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Lorraine (région)

Lorraine (région)

:This article is about the French administrative région of Lorraine. For the historical duchy and province of Lorraine, see Lorraine (province). Lorraine (French: Lorraine; German: Lothringen) is one of the 26 régions of France. It is important to note that the current région of Lorraine is larger than the historical duchy of Lorraine which gradually passed under French sovereignty between 1737 and 1766. The modern région includes provinces and areas that historically were separate from the duchy of Lorraine proper:
- Barrois
- Three Bishoprics
- several small principalities which were still part of the Holy Roman Empire at the time of the French Revolution The Three Bishoprics were non-contiguous territories around Metz, Verdun, and Toul which were detached from the Holy Roman Empire in the 16th century and passed under French sovereignty. The case of Barrois is the most complicated: the western part of Barrois (west of the Meuse River), known as Barrois mouvant, was detached from the rest of Barrois in the early 14th century and passed under French sovereignty. On the other hand, the largest part of Barrois (east of the Meuse River) was a duchy (Duchy of Bar) part of the Holy Roman Empire and united with the duchy of Lorraine in the 15th century by the marriage of the duke of Bar, René I of Naples, with the daughter of the duke of Lorraine, Isabella. Thus the duchies of Bar and Lorraine were united under the same duke, although formally they kept separate existence until their incorporation into France in 1766. When French régions were created in the middle of the 20th century, it was decided to gather Barrois, Three Bishoprics, and Lorraine proper into a single region. Barrois was too small to become a région in its own right, while the Three Bishoprics were a territory without any real unity. It was decided to call the région "Lorraine" only, without mention of Barrois, the Three Bishoprics, or any of the small principalities formerly part of the Holy Roman Empire.

External links


- [http://www.cr-lorraine.fr Lorraine regional council website]
- ko:로렌 ms:Lorraine ja:ロレーヌ地域圏

Lorraine (province)

:This article is about the historical duchy and province of Lorraine. For the modern-day administrative région of Lorraine, see Lorraine (région). Lorraine (région) Lorraine (French: Lorraine; German: Lothringen) is a historical area in present-day northeast France. The area is famous as the birthplace of Joan of Arc, and the place where quiche lorraine originated. Some of the main cities are Metz, Nancy and Verdun.

History

Lorraine was originally an independent kingdom. It was created in 843, when the Carolingian empire was divided between the three sons of Louis the Pious. Named after the new ruler, Holy Roman Emperor Lothar, the area and other territories controlled by Lothar became known as Lotharingia. In France, this became known as Lorraine, while in Germany, it was eventually known as Lothringen. Lorraine is a frenchified version of the German title Lotharingen. In the Alemannic, the language once spoken in Lorraine, the -ingen suffix signified a property; thus, in a figurative sense, "Lotharingen" can be translated as "Land belonging to Lothar". See Duchy of Lorraine for dynastic details. With the loss of the imperial title and the waning of Carolingian influence, the kingdom lost territories and came under the rule of a duke, thereby reducing the former kingdom to a duchy. Between 1733 and 1766 it was ruled by Stanislaus I of Poland. Lorraine became part of France in 1766 and was reorganized by the French government. Lorraine, along with Alsace, has long been contested territory between France and Germany. During the 16th and 17th centuries, the area was predominantly populated by Germans, who opposed efforts to have the French language and customs imposed upon them, a process which Stanislaus I effectively ended during his reign but which continued afterwards. A part of Lorraine, along with Alsace, was reunited with Germany after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 causing a number of French people to emigrate into France, and a part of Lorraine remained a part of Germany until the end of World War I, when Germany had to cede it to France. Under Bismarck's German Empire Alsace-Lorraine had (unlike other German territories) virtually no autonomy and was ruled by a governor appointed by the Imperial Chancellor and use of the French language was discouraged. The re-establishment of German rule was reversed following the German surrender in 1918. Policies forbidding the use of German and requiring that of French were then begun. The region was annexed by Germany in 1940 during World War II. Lorraine was combined with the Saarland, and Alsace with Baden. The occupation, while putting a halt to the perceived anti-Germanic oppression, subjected the region to the Nazi dictatorship, which was loathed by the majority of the people, including the ethnic Germans. The war-torn area was given again to France in November 1944 after a victorious campaign by General Patton and his army. Because of the fighting in the area, Lorraine is home to the largest American cemetery in France.

