Eichsfeld
The Eichsfeld is a historical region in the southeast of the state of Lower Saxony and northwest of the state of Thuringia in the south of the Harz mountains in Germany. Until 1803 the Eichsfeld was for centuries part of the Archbishopric of Mainz, the cause of its current position as a Catholic enclave in the predominantly Protestant north of Germany. Following German partition in 1945, the West German portion became Landkreis Duderstadt. A few small transfers of territory between the American and Soviet zones of occupation took place in accordance with the Wanfried Agreement. Today the greatest part of the Obereichsfeld makes up the Landkreis Eichsfeld. Other parts belong to the district Unstrut-Hainich-Kreis; the Untereichsfeld Landkreis Duderstadt, was merged with the Landkreis of Göttingen, while Lindau became part of Katlenburg-Lindau, now part of the Landkreis of Northeim. Cities in the Eichsfeld are Duderstadt, Leinefelde-Worbis and Dingelstädt; the Eichsfeld was first mentioned in 897, in 1022 the Archbishopric of Mainz listed its possessions in the region, which were increased up until 1573.
The Ottonian Untereichsfeld became part of Eichsfeld after being part of Brunswick-Lüneburg and Grubenhagen between 1342 and 1434. During the German Peasants' War within the Reichsstadt of Mühlhausen most of the monasteries and castles were plundered and most of the Eichsfeld became Protestant. In 1575 the Society of Jesus established the Counter-Reformation in Eichsfeld; the Thirty Years' War reached Eichsfeld in 1622 and during the years following several armies plundered the region. According to the Peace of Westphalia the Archbishopric of Mainz reestablished Catholicism in the area, two thirds devastated and had lost 75% of its population. During the Napoleonic time Eichsfeld was part of the Kingdom of Westphalia, dissolved after the victory over Napoleon at the Battle of Leipzig. From 1949 to 1990 the Obereichsfeld belonged to the GDR. In this atheistic state the people preserved their Catholic roots, church life stayed intact. In consequence of the traditionalism in Eichsfeld, the percentage of voters for the CDU is higher than in the surrounding area.
The Eichsfeld tourism organization History and map of the Eichsfeld 1789 Eichsfeld Wiki - Regiowiki for Eichsfeld
Reichsdeputationshauptschluss
The Reichsdeputationshauptschluss, sometimes referred to in English as the Final Recess or the Imperial Recess of 1803, was a resolution passed by the Reichstag of the Holy Roman Empire on 24 March 1803. It became law on 27 April, it proved to be the last significant law enacted by the Empire before its dissolution in 1806. The resolution was approved by an Imperial Delegation on 25 February and submitted to the Reichstag for acceptance, it was based on a plan agreed in June 1802 between France and Russia, broad principles outlined in the Treaty of Lunéville of 1801. The law secularized nearly 70 ecclesiastical states and abolished 45 imperial cities to compensate numerous German princes for territories to the west of the Rhine, annexed by France as a result of the French Revolutionary Wars; the secularized ecclesiastical states were annexed to neighbouring secular principalities, with several of the abbeys being given as secular fiefs to those small princes who had lost their estates west of the Rhine.
Only three ecclesiastical states survived as non-secular states: the Archbishopric of Regensburg, raised from a bishopric with the incorporation of part of the Archbishopric of Mainz, the lands of the Teutonic Knights and Knights of Saint John. Of note is the former Archbishopric of Salzburg, secularized as a duchy with an increased territorial scope, was made an electorate. In addition, all but a handful of the 51 imperial cities were abolished and annexed to neighboring states; the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss was ratified unanimously by the Reichstag in March 1803, was approved by the emperor, Francis II, the following month. However the emperor made a formal reservation in respect of the reallocation of votes within the Reichstag, as the balance between Protestant and Catholic states had been shifted in the former's favour. Following the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss, altogether 112 Imperial states, totaling 10,000 square kilometres, a population of over three million people changed hands.
