| Prince-Archbishopric of Salzburg Fürst-Erzbistum Salzburg |
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| State of the Holy Roman Empire | ||||
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Coat of arms |
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| Salzburg territory (violet) in 1789, with adjacent Bavarian (green) and Austrian (orange) lands |
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| Capital | Salzburg | |||
| Government | Principality | |||
| Historical era | Middle Ages | |||
| - Bishopric founded | ca 543/696 | |||
| - Raised to archbishopric | 798 1278 | |||
| - Gained territory, became prince-archbishopric | 1278 | |||
| - Joined Bavarian Circle | 1500 | |||
| - Joined Council of Princes | 1793 | |||
| - Raised to electorate | 1803 | |||
| - Mediatised to Grand Duchy |
1803 | |||
| - Annexed by Austria | 1805 | |||
The Archbishopric of Salzburg was an ecclesiastical State of the Holy Roman Empire, its territory roughly congruent with the present-day Austrian state of Salzburg.
The diocese arose from St Peter's Abbey, founded in the German stem duchy of Bavaria about 696 by St Rupert at the former Roman city of Iuvavum (Salzburg). The last Archbishop with princely authority before the secularisation was Count Hieronymus von Colloredo, an early patron of Salzburg native Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
Up to today, the Archbishop of Salzburg has also borne the title Primas Germaniae ("First [Bishop] of Germany"). The powers of this title – non-jurisdictional – are limited to being the Pope's first correspondent in the German-speaking world, but used to include the right to preside over the Princes of the Holy Roman Empire. The Archbishop also has the title of Legatus Natus ("born legate") to the Pope, which, although not a cardinal, gives the Archbishop the privilege of wearing red vesture (which is much deeper than a cardinal's scarlet), even in Rome.
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The Vita Sancti Severini by Eugippius reported that during the Decline of the Roman Empire about 450 AD Iuvavum was already home to two churches and a monastery. Very little is known of the early bishopric, and the legendary Saint Maximus of Salzburg is the only abbot-bishop known by name. A disciple of Saint Severinus, he was martyred in the retreat from Noricum, after King Odoacer of Italia had invaded the province in 487/88. Iuvavum had been destroyed in c. 482 and with it the bishopric, six years before the departure of the Roman legions from the region.
In the late 7th century St. Rupert, then Bishop of Worms and later called the apostle of Bavaria and Carinthia, came to the region from Regensburg and reestablished the diocese. After erecting a church at Seekirchen am Wallersee he discovered the ruins of Iuvavum overgrown with brambles. It appears less likely that he arrived in c. 543 during the time of the unsourced Duke Theodon II of Bavaria than about 696 during the reign of Duke Theodo II (V) when the Bavarian stem duchy came under Frankish supremacy. In either case, it was not until after 700 that Christian civilisation reemerged in the region. The cathedral monastery was named in honour of St. Peter and Rupert's niece Erentrudis founded the nunnery at Nonnberg. In 739 St. Boniface completed the work of St. Rupert, and placed Salzburg under the primatial see of the Archbishopric of Mainz. St. Vergilius, abbot of St. Peter's since about 749, had quarelled with St. Boniface over the existence of antipodes. He nevertheless became bishop about 767, had the first cathedral erected in 774 and began the valuable book Liber Confraternitatum (Confraternity Book of St. Peter).
Arno, bishop since 785, enjoyed the respect of the Frankish king Charlemagne who assigned to him the missionary territory between the rivers Danube in the north, the Rába (Raab) in the east and the Drava in the south, an area which had recently been conquered from the Avars. Monasteries were founded and all of Carinthia was slowly Christianised. While Arno was in Rome attending to some of Charlemagne's business in 798, Pope Leo III appointed him Archbishop over the other bishops in Bavaria (Freising, Passau, Regensburg, and Säben). When the dispute over the ecclesiastical border between Salzburg and the Patriarchate of Aquileia broke out, Charlemagne declared the Drava to be the border. Arno also began the copying of 150 volumes from the court of Charlemagne, beginning the oldest library in Austria.
Archbishop Adalwin (859-873) suffered great troubles when King Rastislav of Great Moravia attempted to remove his realm from the ecclesiastical influence of East Francia. In 870 Pope Adrian II appointed the "Apostle of the Slavs" St. Methodius the Archbishop of Pannonia and Moravia at Sirmium, entrusting him large territories under the overlordship of the Salzburg diocese. It was only when Rastislav and Methodius were captured by King Louis the German that Adalwin could adequately protest the invasion of his rights. Methodius appeared at the Synod of Salzburg where he was struck in the face and imprisoned in close confinement for two and a half years. Adalwin attempted to legitimise his imprisonment, but was compelled to release Methodius when ordered by the Pope.
Soon after, the Magyars ravaged Great Moravia and not a church was left standing in Pannonia. Archbishop Dietmar I fell in battle in 907. It was not until the Battle of Lechfeld in 955 that the Magyars suffered a crushing defeat, and ecclesiastical life in Salzburg returned to normal. The following year after Archbishop Herhold allied with Duke Ludolph of Swabia and Duke Conrad the Red of Lorraine, he was deposed, imprisoned, blinded, and banished. Archbishop Bruno of Cologne, called the Bishop-Maker, appointed Frederick I archbishop and declared the Abbacy of St. Peter independent. In 996, Archbishop Hartwig received the right to mint money.
