page_title: History of Bavaria
section_title: Constitution and Revolution
hierarchical_section_title: History of Bavaria / Kingdom of Bavaria / Constitution and Revolution
context_page_description: The history of Bavaria stretches from its earliest settlement and its formation as a stem duchy in the 6th century through its inclusion in the Holy Roman Empire to its status as an independent kingdom and finally as a large Bundesland of the Federal Republic of Germany. Originally settled by Celtic peoples such as the Boii, by the 1st century BC it was eventually conquered and incorporated into the Roman Empire as the provinces of Raetia and Noricum.
context_section_description: Immediately after the first peace of Paris (1814), Bavaria ceded to Austria the northern Tyrol and Vorarlberg; during the Congress of Vienna it was decided that she was to add to these the greater part of Salzburg and the Innviertel and Hausruck. She received as compensation, besides Würzburg and Aschaffenburg, the Palatinate (region) on the left bank of the Rhine and certain districts of Hesse-Darmstadt and of the former Abbacy of Fulda. But with the collapse of France, the old fears and jealousies against Austria were revived in full force, and Bavaria only agreed to these cessions (treaty of Munich, 16 April 1816) under the promise that, in the event of the powers ignoring her claim to the Baden succession in favor of that of the line of the counts of Hochberg, she should receive also the Palatinate on the right bank of the Rhine. The question was thus left open, the tension between the two powers remained high, and the war was only averted by the authority of the Grand Alliance . At the Congress of Aix (1818) the question of the Baden succession was settled in favor of the Hochberg line, without the compensation stipulated in the treaty of Munich; and by the treaty of Frankfurt, signed on behalf of the four great powers on 20 July 1819, the territorial issues between Bavaria and Austria were settled, in spite of the protests of the former, in the general sense of the arrangement made at Vienna. A small strip of territory was added, to connect Bavaria with the Palatinate, and Bavarian troops were to garrison the federal fortress of Mainz.
  Meanwhile, on 1 February 1817, Montgelas had been dismissed; and Bavaria had entered on a new era of constitutional reform. This implied no breach with the European policy of the fallen minister. In the new German confederation, Bavaria had assumed the role of defender of the smaller states against the ambitions of Austria and Prussia. Montgelas had dreamed of a Bavarian hegemony in South Germany similar to that of Prussia in the north. It was to obtain popular support for this policy and for the Bavarian claims on Baden that the crown prince pressed for a liberal constitution, the reluctance of Montgelas to concede it is the cause of his dismissal.
  On 26 May 1818, the constitution was proclaimed. The parliament was to consist of two houses; the first comprising the great hereditary landowners, government officials, and nominees of the crown; the second, elected on a very narrow franchise, comprising representatives of the small land-owners, the towns, and the peasants. By additional articles the equality of religions was guaranteed and the rights of Protestants safeguarded, concessions which were denounced at Rome as a breach of the Concordat, which had been signed immediately before. The result of the constitutional experiment hardly justified the royal expectations; the parliament was hardly opened (5 February 1819) before the doctrinaire radicalism of some of its members, culminating in the demand that the army should swear allegiance to the constitution, so alarmed the king that he appealed to Austria and Germany, undertaking to carry out any repressive measures they might recommend. Prussia, however, refused to approve of any coup d'état; the parliament, chastened by the consciousness that its life depended on the goodwill of the king, moderated its tone; and Maximilian ruled till his death as a model constitutional monarch. On 13 October 1825, his son Ludwig I succeeded him.
  Ludwig proved an enlightened patron of the arts and sciences, who transferred the University of Landshut to Munich, which, by his magnificent taste in building, he transformed into one of the most beautiful cities of the continent. The earlier years of his reign were marked by a liberal spirit and the reform, especially, of the financial administration; but the revolutions of 1830 frightened him into reaction, which was accentuated by the opposition of the parliament to his expenditure on building and works of art. In 1837, the Ultramontanes came into power with Karl von Abel (1788–1859) as prime minister.
caption: King Ludwig I
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