A number of the larger states made significant territorial gains, Baden, Hesse-Kassel, Württemberg gained status by being made electorates. Of the imperial cities, only Augsburg, Frankfurt am Main, Hamburg, Lübeck, Nuremberg survived as independent entities; the Transrhenanische Sustentationskommission was set up by the Imperial Diet to arrange the compensation of those princes whose territories had been ceded to France. It continued to operate down to at least 1820 and its archives are today kept in the German Federal Archives; the principle that allies of Napoleon could expect to make gains in both territory and status was established, was to be repeated on a number of occasions, above all in 1806 when, at the time of the establishment of the Confederation of the Rhine, over 80 small and mid-size secular states were mediatized and annexed to some of the member states of the new Confederation. These massive territorial and institutional upheavals were to bring about the dissolution of the Empire in the course of the same year.
Full text, incl. Preamble Full text French-language summary of the articles dealing with the compensations
German mediatisation
German mediatisation was the major territorial restructuring that took place between 1802 and 1814 in Germany and the surrounding region by means of the mass mediatisation and secularisation of a large number of Imperial Estates. Most ecclesiastical principalities, free imperial cities, secular principalities, other minor self-ruling entities of the Holy Roman Empire lost their independent status and were absorbed into the remaining states. By the end of the mediatisation process, the number of German states had been reduced from 300 to just 39. In the strict sense of the word, mediatisation consists in the subsumption of an immediate state into another state, thus becoming mediate, while leaving the dispossessed ruler with his private estates and a number of privileges and feudal rights, such as low justice. For convenience, historians use the term mediatisation for the entire restructuring process that took place at the time, whether the mediatized states survived in some form or lost all individuality.
The secularization of ecclesiastical states took place concurrently with the mediatisation of free imperial cities and other secular states. The mass mediatisation and secularisation of German states that took place at the time was not initiated by Germans, it came under diplomatic pressure from revolutionary France and Napoleon. It constituted the most extensive redistribution of property and territories in German history prior to 1945; the two highpoints of the process were the secularization/annexation of ecclesiastical territories and free imperial cities in 1802–03, the mediatisation of secular principalities and counties in 1806. Although most of its neighbors coalesced into centralized states before the 19th century, Germany did not follow that path. Instead, the Holy Roman Empire maintained its medieval political structure as a "polyglot congeries of hundreds of nearly sovereign states and territories ranging in size from considerable to minuscule". From a high of nearly 400 – 136 ecclesiastical and 173 secular lords plus 85 free imperial cities – on the eve of the Reformation, this number had only reduced to a little less than 300 by the late-18th century.
The traditional explanation for this fragmentation has focused on the gradual usurpation by the princes of the powers of the Holy Roman Emperor during the Staufen period, to the point that by the Peace of Westphalia, the Emperor had become a mere primus inter pares. In recent decades, many historians have maintained that the fragmentation of Germany – which started out as a large polity while its neighbors started small – can be traced back to the geographical extent of the Empire – the German part of the Empire being about twice the size of the realm controlled by the king of France in the second half of the 11th century – and to the vigor of local aristocratic and ecclesiastical rule from early on in the medieval era. In the 12th century, the secular and spiritual princes did not regard themselves as the Emperor's subordinates, still less his subjects, but as rulers in their own right - and they jealously defended their established sphere of predominance. At the time of Emperor Frederick II's death in 1250, it had been decided that the regnum teutonicum was "an aristocracy with a monarchical head".
Among those states and territories, the ecclesiastical principalities were unique to Germany. The Ottonian and early Salian Emperors, who appointed the bishops and abbots, used them as agents of the imperial crown - as they considered them more dependable than the dukes they appointed and who attempted to establish independent hereditary principalities; the emperors expanded the power of the Church, of the bishops, with land grants and numerous privileges of immunity and protection as well as extensive judicial rights, which coalesced into a distinctive temporal principality: the Hochstift. The German bishop became a "prince of the Empire" and direct vassal of the Emperor for his Hochstift, while continuing to exercise only pastoral authority over his larger diocese; the personal appointment of bishops by the Emperors had sparked the investiture controversy in the 11th century, in its aftermath the emperor‘s control over the bishops' selection and rule diminished considerably. The bishops, now elected by independent-minded cathedral chapters rather than chosen by the emperor or the pope, were confirmed as territorial lords equal to the secular princes.