Culture

Most of Lorraine is widely considered 'French', hence Bismarck only annexed about a third of today's Lorraine to the German Empire following the Franco-Prussian War. The disputed third, known as Moselle, had a culture not easily classifiable as either French or German possessing both French and German dialects. Like much of the Balkans and Eastern Europe much of Lorraine was a patchwork of ethnicities and dialects, sometimes not even mutually compatible with either French or German. Despite the French government 'single language' policy, the local German dialect still survives, called Frankish. This is a different German dialect from the neighbouring Alsatian language, with which it is often confused. Both dialects are called Alsacien in French, and neither have any form of official recognition. Like most of France's regional languages (such as Breton, Provençal and Alsatian) Frankish was largely replaced by French with the advent of mandatory public schooling in the 19th and 20th centuries.

See also


- Alsace-Lorraine
- Cross of Lorraine
- Lorrainians

Further reading

Publications in English


- Linda Herrick & Wendy Uncapher, Alsace-Lorraine Atlantic Bridge to Germany, Origins, Janesville, WI, 2003.

External link


- [http://www.lotharingia.de/ Lotharingia] Category:Lorraine Category:Former provinces of France Category:Former countries in Europe ko:로렌느 ms:Lorraine ja:ロレーヌ地域圏

German language

German (German: ), is a member of the western group of Germanic languages and is one of the world's major languages. It is the language with the most native speakers in the European Union. Spoken by more than 130 million people in 38 countries of the world, German is—like English—a pluricentric language with three main centers of usage: Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

Geographic distribution

German is spoken primarily in Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, in two-thirds of Switzerland, in two-thirds of the South Tyrol province of Italy (in German, Südtirol), in the small East Cantons of Belgium, and in some border villages of the South Jutland County (in German, Nordschleswig, in Danish, Sønderjylland) of Denmark. In Luxembourg (in German, Luxemburg), as well as in the French régions of Alsace (in German, Elsass) and parts of Lorraine (in German, Lothringen), the native populations speak several German dialects, and some people also master standard German (especially in Luxembourg), although in Alsace and Lorraine French has for the most part replaced the local German dialects in the last 40 years. Some German speaking communities still survive in parts of Romania, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and above all Russia, Kazakhstan and Poland, although massive relocations to Germany in the late 1940s and 1990s have depopulated most of these communities. Outside of Europe and the former Soviet Union, the largest German speaking communities are to be found in the USA and in Brazil where millions of Germans migrated in the last 200 years; but the great majority of their descendants no longer speak German. Additionally, German speaking communities are to be found in the former German colony of Namibia, as well as in the other countries of German emigration such as Canada, Argentina, Paraguay, Chile, Peru, Venezuela (where Alemán Coloneiro developed), Thailand, and Australia. See also Plautdietsch. In the USA, the largest concentration of German speakers are in Pennsylvania (Amish, Hutterites and some Mennonites speak Pennsylvania German and Hutterite German), Texas (Texas German), North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Wisconsin and Indiana also speak dialects of German. In Brazil the largest concentrations of German speakers are in Rio Grande do Sul, where Riograndenser Hunsrückisch was developed, Santa Catarina, Paraná, and Espírito Santo). Generally, German immigrant communities in the USA have lost their mother tongue more quickly than those who moved to South America, possibly due to the fact that for Germans English is easier to learn than Portuguese or Spanish. German is the main language of about 100 million people in Europe (as of 2004), or 13.3% of all Europeans, being the most spoken language in Europe excluding Russia, above French (66.5 million speakers in Europe in 2004) and English (64.2 million speakers in Europe in 2004). German is the third most taught foreign language worldwide, also in the USA (after Spanish and French); it is the second most known foreign language in the EU (after English; see [http://europa.eu.int/comm/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_237.en.pdf]) It is one of the official languages of the European Union.

