Ecclesiastical Germany

Religious entities, such as archbishoprics, bishoprics, and abbeys, began exercising secular control over portions of their territory around the time the Holy Roman Empire was founded in the 10th century. Initially, all such institutions were Catholic, but some became Protestant during the Reformation. The Peace of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty-Years War in 1648, resulted in most Protestant-controlled territories being formally secularized while most Catholic-controlled territory remain in ecclesiastical hands. (The exceptions were the Bishopric of Lübeck, which remained Protestant, and the Bishopric of Osnabrück, in which the bishopric alternated between Catholic and Protestant.) In the four years prior to the demise of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, all ecclesiastical territory was secularized by the forces of Napoleon

 

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