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Prince-Bishopric of Warmia | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1243–1772 | |||||||||
 Banner used in the Battle of Grunwald (1410)
 Original Coat of arms
 | |||||||||
 Prince-Bishopric of Warmia within the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth | |||||||||
| Status | Part of the State of the Teutonic Order (1243–1464) Part of Poland (1464–1772) | ||||||||
| Capital | Lidzbark Warmiński 53°47′N 20°3′E / 53.783°N 20.050°E | ||||||||
| Common languages | Polish, German | ||||||||
| Religion | Roman Catholic | ||||||||
| Government | Principality | ||||||||
• 1766–1772 | Ignacy Krasicki (last) | ||||||||
| Historical era | Middle Ages | ||||||||
• Prussian bishoprics
| 1243 | ||||||||
• Gained imperial immediacy | 1356 | ||||||||
| 1464 | |||||||||
| 1466 | |||||||||
| 1479 | |||||||||
• First Partition of Poland: annexation and secularization by Prussia | 1772 | ||||||||
| |||||||||
| Today part of | Poland | ||||||||
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The Prince-Bishopric of Warmia[3] (Polish: Biskupie Księstwo Warmińskie;[4] German: Fürstbistum Ermland)[5] was a semi-independent ecclesiastical state, ruled by the incumbent ordinary of the Warmia see and comprising one third of the then diocesan area. The Warmia see was a Prussian diocese under the jurisdiction of the Archbishopric of Riga that was a protectorate of the Monastic state of the Teutonic Knights (1243–1464) and a protectorate and part of the Kingdom of Poland—later part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (1464–1772), confirmed by the Peace of Thorn in 1466.[6] The other two thirds of the diocese were under the secular rule of the Teutonic Knights until 1525 and Ducal Prussia thereafter, both entities also being a protectorate and part of Poland from 1466.[7]
It was founded as the Bishopric of Ermland[8] by William of Modena in 1243 in the territory of Prussia after it was conquered by the Teutonic Knights during the Northern Crusades. The diocesan cathedral chapter constituted in 1260. While in the 1280s the Teutonic Order succeeded to impose the simultaneous membership of all capitular canons in the Order in the other three Prussian bishoprics, Ermland's chapter maintained its independence. So Ermland's chapter was not subject to outside influence when electing its bishops. Thus the Golden Bull of Emperor Charles IV names the bishops as prince-bishops, a rank not awarded to the other three Prussian bishops (Culm (Chełmno), Pomesania, and Samland).
In 1440, most of the nobility and towns of Warmia joined the anti-Teutonic Prussian Confederation,[9] upon the request of which the region was incorporated into the Kingdom of Poland in 1454, and in 1464, during the following Thirteen Years' War, the Prince-Bishopric of Warmia sided with Poland and officially recognized the overlordship of the Polish King.[1] By the Second Peace of Thorn (1466) the Teutonic Knights renounced any claims to the prince-bishopric and recognized it as part of the Kingdom of Poland.[2] It since formed part of the newly constituted Polish province of Royal Prussia, and after 1569 along with the province joined the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, within which it was part of the larger Greater Poland Province, and Warmia's autonomy gradually faded, however, it flourished as an important religious, scientific and cultural center in Poland, thanks to such figures as Nicolaus Copernicus, Stanislaus Hosius, Marcin Kromer and Ignacy Krasicki.
After the First Partition of Poland in 1772, the Kingdom of Prussia annexed and secularised the prince-bishopric as a state.[10] Its territory, Warmia, was incorporated into the newly formed Prussian province of East Prussia in 1773. Calvinist King Frederick II of Prussia confiscated the landed property of the Roman Catholic prince-bishopric and assigned it to the Kriegs- und Domänenkammer in Königsberg.[11] In return he made up for the enormous debts of then Prince-Bishop Ignacy Krasicki.
By the Treaty of Warsaw (18 September 1773), King Frederick II guaranteed the free exercise of religion for the Catholics, so the religious body of the Roman Catholic diocese continued to exist, known since 1992 as the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Warmia.
- ^ a b Górski 1949, p. LXXXII.
- ^ a b Górski 1949, p. 99, 217.
- ^ Lubieniecki, Stanisław; George Huntston Williams (1995). History of the Polish Reformation. Fortress Press. ISBN 978-0-8006-7085-6.
- ^ Biskupie Księstwo Warmińskie @ Google books
- ^ Fürstbistum Ermland @ Google books
- ^ Lukowski, Jerzy; Hubert Zawadzki (2006). A Concise History of Poland. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-85332-3.
- ^ Górski 1949, p. 96-97, 214-215.
- ^ Ermland, or Ermeland (Varmiensis, Warmia) a district of East Prussia and an exempt bishopric (1512/1566–1930), Catholic Encyclopedia, [1]
- ^ Górski 1949, p. XXXI, XXXVII.
- ^ Herbermann, Charles George; Pace, Edward Aloysius; Pallen, Condé Bénoist; Shahan, Thomas Joseph; Wynne, John Joseph (1913). "The Catholic Encyclopedia: An International Work of Reference on the Constitution, Doctrine, Discipline, and History of the Catholic Church". The Catholic Encyclopedia.
- ^ Max Töppen's Historisch-comparative Geographie von Preussen
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