page_title: Schönborn family
section_title: Later history
hierarchical_section_title: Schönborn family / History / Later history
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Johann Philipp von Schönborn, Erzbischof von Mainz
context_page_description: The Schönborn family is a noble and mediatised formerly sovereign family of the former Holy Roman Empire.
  Various members of the family have held high offices of the Roman Catholic Church and the Holy Roman Empire over the course of centuries, including as bishops, prince bishops, cardinals and prince-electors. In addition to several family members having been elected rulers of ecclesiastical principalities — the Electorate of Mainz, the Princely-Bishopric of Würzburg, the Princely-Bishopric of Worms, the Princely-Bishopric of Speyer, the Electorate of Trier, and the Princely-Bishoprice of Bamberg — the family possessed a fief in Franconia that held imperial immediacy as a county within the Holy Roman Empire, the state of Schönborn.
  The House of Schönborn, especially its ruling prelates of the Roman Catholic Church, were among the most important builders of Southern German baroque architecture. The family gave the name Schönbornzeit to an era, sometimes nostalgically remembered in the popular consciousness as an era of prosperity. Today, the term Schönbornzeit denotes a particular style of Rhenish and Franconian baroque.
context_section_description: Johann Philipp von Schönborn of Eschbach, son of a minor nobleman in the employ of the then Lutheran counts of Wied, became a Catholic priest in the impoverished times of the Thirty Years' War. He was admitted as a minor canon by the cathedral chapter of Wurzburg. At the time, the family consisted only of his brother and himself. These two brought the family to power and fame, founding new branches that were to become widely known throughout Europe. Johann Philipp became a priest at Wurzburg Cathedral at the age of 16, changed to Mainz Cathedral in 1625 and to Worms Cathedral in 1630. He became a provost and, in 1642, was elected prince-bishop of Wurzburg. His diplomatic skills made him an important mediator during the Peace of Westphalia negotiations that ended the Thirty Years' War in 1648. As a result, he was elected Archbishop of Mainz in 1647, thus also ruler of the Electorate of Mainz and archchancellor of the Holy Roman empire. In 1663 he also received the princely-bishopric of Worms. He was an effective administrator of his principalities and was able to bring back economic recovery. He fortified the city of Mainz and founded hospitals and high schools. His court was a center of German politics in the post-war era. Johann Philipp was the first of six members of the Schönborn family who, in the course of more than three generations, were to rule over eight of the most prestigious ecclesiastical principalities of the Holy Roman Empire.
  He made his brother Philip Erwein (1607-1668) a Vogt in the Electorate of Mainz where the latter acquired the castles of Gaibach in 1650, of Geisenheim in 1654 and of Heusenstamm (where he built a new castle) in 1661. In 1635 he married Maria Ursula von Greiffenclau-Vollraths, a close relative of the late archbishop and elector of Mainz Georg Friedrich von Greiffenklau; the couple had 12 children. In 1663 Philip Erwein became a baron. The family thus shifted its focus from its regions of origin, which had become predominantly Protestant, to the Catholic ecclesiastical principalities of the empire.
  Philip Erwein's son, Lothar Franz von Schönborn, also became a prince-bishop of Wurzburg in 1693 and an elector-archbishop of Mainz in 1695. The latter's brother Melchior (1644–1717) acquired the fief of Reichelsburg (near Aub) from the prince-bishop of Wurzburg in 1671, giving him access to the Franconian Circle of the imperial knights.
  In 1701, Melchior's son, Rudolf Franz (1677–1754), married Eleonore von Hatzfeld, widow of the Count von Dernbach, who had left her the Herrschaft Wiesentheid in Franconia, a small imperial state raised to a county in 1701. Thus, the family obtained imperial immediacy for the first time, and since the counts of Schönborn bear the prefix Illustrious Highness. She had also inherited the Austrian fiefs of Arnfels and Waldenstein in Carinthia from her first husband. Melchior then bought some further estates in Austria in 1710, Göllersdorf with Mühlberg and Aspersdorf in Lower Austria, from the Counts of Buchheim. In 1717, his estate was partitioned into the states of Schönborn-Wiesentheid and Schönborn-Heusenstamm, both retaining immediacy. Heusenstamm was inherited by Schönborn-Wiesentheid in 1801. The state of Schönborn-Wiesentheid was mediatised in 1806.
  In 1726, Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor, granted Palanok Castle with Mukacheve, Chynadiyovo and 200 villages in the Kingdom of Hungary (today part of the Ukraine), to Elector Lothar Franz, after the latter had sent him troops to defeat Francis II Rákóczi, whose property it had been. The estate, one of the largest in Eastern Europe, remained in the family well into the 20th century.
  In the year 1743, members of the family ruled the following states, all sovereign princely-bishoprics within the Holy Roman Empire: Bamberg, Würzburg, Konstanz, Speyer, Worms and Trier, and the archdiocese and electorate of Mainz (and thus archchancellorship of Germany, a position that two Schönborns had held shortly before) were held by a close relative, Johann Friedrich Karl von Ostein. Not only were important parts of Southern 
caption: Archbishop Johann Philipp von Schönborn (1605-1673)
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