Talk:German mediatisation

message: My first article. :) The list of Bishops and Abbacies is not complete. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nomadic1 (talk • contribs) 01:37, 28 April 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: *Support. Although mediatisation may refer to the annexation/subordination of territories in general, and acts of mediatisation occurred both before and after the Napoleonic era, the term is used primarily in modern European history to refer to mediatisations which occurred toward the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries, and which were associated with the termination of the Holy Roman Empire. Moreover, the German Mediatisation article focuses mostly on that period. The 1803 Reichsdeputationshauptschluss was one of the major legal instruments that effected the mediatisations of that era. Therefore it should be integrated into the German Mediatisation article.Lethiere 22:13, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposed merger with Reichsdeputationshauptschluss

message: Hesse-Cassel is listed among the mediatised monarchies, and Frankfurt among the mediatised free cities. But these states were not mediatised in the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss. They remained independent until seized by Prussia following the war of 1866. (Hannover, and Nassau, which also remained independent until they were seized by Prussia in 1866, are not listed on the page).  I shall remove Hesse-Cassel and Frankfurt from the lists unless someone can explain why they are there.
Hesse-Homburg is also listed. This case is less clear. Hesse-Homburg was indeed mediatised, by Hesse-Darmstadt, in 1806, but became independent again in 1815, and remained so until its ruling house died out in 1866, when it once more became part of Hesse-Darmstadt. 
Maproom (talk) 16:11, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Both the Hesse states and Frankfurt have unique situations. I'll start with Hesse. Hesse-Homburg was a minor branch of the Hesse-Cassel line which was given certain rights though not the all important seat and vote in a Circle or the Imperial Diet. Hesse-Darmstadt never recognised the rights given to Hesse-Homburg and so they siezed it in 1806 with all of the other mediatisations going on. The Congress of Vienna restored Hesse-Homburg and gave it full independence in 1815. It is iffy if it should be on the list or not since it, unlike all the other states listed on the page, was not a Circle or Diet member. Hesse-Cassel on the other hand was not mediatised in 1806. But the Electors opposed Napoleon and in 1807 it was mediatised to the Kingdom of Westphalia, forming the core of the new kingdom. Hesse-Cassel was restored after the fall of Napoleon. All of the Imperial Free Cities were mediatised in the end. Frankfurt was in 1806, forming the centre of the Grand Duchy of Frankfurt. The Hanse cities of Hamburg, Bremen and Lubeck were annexed to France in 1810. These cities were restored independence by the Congress of Vienna because of their importance. The other two cities which survived the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss, Augsburg and Regensburg, were not restored. - Nomadic1 (talk) 22:12, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thank you for this excellent explanation. I am convinced. Maproom (talk) 10:42, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: If you feel like editing the page though, you could make a style change and replace the flags on the Hesse line with a Coat of Arms like the other entries. - Nomadic1 (talk) 22:30, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I've done that. I have also added coats of arms for Thorn, Schlitz, and (Werden-)Helmstedt, taken from their pages. Maproom (talk) 21:49, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

text: I've added a couple more Coats of Arms, Westphalia and Limburg-Styrum, made by taking the images on their pages and trimming them until I just have the escutcheon. Not too good, as I started with unsaturated and textured images. Some other mediatised states which already have Coats of Arms on this page, but with helms, supporters etc., are Muhlhausen, Nordhausen, Überlingen, and Hildesheim.  I feel inclined to make new version with just the escutcheon (shield).  These will be easier to trim, as the existing images are nice saturated ones. Do people feel it would be helpful to make and use tidy supporter-free versions of these escutcheons? Maproom (talk) 23:24, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Yep. - Nomadic1 (talk) 05:12, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Done. I wonder if there exists a computer program that accepts a blazon, and creates an image from it? I haven't been able to find one, which surprises me. Maproom (talk) 00:21, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Hesse-Cassel and Frankfurt

