Talk:German mediatisation

Untitled

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)

Proposed merger with Reichsdeputationshauptschluss

• 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)

Have now done the merge.--Boson 21:59, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Hesse-Cassel and Frankfurt

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)

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)

Thank you for this excellent explanation. I am convinced. Maproom (talk) 10:42, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

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)

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)

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)

Yep. - Nomadic1 (talk) 05:12, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

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)

Mediatization

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)

Heureka, I have finally understod it! It is the loss of imperial immediacy. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 16:19, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Indeed. john k (talk) 17:06, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

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)

Mediatization came to be a fashionable term for annexation after the Final Recess. Hence, on learning the plans of the Frankfurt Parliamentarians for Germany to have one prince in the office of Emperor in 1849, King Maximilian of Bavaria declared "I shall in no way be mediatized!" The Prussian annexations of 1866 were generally described as such by the outside world, but within Germany it was still a fashion to refer to their being mediatized. At least the Duke of Nassau received proper compensation for his loss and all the rights of the older mediatized families. This was not the case for King George of Hannover, who was banished, or for the Elector Frederick of Hesse, who had married morganatically in 1831. Any rights arising from mediatization were transferred to junior lines of the family. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:252:D02:110:BDEB:8230:B6D9:29AF (talk) 03:08, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

Shouldn't Mediatisation be mediatized?

"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)

I concur. FactStraight (talk) 17:16, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

I concur. 155.213.224.59 (talk) 16:14, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Number of states?

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)

The number 300 usually stands for princely and ecclesiastical territories and cities represented in the Reichstag, numbers of which were often held by one prince, such as the Emperor or the King of Prussia. But this does not include non-represented or immediate territories, namely: the imperial knights, 300 of whom held sovereign estates; the 99 imperial counts; the six imperial villages; the imperial valley; nor the innumerable condominiums in Franconia, Swabia, and Rhineland. In that case, the approximated number 700 is more reasonable. As mentioned above, the total number of separate territories of the Empire was excessive, and often calculated at 1,500 if not more. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:252:D02:110:BDEB:8230:B6D9:29AF (talk) 02:58, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

Needs of a good overhaul

The subject of the German mediatization is complex and needs to be better explained than it is in this very dry article, which seems to be based of the brief and very unsatisfactory German Wikipedia article that does not even give a background or context. I'm rewriting the lead hoping to make it clearer. The next step would be to include a good, sourced context paragraph or two. --Lubiesque (talk) 14:40, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

One issue with the current lede is that it describes secularization as being a kind of mediatization. I don't think that's right. Secularization is distinct. The Prince-Bishops weren't made subject to the King of Prussia or the Elector of Bavaria instead of directly to the Empire. They lost all their secular authority which was granted instead to the new ruler. And secularization wasn't a new thing devised by the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss, like mediatization was - it was something that had been done numerous times before, but was now just being done on a much larger scale. I think it would be best to indicate that secularization was a distinct process that happened around the same time as mediatization. john k (talk) 14:49, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

I concur about the need to separate out the secularization from the mediatization parts of this article. I wonder if it hasn't been done partially because there is no single term widely used to refer to what happened to the ecclesiastical estates: I suggest Secularization in the Holy Roman Empire, with the addition of a year or century if disambiguation is needed. I also renew my 2013 support for Lubiesque's 2012 call, above in the "Shouldn't Mediatisation be mediatized?" section, to merge German mediatization into Mediatisation. FactStraight (talk) 21:48, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

I made some changes to the article in line with what john k suggested.

I think it's important that both the mediatization and secularization of states during the 1802-1814 period be treated in the same article. I've collected a fair amount of data on the background to secularization and the way it was carried out. If I could just get my act together, I will post the background paragraphs soon. It will basically be a summary of what you find in Gagliardo and Whaley (2012), with some extra info.--Lubiesque (talk) 17:10, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

I recommend moving the list of mediatized Imperial free cities out of the secularized list of bishoprics and abbeys and beneath the list of princes, as the free cities were secular entities. Further, the list of princes is not only incomplete but intermixed with Imperial Free Knights (Reichsritterschaften). They were a class legally different from the princes, in that they were immediate to the Emperor (not subject to another prince) but did not enjoy the same levels of sovereignty due to their noble rank of count (Graf) and also the extremely small size of their realms (often less than 2 sq. km. but sometimes larger than a principality). To this end, I have on March 7, 2016, made significant changes to the topic: the free cities were rearranged according to their award as listed in the Hauptschluß der ausserordentlichen Reichsdeputation vom 25. Februar 1803; references to the imperial villages were also added to this section; mediatizations were separated into the 1803 law and 1806 events, and a reference to 100 small secular states was moved to the 1806 section; under the final recess paragraph, mention was made of the exception of the archbishop of Regensburg who was secularized but retained power, as well as the example of the Metternich award; images sorted so the deed to Metternich appears next to the example, and the situation map after 1815 appears under consequences. Perhaps the ecclesiastical estates and abbeys should be broken down to their awards, but that may be for another time.