Having to face with the territorial expansionism of the powerful secular princes, the position of the prince-bishops became more precarious with time. In the course of the Reformation, several of the bishoprics in the north and northeast were secularized to the benefit of Protestant princes. In the sixteenth century the Counter-Reformation attempted to reverse some of these secularizations, the question of the fates of secularized territories became an important one in the Thirty Years' War. In the end, the Peace of Westphalia confirmed the secularization of a score of prince-bishoprics, including the archbishoprics of Bremen and Magdeburg and six bishoprics with full political powers, which were assigned to Sweden and Mecklenburg. On the other hand and Paderborn – under Protestant administration for decades and given up for lost – were restored as prince-bishoprics. In addition, the Peace conclusively reaffirmed the imperial immediacy, therefore the de facto independence, of the prince-bishops and imperial abbots, free imperial cities, imperial counts, as well as the imperial knights.
According to one authority, the sixty-five ecclesiastical rulers cont
Congress of Vienna
The Congress of Vienna called Vienna Congress, was a meeting of ambassadors of European states chaired by Austrian statesman Klemens von Metternich, held in Vienna from November 1814 to June 1815, though the delegates had arrived and were negotiating by late September 1814. The objective of the Congress was to provide a long-term peace plan for Europe by settling critical issues arising from the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars; the goal was not to restore old boundaries but to resize the main powers so they could balance each other and remain at peace. The leaders were conservatives with little use for republicanism or revolution, both of which threatened to upset the status quo in Europe. France lost all its recent conquests while Prussia and Russia made major territorial gains. Prussia added smaller German states in Swedish Pomerania and 60 % of the Kingdom of Saxony. Russia gained parts of Poland; the new Kingdom of the Netherlands had been created just months before, included Austrian territory that in 1830 became Belgium.
The immediate background was Napoleonic France's defeat and surrender in May 1814, which brought an end to 23 years of nearly continuous war. Negotiations continued despite the outbreak of fighting triggered by Napoleon's dramatic return from exile and resumption of power in France during the Hundred Days of March to July 1815; the Congress's "final act" was signed nine days before his final defeat at Waterloo on 18 June 1815. The Congress has been criticized for causing the subsequent suppression of the emerging national and liberal movements, it has been seen as a reactionary movement for the benefit of traditional monarchs. However, others praise it for having created long-term stability and peaceful conditions in most of Europe. In a technical sense, the "Congress of Vienna" was not properly a congress: it never met in plenary session, most of the discussions occurred in informal, face-to-face sessions among the Great Powers of Austria, France and sometimes Prussia, with limited or no participation by other delegates.
On the other hand, the congress was the first occasion in history where, on a continental scale, national representatives came together to formulate treaties instead of relying on messages among the several capitals. The Congress of Vienna settlement, despite changes, formed the framework for European international politics until the outbreak of the First World War in 1914; the Treaty of Chaumont in 1814 had reaffirmed decisions, made and that would be ratified by the more important Congress of Vienna of 1814-15. They included the establishment of a confederated Germany, the division of Italy into independent states, the restoration of the Bourbon kings of Spain, the enlargement of the Netherlands to include what in 1830 became modern Belgium; the Treaty of Chaumont became the cornerstone of the European Alliance that formed the balance of power for decades. Other partial settlements had occurred at the Treaty of Paris between France and the Sixth Coalition, the Treaty of Kiel that covered issues raised regarding Scandinavia.
