalatinesReferences
Further reading
*External links
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Palatinate, Electorate Of The Electoral Palatinate, 1085 establishments in Europe 1080s establishments in the Holy Roman Empire 1803 disestablishments in the Holy Roman Empire Central European countries, Palatinate Electorates of the Holy Roman Empire, Palatinate Former countries German-speaking countries and territories History of the Palatinate (region) States and territories established in 1085 States and territories disestablished in 1803 Former monarchies of Europe