In the era beginning with Pope Gregory VII, the Latin Christendom entered a period of internal conflict. The first archbishop of the era was Gebhard, who during the Investiture Controversy remained on the side of the Pope. Gebhard thus suffered a nine year exile, and was allowed to return shortly before his death and was buried in Admont. His successor Thimo was imprisoned for five years, and suffered a horrible death in 1102. After King Henry IV abdicated and Conrad I of Abensberg was elected Archbishop. Conrad lived in exile until the Calistine Concordat of 1122. Conrad spent the remaining years of his episcopate improving the religious life in the archdiocese.
The Archbishops again took the side of the Pope during the strife between them and the Hohenstaufens. Archbishop Eberard I of Hilpolstein-Biburg was allowed to reign in peace, but his successor Conrad II of Austria earned the Emperor's wrath and died in 1168 in Admont a fugitive. Conrad III of Wittelsbach was appointed the Archbishop of Salzburg in 1177 at the Diet of Venice, after the partisans of both Pope and Emperor were deposed.
Archbishop Eberhard II of Regensberg was made a prince of the Empire in 1213, and created three new sees: Chiemsee (1216), Seckau (1218) and Lavant (1225). In 1241 at the Council of Regensburg he denounced Pope Gregory IX at as "that man of perdition, whom they call Antichrist, who in his extravagant boasting says, I am God, I cannot err."[1] He argued that the ten kingdoms that the Antichrist is involved with[2] were the "Turks, Greeks, Egyptians, Africans, Spaniards, French, English, Germans, Sicilians, and Italians who now occupy the provinces of Rome."[3] He held that the papacy was the "little horn" of Daniel 7:8:[4]
A little horn has grown up with eyes and mouth speaking great things, which is reducing three of these kingdoms--i.e. Sicily, Italy, and Germany--to subserviency, is persecuting the people of Christ and the saints of God with intolerable opposition, is confounding things human and divine, and is attempting things unutterable, execrable.[3]
Eberhard was excommunicated in 1245 after refusing to publish a decree deposing the emperor and died suddenly the next year. During the German Interregnum, Salzburg also suffered confusion. Philip of Spanheim, heir to the Dukedom of Carinthia, refused to take priestly consecrations, and was replaced by Ulrich, Bishop of Seckau.
King Rudolph I of Habsburg quarrelled with the archbishops through the manipulations of Abbot Henry of Admont, and after his death the archbishops and the Habsburgs made peace in 1297. The people and archbishops of Salzburgs remained loyal to the Habsburgs in their struggles against the Wittelsbachs. When the Black Death reached Salzburg in 1347, the Jews were accused of poisoning the wells and suffered severe persecution. The Jews were expelled from Salzburg in 1404. Later, the Jews were allowed to return but were forced to wear pointed hats.
Conditions were at their worst during the reign of Bernard II of Rohr. The country was in depression, local authorities were raising their own taxes and the Turks were ravaging the archdiocese. In 1473, he summoned the first provincial diet in the history of the archbishopric, and eventually abdicated. It was only Leonard of Keutschach (reigned 1495–1519) who reversed the situation. He had all the burgomasters and town councillors (who were levying unfair taxes) arrested simultaneously and imprisoned in the castle. His last years were spent in bitter struggle against Matthäus Lang of Wellenburg, Bishop of Gurk, who succeeded him in 1519.
Matthäus Lang was largely unnoticed in official circles, although his influence was felt throughout the archbishopric. He brought in Saxon miners, which brought with them Protestant books and teachings. He then attempted to keep the populace Catholic, and during the Latin War was besieged in the Hohen-Salzburg, declared a "monster" by Martin Luther, and two later uprisings by the peasants lead to suffering to the entire archdiocese. Later bishops were wiser in the ruling and spared Salzburg the religious wars and devastations seen elsewhere in Germany. Archbishop Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau gave the Protestants the choice of either to live Catholic or leave. The Cathedral was rebuilt in such splendour that it was unrivalled by all others north of the Alps.
Archbishop Paris of Lodron led Salzburg to peace and prosperity during the Thirty Years' War in which the rest of Germany was thoroughly devastated. During the reign of Leopold Anthony of Firmian, Protestants emerged more vigorously than before in 1731.[5] He invited the Jesuits to Salzburg and asked for help from the emperor, and finally ordered the Protestants to recant or emigrate - about 30,000 people left and settled in Württemberg, Hanover and East Prussia, and a few settled in Ebenezer, Georgia in what would become the United States of America. The last Prince-Archbishop, Hieronymus von Colloredo, is probably best known for his patronage of Mozart. His reforms of the church and education systems alienated him from the people.
In 1803, Salzburg was secularised as the Electorate of Salzburg for the former Grand Duke Ferdinand III of Tuscany (brother of Emperor Francis II), who had lost his throne. In 1805 it came to Austria, and in 1809 to Bavaria, who closed the University of Salzburg, banned monasteries from accepting novices, and banned pilgrimages and processions. The archdiocese was reestablished as the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Salzburg in 1818 without temporal power.
Abandoned after c. 482
See Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Salzburg for archbishops since 1812.
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