message: I wonder if we don't really make clear what mediatisation is.  It is not merely annexation, which is why it makes little sense to say Hesse-Cassel was "mediatised" to Westphalia in 1807.  Hesse-Kassel was dismantled, and its territory annexed by the new Kingdom of Westphalia in 1807.  The elector went into exile in Denmark for the next six years.
Mediatisation is a very specific thing, which we don't explain clearly.  Here's the definition we give: Mediatisation transferred the sovereignty of small secular states to their larger neighbours. In addition to numerous principalities, all but a handful of the Imperial cities would also be annexed to their neighbours."  That doesn't really get at what's going on.  The larger neighbor didn't precisely "annex" the small secular states, or receive their sovereignty.  They mediatised them - that is to say, the Prince of Hohenlohe-Langenburg had previously been an immediate subject to the Emperor.  Now he was an immediate subject to the King of Württemberg.  But, at least initially and nominally, his relationship to the King of Württemberg is the same as what his relationship to the emperor was before.  Initially, at least, the Standesherren (mediatised nobility) retained most of the privileges they had held before, they just now owed allegiance to a different ruler.  I'm less certain of the free cities, but I think that these, two, nominally still retained the various charter rights they had had before.  It's just that the formerly free city of Esslingen, say, was now subject to our old friend the King of Württemberg rather than to the Emperor.  So that's all mediatisation was - it left the various estates and free cities unchanged, but changed to whom they owed their allegiance.
After that, the situation would often change rapidly.  The new rulers were not content to be purely nominal rulers over the Standesherren in the way that the Emperors had been, and usually they very quickly instituted a lot of administrative reforms to remove most of the rights previously held by the Standesherren and centralize governmental authority in their own hands.  But this wasn't, strictly speaking, part of the process of mediatisation itself, and it happened after mediatisation, not alongside it. john k (talk) 20:47, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Heureka, I have finally understod it! It is the loss of imperial immediacy. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 16:19, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed. john k (talk) 17:06, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: If you're interested, see also Rí for how the Irish rajas did their thing. What I can think of that would resemble mediatisation would be when a local petty king of a túath, previously owing allegiance only to the dominant Rí ruirech or great overking of the province, somehow found himself with an aggressive Ruiri or middle overking inserting himself between them. It was very fluid. See Iarmuman for something like an example of the reverse of mediatisation, where the Ciarraige Luachra eventually had it with the Eóganacht Locha Léin and established what I guess you call immediacy with the provincial Rí ruirech of Cashel. DinDraithou (talk) 18:58, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mediatization 

message: "The German Mediatisation was the series of mediatisations and secularisations that occurred..."
You click on "mediatisations" and you end up on an article that just says about the same thing as German Mediatisation (or vice versa). 
Since mediatisation, for all practical purposes, means German mediatisation, I suggest that the two articles be merged. Earlier or other cases of mediatisation could be summarized in a paragraph.--Lubiesque (talk) 16:08, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I concur. FactStraight (talk) 17:16, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

text: I concur. 155.213.224.59 (talk) 16:14, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Shouldn't <i>Mediatisation</i> be mediatized? 

message: In the lead paragraph, the number of states in the Empire is established as "well over 200". A footnote 
:The total of 200 or 300 states that is often given represents the number of states with "voice and vote" at the Diet (Reichstag) in the 18th century. (...) However, if we count, as we should, all the separate territories enjoying imperial immediacy, then the total is 1700–1800
It's not clear if the footnote is a quote from the source it cites, but in any case it establishes that there are different ways to count the number of states, even if we "should" use one of them (for unknown reasons — again, this might be Gagliardo's opinion or a WP editor's).
Anyway, the reason why I'm bringing this up is that the paragraph "Consequences" mentions the elimination of "literally hundreds of states", and it's unclear who's counting here. If the counting of states is as problematic as it seems, maybe we'd better remove that remark until a good source is found. QVVERTYVS (hm?) 06:03, 13 October 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Number of states? 

message: The very useful list Disbursement of the prince-bishoprics and archbishoprics/imperial abbeys, convents and provostries: as has already been said above, secularisation is not mediatization, but the wholesale abolishment of an ecclesiastical principality and the annexation of its territory and rights by another state, therefore the list should have as right-hand column title abolished state, not mediatized state. Also, the "right bank" of the prince-bishopric of Speyer went entirely to Baden, not to Bavaria/Hesse-Darmstadt. Bavaria got the left bank in 1816. In the list States mediatised after 1806, those 1807-1813 are also annexed (or, if you prefer, occupied) states.--Quinbus Flestrin (talk) 10:05, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Appendix: Secularization / Mediatization 

message: I realize they're both acceptable variants in usage, however shouldn't Wikipedia attempt to be consistent about it?
This article uses "z", but the general subject matter article uses "s"  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 135.23.189.82 (talk) 23:52, 20 May 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  mediatization or mediatisation? 

