Final Recess of February 1803
The Final Recess of the Reichsdeputation (German: Reichsdeputationshauptschluss) was a resolution passed on 25 February 1803 by the Reichstag (Imperial Diet) of the Holy Roman Empire. It proved to be the last significant law enacted by the Empire before its dissolution in 1806.
Based on a plan agreed in June 1802 between France and Austria, and broad principles outlined in Article 7 the Treaty of Lunéville of 1801, the law established a major redistribution of territorial sovereignty within the Empire, to compensate numerous German princes for their possessions to the west of the Rhine that had been annexed by France as a result of the wars of the French Revolution. The Treaty had referred only to the compensation of hereditary princes, which excluded from any claim to compensation the ecclesiastical princes (prince-electors, prince-bishops, imperial abbots), Free Imperial Cities and Imperial Knights who had also been dispossessed.
The Final Recess was ratified unanimously by the Reichstag in March, 1803, and 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 heavily in the former's favour.
The redistribution was achieved by a combination of two processes: secularisation of ecclesiastical principalities, and mediatisation of numerous small secular principalities and Free Imperial Cities.
Read more about this topic: German Mediatisation
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