The Treaty of Paris had determined that a "general congress" should be held in Vienna and that invitations would be issued to "all the Powers engaged on either side in the present war". The opening was scheduled for July 1814; the Congress functioned through formal meetings such as working groups and official diplomatic functions. The Four Great Powers had formed the core of the Sixth Coalition. On the verge of Napoleon's defeat they had outlined their common position in the Treaty of Chaumont, negotiated the Treaty of Paris with the Bourbons during their restoration: Austria was represented by Prince Metternich, the Foreign Minister, by his deputy, Baron Johann von Wessenberg; as the Congress's sessions were in Vienna, Emperor Francis was kept informed. Britain was represented first by Viscount Castlereagh. In the last weeks it was headed by the Earl of Clancarty, after Wellington left to face Napoleon during the Hundred Days. Tsar Alexander I controlled the Russian delegation, formally led by the foreign minister, Count Karl Robert Nesselrode.
The tsar had two main goals, to gain control of Poland and to promote the peaceful coexistence of European nations. He succeeded in forming the Holy Alliance, based on monarchism and anti-secularism, formed to combat any threat of revolution or republicanism. Prussia was represented by Prince Karl August von Hardenberg, the Chancellor, the diplomat and scholar Wilhelm von Humboldt. King Frederick William III of Prussia was in Vienna, playing his role behind the scenes. France, the "fifth" power, was represented by its foreign minister, Talleyrand, as well as the Minister Plenipotentiary the Duke of Dalberg. Talleyrand had negotiated the Treaty of Paris for Louis XVIII of France; these parties had not been part of the Chaumont agreement, but had joined the Treaty of Paris: Spain – Marquis Pedro Gómez de Labrador Portugal – Plenipotentiaries: Pedro de Sousa Holstein, Count of Palmela. Sweden – Count Carl Löwenhielm Denmark – Count Niels Rosenkrantz, foreign minister. King Frederick VI was present in Vienna.
The Netherlands – Earl of Clancarty, the
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Roman Republic period of the ancient Roman civilization. Ruled by emperors, it had large territorial holdings around the Mediterranean Sea in Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, the Caucasus. From the constitutional reforms of Augustus to the military anarchy of the third century, the Empire was a principate ruled from the city of Rome; the Roman Empire was ruled by multiple emperors and divided in a Western Roman Empire, based in Milan and Ravenna, an Eastern Roman Empire, based in Nicomedia and Constantinople. Rome remained the nominal capital of both parts until 476 AD, when Odoacer deposed Romulus Augustus after capturing Ravenna and the Roman Senate sent the imperial regalia to Constantinople; the fall of the Western Roman Empire to barbarian kings, along with the hellenization of the Eastern Roman Empire into the Byzantine Empire, is conventionally used to mark the end of Ancient Rome and the beginning of the Middle Ages. The previous Republic, which had replaced Rome's monarchy in the 6th century BC, became destabilized in a series of civil wars and political conflict.
In the mid-1st century BC Julius Caesar was appointed as perpetual dictator and assassinated in 44 BC. Civil wars and proscriptions continued, culminating in the victory of Octavian, Caesar's adopted son, over Mark Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC; the following year Octavian conquered Ptolemaic Egypt, ending the Hellenistic period that had begun with the conquests of Alexander the Great of Macedon in the 4th century BC. Octavian's power was unassailable and in 27 BC the Roman Senate formally granted him overarching power and the new title Augustus making him the first emperor; the first two centuries of the Empire were a period of unprecedented stability and prosperity known as the Pax Romana. It reached its greatest territorial expanse during the reign of Trajan. A period of increasing trouble and decline began with the reign of Commodus. In the 3rd century, the Empire underwent a crisis that threatened its existence, but was reunified under Aurelian. In an effort to stabilize the Empire, Diocletian set up two different imperial courts in the Greek East and Latin West.
Christians rose to power in the 4th century following the Edict of Milan in 313 and the Edict of Thessalonica in 380. Shortly after, the Migration Period involving large invasions by Germanic peoples and the Huns of Attila led to the decline of the Western Roman Empire. With the fall of Ravenna to the Germanic Herulians and the deposition of Romulus Augustulus in 476 AD by Odoacer, the Western Roman Empire collapsed and it was formally abolished by emperor Zeno in 480 AD; the Eastern Roman Empire, known in the post-Roman West as the Byzantine Empire, collapsed when Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks of Mehmed II in 1453. Due to the Roman Empire's vast extent and long endurance, the institutions and culture of Rome had a profound and lasting influence on the development of language, architecture, philosophy and forms of government in the territory it governed Europe; the Latin language of the Romans evolved into the Romance languages of the medieval and modern world, while Medieval Greek became the language of the Eastern Roman Empire.