message: This article is missing a list of states mediatized by France and recognized as such by the Treaty of Luneville in 1800; this would include all Imperial lands west of the Rhine.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:252:D02:110:7432:5EB4:CE02:2E85 (talk) 15:46, 27 April 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Missing list of state mediatized by France in 1800 

message: I have removed the link to mediatisation which becomes a self-reference. The text needs rewording to avoid a circular definition. This text from the deleted mediatisation page may help, but I am not inserting it in the article because it has no source:
 In politics and law, mediatisation () is the loss of immediacy, the status of persons not subject to local lords but only to a higher authority directly, such as the Holy Roman Emperor. In a feudal context, it is the introduction of an intervening level of authority between a lord and his vassal so that the former is no longer the immediate lord of the latter, but rather his lordship is mediated by another. Although the process had been going on since the Middle Ages, the term "mediatisation" was originally applied to the reorganisation of the German states during the early 19th century. In this case, many states that were immediate vassals of the Holy Roman Emperor became instead vassals of other immediate states so that the total number of states immediately subject to the emperor decreased.
Agnerf (talk) 07:49, 15 October 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Huh? The page on German mediatisation should link to the page on the general concept of mediatisation. Why not? Srnec (talk) 00:52, 16 October 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: The page on 'mediatisation' has been in a very poor state for many years with no references and hardly any contents that was not covered by 'German mediatisation'. The word 'mediatisation' comes from German and relates specifically to German history and is rarely used on other countries. Therefore it was decided to merge 'mediatisation' into 'German mediatisation'. See Talk:Mediatisation. You can help by finding a proper reference and integrate a definition like the above into this article. The same word (mostly with American spelling) is now used more often with a very different meaning: Mediatization (media). Therefore, the plan is to change 'Mediatisation' to a disambiguation page. If you can demonstrate that historical mediatisation outside of a German context is notable enough to have a separate page, then you may create a page named Mediatisation (history), but I think it should fit into 'German mediatisation'. I hope this makes sense. Agnerf (talk) 06:20, 16 October 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, the concept of "mediatization" of fiefs does apply more broadly than to just one modern German experience, although there is probably not enough to sustain a separate article. I do not agree with the lead that "historians use the term mediatisation for the entire restructuring process". Perhaps that is true of German Mediatisierung, but it is not my experience reading in English. Srnec (talk) 15:42, 16 October 2021 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thank you Srnec. Is there anything else in this article that you think needs update now that there is no separate article on mediatisation?  Agnerf (talk) 06:04, 17 October 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Circular reference 

message: Mediatized has a specific meaning: The city or territory became subject to one of the imperial princes. So the Prince of Fürstenberg, say, didn't lose his lands, he just became subject to the Grand Duke of Baden instead of to the Emperor. Same thing with the Free City of Offenburg - it still existed, still had its corporate rights, but was now subject to Baden.
As such, using "Mediatized" to refer to the dispossession of the Elector of Hanover, the Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, and the Elector of Hesse after 1806, seems incorrect to me. The Elector of Hanover (i.e., King George III) was not mediatized. His territory was seized and given to a new state., the Kingdom of Westphalia.
The same would apply to territories temporarily annexed by France. The ecclesiastical territories *were* secularized, but the free cities, counts and barons, and imperial knights were not mediatized. Their lands became part of France, and subject to French law. I'd suggest either finding a new way to refer to these territories or removing them from the table. john k (talk) 17:37, 26 August 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes "mediatized" has a specific meaning and I think that meaning is clearly explained in the second paragraph of the intro. I agree with your other comments, especially with regard to France. The HRE territories acquired by France throughout the revolutionary and Napoleonic period were annexations pure and simple. These annexations were eventually recognized by the Emperor and Holy Roman Empire prior to the beginning of the mediatization process in 1802. In France, the land of the bishops, princes, barons and counts were confiscated. All their titles, rights and privileges were abolished, unlike what would happen under the mediatization process later on. Maybe a separate list could be created for France making clear that all those acquisitions were annexations, not mediatized territories.--Lubiesque (talk) 18:38, 26 August 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Mediatized"