Duchy of Bavaria - Imperial State

Imperial State

From 1180 to 1918, the Wittelsbacher were the rulers of Bavaria, as dukes, later as electors and kings. When Count Palatine Otto VI. of Wittelsbach became Otto I, Duke of Bavaria in 1180, the Wittelsbach treasury was rather low. In the following years it was significantly augmented by purchase, marriage, and inheritance. Newly acquired land was no longer given as a fief, but managed by servants. Also, powerful families, such as the counts of Andechs, died out during this period. Otto's son Ludwig I of Wittelsbach was enfeoffed in 1214 with the County of Palatine of the Rhine.

Since there was no preference for succession of the firstborn in the Wittelsbach dynasty, in contrast to many governments of this time, there was in 1255 a division of the land into Upper Bavaria with the Palatinate and the Nordgau (headquartered in Munich) and lower Bavaria (with seats in Landshut and Burghausen). There is still today a distinction made between upper and lower Bavaria (cf. Regierungsbezirke) .

Despite renewed division after a short time of reunification, Bavaria gained new heights of power with Louis IV, Holy Roman Emperor, who became the first Wittelsbach emperor in 1328. The newly gained areas of Brandenburg (1323), Tyrol (1342), the Dutch provinces Holland, Zeeland and Friesland and the Hainaut (1345) were however lost under his successors. Tyrol fell already 1369 through the Treaty of Schärding to the Habsburgs, in Brandenburg; the Luxemburgish rider followed 1373, and the Dutch counties fell to Burgundy in 1436. In the Treaty of Pavia from 1329, Emperor Louis divided ownership in a Palatine region, with the Rhine Palatinate, and a later so-called Upper Palatinate. Thus, the electoral dignity for the line onwards to the Palatinate was also lost. Until 1777, Bavaria and the Palatinate should be reunited. With the recognition of the limits of domination by the Bavarian Duke in the year 1275, replace Salzburg of Bavaria went into their final phase. As the Salzburg Archbishop had issued own country regulations then in 1328, Salzburg had become a largely independent state within the Holy of Roman Empire.

In the 14th and 15th centuries, upper and lower Bavaria were repeatedly subdivided. Four Duchies existed after the division of 1392: Lower Bavaria-Straubing, lower Bavaria-Landshut, Bavaria-Ingolstadt and Bavaria-Munich, whose dukes often waged war against each other. Duke Albrecht IV of Bavaria-Munich united again 1506 succession of 1504/05 Altbayern after devastating Landshut. By an act of primogeniture, he finished the divisions. However, the originally Bavarian offices Kufstein, Kitzbühel and Rattenberg in Tirol were lost in 1504.