Its adoption of Christianity led to the formation of Christendom during the Middle Ages. Greek and Roman art had a profound impact on the late medieval Italian Renaissance, while Rome's republican institutions influenced the political development of republics such as the United States and France; the corpus of Roman law has its descendants in many legal systems of the world today, such as the Napoleonic Code. Rome's architectural tradition served as the basis for Neoclassical architecture. Rome had begun expanding shortly after the founding of the republic in the 6th century BC, though it did not expand outside the Italian peninsula until the 3rd century BC, it was an "empire" long before it had an emperor. The Roman Republic was not a nation-state in the modern sense, but a network of towns left to rule themselves and provinces administered by military commanders, it was ruled, not by annually elected magistrates in conjunction with the senate. For various reasons, the 1st century BC was a time of political and military upheaval, which led to rule by emperors.
The consuls' military power rested in the Roman legal concept of imperium, which means "command". Successful consuls were given the honorary title imperator, this is the origin of the word emperor since this title was always bestowed to the early emperors upon their accession. Rome suffered a long series of internal conflicts and civil wars from the late second century BC onward, while extending its power beyond Italy; this was the period of the Crisis of the Roman Republic. Towards the end of this era, in 44 BC, Julius Caesar was perpetual dictator before being assassinated; the faction of his assassins was driven from Rome and defeated at the Battle of Philippi in 42 BC by an army led by Mark Antony and Caesar's adopted son Octavian. Antony and Octavian's division of the Roman world between themselves did not last and Octavian's forces defeated those of Mark Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC, ending the Final War of the Roman Republic. In 27 BC the Senate and People of Rome made Octavian princeps ("first citi
Main (river)
The Main is a river in Germany. With a length of 525 kilometres, it is the longest right tributary of the Rhine, it is the longest river lying in Germany. The largest cities along the Main are Würzburg; the mainspring of the Main River flows through the German states of Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg and Hesse. Its basin competes with the Danube for water; the Main begins near Kulmbach in Franconia at the joining of its two headstreams, the Red Main and the White Main. The Red Main originates in the Franconian Jura mountain range, 50 km in length, runs through Creussen and Bayreuth; the White Main originates in the mountains of the Fichtelgebirge. In its upper and middle section, the Main runs through the valleys of the German Highlands, its lower section crosses the Lower Main Lowlands to Wiesbaden. Major tributaries of the Main are the Regnitz, the Franconian Saale, the Tauber, the Nidda; the name "Main" derives from the Latin Moenus or Menus. It is not related to the name of the city Mainz; the Main is navigable for shipping from its mouth at the Rhine close to Mainz for 396 km to Bamberg.
Since 1992, the Main has been connected to the Danube via the Rhine-Main-Danube Canal and the regulated Altmühl river. The Main has been canalized with 34 large locks to allow CEMT class V vessels to navigate the total length of the river; the 16 locks in the adjacent Rhine-Main-Danube Canal and the Danube itself are of the same dimensions. There are 34 dams and locks along the 380 km navigable portion of the Main, from the confluence with the Regnitz near Bamberg, to the Rhine. No.: Number of the lock. Name: Name of the lock. Location: City or town where the lock is located. Year built: Year when the lock was put into operation. Main-km: Location on the Main, measured from the 0 km stone in Mainz-Kostheim; the reference point is the center of the lock group. Distance between locks: length in km of impoundment. Altitude: height in meters above mean sea level of the upper water at normal levels. Height: Height of the dam in meters. Lock length: Usable length of the lock chamber in meters. Lock width: Usable width of the lock chamber in meters.
