Three Bishoprics
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The Three Bishoprics (French: Trois-Évêchés) constituted a province of pre-Revolutionary France consisting of the bisphoprics of Verdun, Metz, and Toul in the Lorraine region. These were territories of the Holy Roman Empire until they were seized by French King Henry II between April and June of 1552. The conquest was legitimised ahead of time by a treaty with the Protestant Imperial princes and the Ottoman Empire against the Habsburgs, signed at Chambord on January 15, 1552, which confirmed the French king's lordship over Metz, Toul, Verdun, "and other towns of the Empire that do not speak German".
At the end of the Thirty Years' War, they were awarded to France by the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia.
The Diocese of Saint-Dié, created in 1777 and sometimes called the "Fourth Bishopric of Lorraine" (« le Quatrième Évêché lorrain »), is not related historically to the Three Bisphoprics.
[edit] Sources
- (French) Trois-Évêchés on the French Wikipedia
- (French) 450th anniversary celebrations on the French Ministry of Culture's website
- (French) Biography of Henry II