Question about the Principality of Aschaffenburg in the appendix list of Napoleonic states that were mediatized. I think it should be replaced by the Grand Duchy of Berg, which was created 1806 and abolished 1813. Aschaffenburg itself was never a sovereign principality, but formerly a possession of the Archbishop of Mainz, which was handed over to the Archbishop of Regensburg in 1803, and secularized along with Regensburg in 1805. From that time, it was merely an exclave of the Principality of Regensburg until the settlement of 1810 saw Regensburg swapped for Frankfurt, and Aschaffenburg was merged into the whole of the Grand Duchy of Frankfurt. Therefore, the list of secularized lands showing Mainz passing to the Archbishop of Regensburg ought to have Aschaffenburg in parentheses, whilst Mainz ought to be listed under "Previously Annexed by France" along with Cologne and Trier, perhaps with "All Left Bank territories" in parentheses. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 32.208.32.17 (talk) 18:22, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

There has been some action on this topic recently and this has reminded me that I wrote some additional info a while back but didn't post it. I prepared some more and will start to post it today and during the next few days. I proceed chronologically, as do my main sources on this topic (Gagliardo, Whaley, PH Wilson). Since I'm re-writing much of the article, I haven't been able to keep much of what exists now in the same exact wording (that includes what I added in the past). The article will be considerably longer but that was a crucial period in German history and I don't think anything I'm adding is anecdotic or superfluous. What I've already prepared goes up to the Final Recess of 1803 and its consequences. I intend to add something on the secular mediatization of 1806. I don't intend to add much, if anything, to what we have now on the post-1806 period. There will be a fair amount of in-line references, as there should be. The sections and sub-sections, and their titles, may be provisional. I'm sure that what I'm adding will need to be streamlined and copyedited (English is not my mother tongue), but one has to start somewhere. --Lubiesque (talk) 19:48, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

I have also previously created the pages Mediatised Houses and Reallocation of votes in the Imperial Diet (1803) to help clarify what was going on in this period. I do intend to sort through the list of mediatised secular states, 1806-ish, but I can wait until after you're done if you want. -- Nomadic1 (talk) 06:51, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

Maybe it would be better to wait a few days until I've finished. --Lubiesque (talk) 12:50, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

The additions have been generally an improvement, but I urge the reinstatement of that portion of the Final Recess of 1803 that discusses compensation for the Metternichs with the abbey of Ochsenhausen. I had provided that example to accompany the illustration in the right panel, and appreciated the improvements made to it at the time.

Appendix: Secularization / Mediatization

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)

• Seven years later, but I agree with this. The distinction is meaningful. john k (talk) 17:39, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

mediatization or mediatisation?

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)

Missing list of state mediatized by France in 1800

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)

Requested move 22 January 2019

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Moved: consensus appears to be that the original move was a bad one, if sources change and WP:ENGVAR becomes an issue again, another RM can be opened. (closed by non-admin page mover) SITH (talk) 12:15, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

---

German mediatization → German mediatisation – Per WP:CONSISTENCY with Mediatisation, as seen in arguments right above. PPEMES (talk) 16:40, 22 January 2019 (UTC) --Relisting.   samee  converse  16:55, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose per WP:TITLEVAR – Just as "colour" and "color" coexist, so too can "mediatisation" and "mediatization". Titles should not be respelled from one variant to another. RGloucester — ☎ 16:59, 22 January 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose per above. Calidum 18:50, 22 January 2019 (UTC)
  • I will simply make the observation that when this article was started in 2005 it was mediatisation (and secularisation). In 2012 when I made some edits, it was still mediatisation and secularisation. Then, somewhere along the line, someone changed all that to mediatization and secularization. That move was contrary to the Wikipedia rule that states that we should not change an existing, well-established spelling.--Lubiesque (talk) 20:04, 22 January 2019 (UTC)
    • It was moved in 2013 by Moonraker (talk · contribs) [1] because the term is spelled with the "z" in academic use. Calidum 20:36, 22 January 2019 (UTC)
    • It's a fact that the two foremost historians of the HRE, Joachim Whaley and Peter H. Wilson, both Britons, use the "z". Obviously they have been Americanized.--Lubiesque (talk) 21:42, 22 January 2019 (UTC)
      • They are Oxford men. Wilson is a prof there and Whaley's magnum opus was publisehd with OUP. Srnec (talk) 01:50, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

Two wrongs don't make a right. Both variants are equally acceptable, and nothing is gained by moving between the two. Leave this alone, per WP:TITLEVAR. RGloucester — ☎ 23:14, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

I agree. If English-language historians on both side of the ocean write mediatization (and mediatize), then that settles it.--Lubiesque (talk) 14:36, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