Most of the dams along the Main have turbines for power generation. No.: Number of the dam. Name: Name of the dam. Height: Height of the dam in meters. Power: Maximum power generation capacity in megawatts. Turbines: Type and number of turbines. Operator: Operator of the hydroelectric plant. Tributaries from source to mouth: Around Frankfurt are several large inland ports; because the river is rather narrow on many of the upper reaches, navigation with larger vessels and push convoys requires great skill. The largest cities along the Main are Würzburg; the Main passes the following towns and cities: Burgkunstadt, Bad Staffelstein, Eltmann, Haßfurt, Volkach, Marktbreit, Karlstadt, Gemünden, Marktheidenfeld, Miltenberg, Erlenbach/Main, Seligenstadt, Hanau, Hattersheim, Flörsheim, Rüsselsheim. The river has gained enormous importance as a vital part of European "Corridor VII", the inland waterway link from the North Sea to the Black Sea. In a historical and political sense, the Main line is referred to as the northern border of Southern Germany, with its predominantly Catholic population.
The river marked the southern border of the North German Federation, established in 1867 under Prussian leadership as the predecessor of the German Empire. The river course corresponds with the Speyer line isogloss between Central and Upper German dialects, sometimes mocked as Weißwurstäquator; the Main-Radweg is a major German bicycle path running along the Main River. It is 600 kilometres long and was the first long-distance bicycle path to be awarded 5 stars by the General German Bicycle Club ADFC in 2008, it starts from either Creußen or Bischofsgrün and ends in Mainz. Roman camp at Marktbreit Haus der Bayerischen Geschichte, Main und Meer - Porträt eines Flusses. Exhibition Catalogue to the Bayerische Landesausstellung 2013. WBG. ISBN 978-3-534-00010-4. Main River Website on the River Main by the Tourist Board of Franconia. "Main". Collier's New Encyclopedia. 1921. "Main". The New Student's Reference Work. 1914. There is literature about Main in the Hessian Bibliography Water levels of Bavarian rivers Wasser- und Schifffahrtsdirektion Süd Main Cycleway Historical map of the Main confluence at Steinenhausen from BayernAtlas
Crescens
Crescens was an individual who appears in the New Testament. He became a companion of Paul; the name'Crescens' is the present-active participle of the Latin word crescere, means'increasing'. Crescens, a companion of Paul during his second Roman captivity, appears but once in the New Testament, when he is mentioned as having left the Apostle to go into Galatia: "Make haste to come to me quickly", Paul writes to Timothy, "for Demas hath left me, loving this world, is gone to Thessalonica, Crescens into Galatia, Titus into Dalmatia". All commentators agree in ranking Crescens with Titus rather than with Demas, in seeing here, therefore, a reference to a missionary journey into Galatia; this term, in New Testament times, might mean either Gaul or the Roman province of Galatia in Asia Minor, where Paul had labored so much. In the other passages where it occurs in the New Testament, however, it denotes Galatia, most it would be so understood here by Timothy as the other regions mentioned are to the east of Rome.
Moreover, Paul might have a reason for sending a disciple to visit his old Churches in Galatia, while there is no proof that he had an active interest in Gaul. Accordingly, the earliest tradition represents Crescens as a bishop of the Churches in Galatia. Traditions, on the other hand, locate him as Bishop of Vienne in Gaul at Mainz on the Rhine, but the earliest known traditions of Gaul itself record nothing of this disciple of the Apostle as a founder of their Churches, the belief is thought to have arisen from the desire of an Apostolic origin. The claims of Vienne have been most urged; as little can be said for Mainz. The reading of certain manuscripts, which have "Gallia" instead of "Galatia", has been advanced in favour of Gaul. Crescens is mentioned as one of the Seventy Apostles of Christ by Pseudo-Dorotheus, his martyrdom in Galatia, under Trajan, commemorated on 27 June by the Roman Martyrology, lacks the confirmation of older Martyrologies. The Eastern Orthodox Church honours him as one of the Seventy.
Herbermann, Charles, ed.. "Crescens". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Car Démas m'a abandonné par amour du monde présent. Il est parti pour Tite pour la Dalmatie. Recherche sur les églises de Reims, de Soissons et de Chalons - L. W Ravenez - 1857
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Electors of the Holy Roman Empire from 1356 to 1806 
