The House of Croÿ is a family of European mediatized nobility, which held a seat in the Imperial Diet from 1486, and was elevated to the rank of Princes of the Holy Roman Empire in 1594. In 1533 they became Dukes of Arschot and in 1598 Dukes of Croy in France. In 1913, the family had branches in Belgium, France, Austria and Prussia.
Chimay Castle.
Antoine I le Grand, as represented on a miniature (ca. 1390)
Arms of Philippe I de Croÿ, detail of Rogier's diptych (ca. 1460)
Portrait of Philippe I de Croÿ, by Rogier van der Weyden
German mediatisation was the major redistribution and reshaping of territorial holdings that took place between 1802 and 1814 in Germany by means of the subsumption and secularisation of a large number of Imperial Estates, prefiguring, precipitating, and continuing after the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire. Most ecclesiastical principalities, free imperial cities, secular principalities, and other minor self-ruling entities of the Holy Roman Empire lost their independent status and were absorbed by the remaining states. By the end of the mediatisation process, the number of German states had been reduced from almost 300 to just 39.
The prince-bishoprics on the eve of secularisation
The Rhineland in 1789: The annexation of the left bank of the Rhine by the French Republic set in motion the mediatisation process
Contemporary engraving celebrating the Treaty of Lunéville
Prussia's territorial losses and gains during the period