History

As a consequence of the colonisation patterns the Völkerwanderung, the routes for trade and communication (chiefly the rivers), and of physical isolation (high mountains and deep forests) very different regional dialects developed. These dialects, sometimes mutually unintelligible, were used across the Holy Roman Empire. As Germany was divided into many different states, the only force working for a unification or standardisation of German during a period of several hundred years was the general preference of writers trying to write in a way that could be understood in the largest possible area. When Martin Luther translated the Bible (the New Testament in 1521 and the Old Testament in 1534) he based his translation mainly on this already developed language, which was the most widely understood language at this time. This language was based on Eastern Upper and Eastern Central German dialects and preserved much of the grammatical system of Middle High German (unlike the spoken German dialects in Central and Upper Germany that already at that time began to lose the genitive case and the preterit tense). In the beginning, copies of the Bible had a long list for each region, which translated words unknown in the region into the regional dialect. Roman Catholics rejected Luther's translation in the beginning and tried to create their own Catholic standard (Gemeines Deutsch) — which, however, only differed from 'Protestant German' in some minor details. It took until the middle of the 18th century to create a standard that was widely accepted, thus ending the period of Early New High German. German used to be the language of commerce and government in the Habsburg Empire, which encompassed a large area of Central and Eastern Europe. Until the mid-19th century it was essentially the language of townspeople throughout most of the Empire. It indicated that the speaker was a merchant, an urbanite, not their nationality. Some cities, such as Prague (German: Prag) and Budapest (Buda, German: Ofen), were gradually Germanized in the years after their incorporation into the Habsburg domain. Others, such as Bratislava (German: Pressburg), were originally settled during the Habsburg period and were primarily German at that time. A few cities such as Milan (German: Mailand) remained primarily non-German. However, most cities were primarily German during this time, such as Prague, Budapest, Bratislava, Zagreb (German: Agram), and Ljubljana (German: Laibach), though they were surrounded by territory that spoke other languages. Until about 1800, Standard German was almost only a written language. In this time, people in urban northern Germany, who spoke dialects very different from Standard German, learnt it almost like a foreign language and tried to pronounce it as close to the spelling as possible. Prescriptive pronunciation guides used to consider that northern German pronunciation to be the standard. However, the actual pronunciation of standard German varies from region to region. Media and written works are almost all produced in standard German (often called Hochdeutsch in German), which is understood in all areas of German languages (except by pre-school children in areas which speak only dialect, for example Switzerland — but in this age of TV, even they now usually learn to understand Standard German before school age). The first dictionary of the Brothers Grimm, the 16 parts of which were issued between 1852 and 1960, remains the most comprehensive guide to the words of the German language. In 1860, grammatical and orthographic rules first appeared in the Duden Handbook. In 1901, this was declared the standard definition of the German language. Official revisions of some of these rules were not issued until 1998, when the German spelling reform of 1996 was officially promulgated by governmental representatives of all German-speaking countries. Since the reform, German spelling has been in an eight-year transitional period where the reformed spelling is taught in most schools, while traditional and reformed spelling co-exist in the media. See German spelling reform of 1996 for an overview of the heated public debate concerning the reform. During the 1870s, the German language successfully replaced Latin as the dominant language in all major European and North American universities, thanks to the prominence of German universities at the time. Most important research in the sciences for some decades afterward was published in German, and new universities preferred German instead of Greek or Latin mottoes (for example, Stanford University).

Classification and related languages

Stanford University is divided into Upper German (blue) and Central German (green), and the Dutch/Plattdüütsch (yellow). The main isoglosses, the Benrath and Speyer lines are marked in red.]] German is a member of the western branch of the Germanic family of languages, which in turn is part of the Indo-European language family.

Neighboring languages

German forms together with Dutch, its closest relative, a coherent and well-defined language area that is separated from its neighbors by language borders. These neighbors are: in the north Frisian and Danish; in the east Polish, Sorbian, Czech, Slovak, and Hungarian; in the south Slovenian, Italian, Friulian, Ladin, and Romansh; in the west French. Except for Frisian, none of these languages are West Germanic, and so they are clearly distinct from German and Dutch. While Frisian is closely related to German and Dutch, it is generally considered not to be mutually intelligible with them. The situation is more complex with respect to the distinction between German and Dutch. Until recently, there has been a dialect continuum throughout the whole German-Dutch language area, with no language borders. In such a dialect continuum, dialects are always mutually intelligible with their neighbors, but dialects that are further apart from each other are often not. The German-Dutch continuum lent itself to a classification of dialects into Low German and High German based on their participation in the High German consonant shift; Dutch is part of the Low German group. However, because of the political separation between Germany and the Netherlands, Low German dialects in the Netherlands and Low German dialects in Germany have started to diverge during the 20th century. Additionally, both in northern Germany and in the Netherlands, many dialects are close to extinction and are being replaced by the German and Dutch standard languages. In this way, a language border between Dutch and German is currently forming. While German is grammatically similar in many ways to Dutch, it is very different in speech. A speaker of one may require some practice to effectively understand a speaker of the other. Compare, for example: :De kleinste kameleon is volwassen 2 cm groot, de grootste kan wel 80 cm worden. (Dutch) :Das kleinste Chamäleon ist ausgewachsen 2 cm groß, das größte kann gut 80 cm werden. (Standard German) : (English: "The smallest chameleon is fully grown 2 cm long, the longest can easily attain 80 cm.") Dutch speakers are generally able to read German, and German speakers who can speak Low German or English are generally able to read Dutch, but have problems understanding the spoken language, although Germans who speak High German, or, even better, Low German, can cope with Dutch much better than people from Southern Germany, Switzerland and Austria who have grown up with the Alemannic or Bavarian dialects.

