Electorate of Cologne

Electorate of Cologne Erzstift und Kurfürstentum Köln or Kurerzstift Köln
953–1803
Flag Coat of arms
Map of the Lower Rhine around 1560, Electorate of Cologne with Duchy of Westphalia highlighted in red
Status	State of the Holy Roman Empire Imperial elector
Capital	Cologne (953–1288) Bonn (1597–1794)
Government	Theocracy
Historical era	Middle Ages
• Bishopric established	Ancient Roman times
• Elevated to archbishopric	953
• Bruno I archbishop	953
• Arch-chancellor of Italy	1031
• Cologne made Free Imperial City	1288
• Joined Electoral Rhenish Circle	1512
• German Mediatisation	1803
Preceded by Duchy of Lorraine

The Electorate of Cologne (German: Kurfürstentum Köln or Kurköln) was an ecclesiastical principality of the Holy Roman Empire and existed from the 10th to the early 19th century. It consisted of the temporal possessions of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cologne (German: Erzbistum Köln). It was ruled by the Archbishop in his capacity as prince-elector. The capital of the electorate was Cologne until the Elector moved to Bonn (after 1288) to avoid jurisdiction conflicts with the authorities of the Free City of Cologne, who largely escaped his authority. The Electorate was secularised in 1803 during the German Mediatisation.

The territory of the Electorate of Cologne was smaller than the Archdiocese of Cologne, which included suffragant bishoprics such as Liège and Munster (see map below).

History

Cologne is the ancient Roman city of Colonia Agrippina and has been a bishop's see since Roman times. In 953, the archbishops of Cologne first gained noteworthy secular power, when bishop Bruno was appointed as duke by his brother Emperor Otto I. In order to weaken the secular nobility, who threatened his power, Otto endowed Bruno and his successors on the bishop's see with the prerogatives of secular princes. This was the beginning of the electoral state of Cologne. It was formed by the temporal possessions of the archbishopric and included in the end a strip of territory along the left Bank of the Rhine east of Jülich, as well as the Duchy of Westphalia on the other side of the Rhine, beyond Berg and Mark.

Cologne Cathedral

By the end of the 12th century, the right to elect the Holy Roman Emperor was limited to four secular and three ecclesiastical princes, among them the Archbishop of Cologne. Besides being prince elector, he was Archchancellor of Italy as well, technically from 1238 and permanently from 1263 until 1803. Following the Battle of Worringen in 1288, Cologne gained its independence from the archbishops and became a Free City. Eventually, the archbishop moved to Bonn to escape jurisdiction conflicts with the Free City.

During the 16th century, two Archbishops of Cologne converted to Protestantism. The first, Hermann von Wied, resigned the archbishopric on converting, but Gebhard Truchsess von Waldburg, on converting to Calvinism in 1582, attempted to secularise the archbishopric. His marriage the following February, and his refusal to relinquish the territory, resulted in the election of a competing archbishop and prince-elector, Ernst of Bavaria. The pope funded Italian and Spanish mercenaries; the Bavarians also sent an army; the Protestant Dutch states supported Protestant efforts to maintain Calvinism in the Electorate. The Cologne War ruined most of the Electoral economy. Many villages and towns were besieged and destroyed. The Siege of Godesberg in November–December 1583 ended with the destruction of the Godesburg castle and the slaughter of most of its inhabitants. After several more sieges, the Protestant contender, who had been elected in 1579, gave up his claim to the see and retired to Strasbourg with his wife. A Bavarian army installed the brother of the Duke of Bavaria, Ernst as archbishop-—the first major success of the Counter-Reformation in Germany. Under his direction, Jesuits supervised the reintroduction of Catholicism in the Electorate. From then until the mid-18th century, the archbishopric was effectively a secundogeniture of the Wittelsbach rulers of Bavaria. As the archbishop in this period usually also held the Bishopric of Münster (and often the Bishopric of Liège), he was one of the most substantial princes of northwestern Germany.

Cologne Cathedral

The archdioceses of Central Europe, 1500. The archdiocese of Cologne was larger than the Electorate of the same name and included suffragant dioceses. In Germany, the territory of the dioceses and archdioceses (spiritual) was usually much larger than the prince-bishoprics and archbishoprics/electorates (temporal), ruled by the same individual.

After 1795, the electorate's territories on the left bank of the Rhine were occupied by France, and were formally annexed in 1801. The Reichsdeputationshauptschluss of 1803 secularised the rest of the archbishopric, giving the Duchy of Westphalia to the Landgraviate of Hesse-Darmstadt. Cologne was, however, reestablished as the seat of a Catholic archbishop in 1824, and is an archdiocese to the present day.

See also

Map of the Electorate of Cologne - copper engraving by Franz Johann Joseph von Reilly (de), 1793

• History of Cologne
• Kingdom of Westphalia
• List of bishops and archbishops of Cologne
• County of Vest Recklinghausen

Media related to Electorate of Cologne at Wikimedia Commons Media related to Archbishops of Cologne at Wikimedia Commons