Prince-Bishopric of Regensburg

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these template messages) This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Prince-Bishopric of Regensburg" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (October 2023) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in German. (March 2011) Click [show] for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the German article. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 9,116 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing German Wikipedia article at [[:de:Hochstift Regensburg]]; see its history for attribution. You should also add the template {{Translated|de|Hochstift Regensburg}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation. (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

Prince-Bishopric of Regensburg Fürstbistum/Hochstift Regensburg (German)
13th century–1803
Flag Coat of arms
Status	Prince-Bishopric
Capital	Regensburg Cathedral
Government	Elective principality
Historical era	Middle Ages
• Founded by St Boniface	739
• Gained Reichsfreiheit	13th century
• Regensburg Reichsfrei     as Imperial City	1245
• City annexed to Bavaria	1486–1496
• City adopted Reformation	1542
• City made permanent     seat of Reichstag	1663–1806
• Mediatised to new     Archbishopric¹	1803
• Ceded to Bavaria on     Imperial collapse	January 6, 1806
Preceded by Succeeded by Duchy of Bavaria Principality of Regensburg
1: The Bishopric, the Imperial City and all three Imperial Abbeys were mediatised simultaneously.

The Prince-Bishopric of Regensburg (German: Fürstbistum Regensburg; Hochstift Regensburg) was a small ecclesiastical principality of the Holy Roman Empire located near the Free Imperial City of Regensburg in Bavaria. It was elevated to the Archbishopric of Regensburg in 1803 after the dissolution of the Archbishopric of Mainz. The Prince-Bishopric of Regensburg must not be confused with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Regensburg, which was considerably larger.

History

The diocese was founded in 739 by Saint Boniface;^[1] it was originally subordinate to the archbishop of Salzburg. In the 13th century, the bishop of Regensburg became a prince of the Holy Roman Empire with a seat and vote at the Imperial Diet. As an enclave of the Duchy of Bavaria, the prince-bishopric was not able to expand territorially and remained one of the smallest of the Empire.

In the course of the German mediatization of 1803, the prince-bishopric was united with the Free Imperial city of Regensburg and other territories to form the Principality of Regensburg. Karl Theodor Anton Maria von Dalberg was the first prince-archbishop. In 1810, the pincipality became part of the Kingdom of Bavaria, although it retained archiepiscopal status. This followed the fall of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806 during the War of the Third Coalition.

The Bavarian Concordat of 1817 following Dalberg's death downgraded the Archdiocese of Regensburg into a suffragan diocese subordinate to the archbishop of Munich and Freising.

Famous prince-bishops

• Saint Wolfgang (972–994)
• Saint Albertus Magnus (1260–1262)
• Joseph Clemens of Bavaria (1685–1716)
• Clemens August of Bavaria (1716–1719)

See also

• Roman Catholic Diocese of Regensburg

Further reading

• Josef Staber: Kirchengeschichte des Bistums Regensburg. Regensburg 1966 (in German)

External links

• Official website (in German)

References