• Support. Originally written in (non-Oxford) British English. Should stay that way. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:04, 28 January 2019 (UTC)
• Support per Necrothesp. I would normally agree with RGloucester and Calidum, but Necrothesp's comment gave me pause. So I looked. Indeed, this article was created in British English in 2005[2] and so it stayed until 2013. That certainly established the variant of this article. Therefore, the unilateral move and conversion from British to US English on Feb 17, 2013 was a violation of WP:TITLEVAR, and this proposal is a reversal/correction of that error. I think it's important to correct that, to discourage such unilateral English variant changes in the future. There is no exception in TITLEVAR for the case where some specialists on both sides of the Atlantic use the US/Oxford variant. And it's not like the (non-Oxford) British spelling variant is not used. To the contrary - there are plenty of examples. --В²C ☎ 18:13, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

WP:TITLEVAR is very clear that articles should not be moved between titles in different varieties of English. Whilst that move was a violation, it has been years since it occurred, and no benefit to the encyclopaedia is derived from changing it once more (see WP:TITLECHANGES). Both variants are equally acceptable, understandable to all English speakers, and two wrongs do not make a right. There is no reason facilitate a turf war between speakers of different varieties of English. TITLEVAR is crystal clear. RGloucester — ☎ 18:28, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

I should have cited WP:RETAIN which says, When no English variety has been established and discussion does not resolve the issue, use the variety found in the first post-stub revision that introduced an identifiable variety. The established variety in a given article can be documented by placing the appropriate Varieties of English template on its talk page. That's really the important principle here, and, like I said, the discouragment of unilateral variety changes like the one that occurred here in 2013. After all, what's to prevent someone today from changing the variety in multiple articles, over time, in the hopes that no one will notice for a few years and the changes will thus become "established". Isn't that exactly what we're trying to discourage with WP:TITLEVAR, WP:TITLECHANGES and WP:RETAIN? How do we do that by recognizing "establishment" after such a change? I think when you put it all together, you have to revert unilateral changes like that, slap the appropriate template on the talk page, and be done with it with as much certainty as is possible on WP. --В²C ☎ 19:15, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

This is a dispute about the article title, not about the body of the article, and so WP:RETAIN doesn't apply. The relevant principle is TITLEVAR. By moving this article back after all these years, we would be giving legitimacy to the concept of a turf war between the different varieties of English, where groups of editors move to defend 'their variety' through page moves, application of language variety templates to mark territory, &c., regardless of whether it makes a difference to the reader or not. Obviously, unilateral changes should be reverted when they are seen, but NOTHING is gained by moving back and forth after years of stability. There is absolutely no reason to procedurally move an article away from an acceptable title, only for the purpose of preserving some form of nationalist territory. Articles should never, never, be moved only for the purpose of changing the variety of English, per TITLEVAR, and that applies here as much as anywhere. RGloucester — ☎ 20:28, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

For the record, and for my final comment here, my personal variety of English is U.S. I'm not defending "my" variety; I'm defending the original variety and believe the best way to nip these variety change problems in the bud is to not reward unilateral variety changes like the one that occurred here in 2013, and we do that by reverting them to the original variety when they are brought to the attention of the community. It's the same argument I've made multiple times, and this approach always results in a stable title, like at the ultimate example of this: Yogurt. There, by the way, the argument you're making here resulted in a lack of consensus to restore the original variety, for years, years fraught with ridiculous conflict. See Talk:Yogurt/yogurtspellinghistory, if you dare. Only when the original variety was finally restored to the title and content did everything calm down and stabilize. I see no reason why it should be any different here. --В²C ☎ 02:19, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

• Support per В²C's argument against rewarding bad behavior merely because the perpetrator got away with it until discovered. If this move succeeds, however, and then a move request is initiated here to move the article back, I will support that, per Lubiesque's observation that "Mediatization" is prevalent in the most respected published scholarship on the topic. I don't see why we have to choose between good process and good content in this situation when, with a little perseverance and patience, we can have both. FactStraight (talk) 03:03, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

• But what policy-based reason would there be for moving it back after moving to the original title if this is just an ENGVAR issue? If there is a policy-based reason for the current title... then the mover who moved it without discussion wasn't wrong, just bold. Srnec (talk) 03:29, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

Moonraker (talk · contribs) said that his move was based on a general prevalence of "z" in British academia, not that the move was because this specific topic is more widely written about under "Mediatization" than the alternative -- which makes the case for that name more persuasive, now that we have evidence of its applicability in this case. I don't see a necessity to choose between adherence to two good policies to get to a good outcome when adherence to both gets us there just as well, and satisfies the significant concerns expressed. If the only remaining objection is that a two-move solution will tend to confirm the precedent that when there's any likelihood of dissent (and there usually is when ENGVAR is involved), do a move request rather than be bold -- I'm fine with that. FactStraight (talk) 06:22, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

• Support per WP:RETAIN.

08:50, 17 February 2013 Moonraker (talk · contribs) moved page German Mediatisation to German mediatization (-z- is used in US and is also common in British academic use)

The above was a bad move. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:42, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

---

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Circular reference

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 ( /miːdiətaɪˈzeɪʃən/) 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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

"Mediatized"

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)

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)