Prince-Bishopric of Augsburg - French Revolution and Secularization

French Revolution and Secularization

During this episcopate began the world-wide upheaval inaugurated by the French Revolution. It was destined to put an end to the temporal power of the Church in Germany, and to bring about the fall of Augsburg from the dignity of a principality of the Empire. In 1802, by an act of the Delegation of the Perpetual Imperial Diet (Reichsdeputationsrezess) the territory of the Diocese of Augsburg was given to the Elector of Bavaria, who took possession of it on 1 December 1802.

The cathedral chapter, together with forty canonicates, forty-one benefices, nine colleges, twenty-five abbeys, thirty-four monasteries of the mendicant orders, and two convents were the victims of this act of secularization. Unfortunately, owing to the inconsiderate conduct of the commissioners appointed by the Bavarian minister, Montgelas, innumerable artistic treasures, valuable books, and documents were destroyed. For five years after the death of the last bishop of princely rank (1812) the episcopal see remained vacant; the parts of the diocese lying outside of Bavaria were separated from it and annexed to other dioceses. It was not until 1817 that the Concordat between the Holy See and the Bavarian government reconstructed the Diocese of Augsburg and made it subject to the Metropolitan of Munich–Freising. In 1821 the territory subject to the ecclesiastical authority of Augsburg was increased by the addition of sections of the suppressed See of Constance, and the present limits were then defined.