Prince of The Church - Clerics As European Territorial Princes

Clerics As European Territorial Princes

Especially in the Holy Roman Empire, a large number of Prince-bishops, Prince-archbishops and superiors of the regular clergy (mainly Prince-abbots, but also -abbesses, Prince-Provosts and Grand masters) obtained for their seats, concurrent with the ecclesiastical office, one or more secular feudal estates of various status and importance (from tiny mere lordships to fairly great principalities such as duchies), that would otherwise be hereditary and often had been; in other cases territories were carved out especially by a higher authority, such as the empire, notably for an (arch)diocese or monastery, under such names as Stift (German; in the case of a diocese rather Hochstift, for an archdiocese rather Erzstift) or Sticht (Dutch), both meaning foundation, e.g. to set up a close relative as its first prelate; occasionally a normal secular style principality was created but immediately awarded to a prelate, such as the duchy of Westphalia for the Archbishop and Prince-elector of Cologne.

Many of them were at some point formally granted the rank of Reichsfürst, literally "Prince of the Empire", in itself entitling them to representation in the Reichstag (Imperial Diet). For example, the bishop of Liège was a Fürst on account of several secular principalities merged into the bishopric (including the countships of Loon/Looz and Ho(o)rn, marquisate of Franchimont and duchy of Bouillon) ruling a vast area, the prince-bishopric, but much smaller than his ecclesiastic diocese, the Bishopric of Liège in feudal times this territory was the only part of the Low Countries not counted among the "Seventeen Provinces" but seen as an integral part of Germany. However the principalities of some of the highest prelates were not known as prince-(arch)bishopric, which they effectively were, but rather by a term corresponding to a more prestigious ecclesistial or temporal rank: the three German archbishoprics of Prince-electors (Cologne, Mainz and Trier) were styled Kurfürstentum 'Electorate', the patriarchate (an archbishopric) of Aquileia just that, the (Arch)Bishop of Rome's Italian principalities the Papal State(s); on the other hand the papal principality in France, the Countship of Venaissin, where the papacy had resided in 'Babylonian exile' in Avignon, but which remained a papal state, separate from the Italian states, even after Avignon had been raised to archbishopric, was simply known by its temporal status, no reference to the highest of all princes of the church.

An exclusively religious category of Princes were the Grand Masters, by somewhat different styles, of those military orders that had been granted statehood over a territory to defend it against the infidels and/or in recognition of the order's military merit in crusading and conquests, notably against the (mainly Slavonic and Baltic) peoples in the north and east —notably the State of the Teutonic Order became the major power in the Baltic region, for example, absorbing its counterparts— and against the Muslim Moors in Iberia. While the Grand masters and their fighting knights were usually professed nobles, the orders included clergy and were as a whole recognized as a truly "militant" form of devotion with papal recognition just as a normal monastic order. An existing example to this day would be that of the head of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.

By the twentieth century only the Bishop of Rome (the Pope, as Sovereign Monarch of Vatican City, formerly of the Papal States, a major power on the Italian peninsula until 1870) and the Bishop of Urgell (as Co-Prince of Andorra) were still reigning, territorial "princes of the church". For all other clergymen prince-like worldly power is now considered as conflicting with the prescriptions of the church.