Official status

Standard German is the only official language in Germany, Liechtenstein, and Austria; it shares official status in Switzerland (with French, Italian and Romansh), and Luxembourg (with French and Luxembourgish). It is used as a local official language in German-speaking regions of Belgium, Italy, Denmark, and Poland. It is one of the 20 official languages of the European Union. It is also a minority language in Canada, France, Russia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Poland, Romania, Togo, Cameroon, the USA, Namibia, Brazil, Paraguay, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Ukraine, Croatia, Moldavia, Australia, Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania. German was once the lingua franca of central, eastern and northern Europe. Increasing influence from the English language has affected German recently. However, German remains one of the most popular foreign languages taught world-wide, and is more popular than French as a foreign language in Europe. 8% of citizens of the EU-15 countries say they can converse in German, in addition to the 24% who speak German as a mother tongue.[http://europa.eu.int/comm/education/policies/lang/languages/index_en.html] This is assisted by the availability of German TV by cable or satellite, where series like Star Trek are shown dubbed into German. German is also the second language of the Internet, more than 8% of the websites are in German (English 50%, French 6%, Japanese 5%, Spanish 3% and Portuguese 2%).

Dialects

The term "German" is used for the dialects of Germany, Austria, German-speaking Switzerland (that is, outside the French-, Italian-, and Romansch-speaking areas) and some areas in the surrounding countries, as well as for several colonies and other ethnic concentrations founded by German-speaking people (for example German in the United States). The variation among the German dialects is considerable. Only the neighbouring dialects are mutually understandable. Most dialects are not understandable for someone who knows standard German. However, all German dialects belong to the dialect continuum of the continental West Germanic languages because any pair of neighbouring dialects is perfectly mutually intelligible. The dialect continuum of the continental West Germanic languages is typically divided into Low Germanic languages and High Germanic languages. Low Germanic is defined as the varieties that were not affected by the High German consonant shift. They consist of two subgroups, Low Franconian and Plattdüütsch (Low German). Low Franconian includes Dutch and Afrikaans, spoken primarily in the Netherlands, Belgium and South Africa; Plattdüütsch includes dialects spoken primarily in the German Lowlands and in the eastern Netherlands. The Plattdüütsch varieties are considered dialects of the German language by some, but a separate language by others; the Low Franconian varieties are not considered a part of the German language (see above for a discussion of the distinction between German and Dutch). High Germanic is divided into Central German and Upper German. Central German dialects include Ripuarian, Moselle Franconian, Rhine Franconian, Hessian, Thuringian and Upper Saxon. It is spoken in the southeastern Netherlands, eastern Belgium, Luxembourg, parts of France, and in Germany approximately between the River Main and the southern edge of the Lowlands. Modern Standard German is mostly based on Central German. The Moselle Franconian varieties spoken in Luxembourg have been officially standardized and institutionalized and are therefore usually considered a separate language, Luxembourgish language. Upper German dialects include Alemannic (for instance Swiss German), Swabian, East Franconian, and Austro-Bavarian. They are spoken in parts of the Alsace, southern Germany, Liechtenstein, Austria, and in the German-speaking parts of Switzerland and Italy. The High German varieties spoken by Ashkenazi Jews (mostly in the former Soviet Union) have several unique features, and are usually considered as a separate language, Yiddish. The dialects of German which are or were primarily spoken in colonies founded by German speaking people resemble the dialects of the regions the founders came from (for example Pennsylvania German resembles dialects of the Palatinate, or Hutterite German resembles dialects of Carinthia). In the United States, the teaching of the German language to latter-age students has given rise to a pidgin variant which combines the German language with the grammar and spelling rules of the English language. It is often understandable by either party. The speakers of this language often refer to it as Amerikanisch or Amerikanischdeutsch, although it is known in English as American German.

Standard German

In German linguistics, only the traditional regional varieties are called dialects, not the different varieties of standard German. Standard German has originated not as a traditional dialect of a specific region, but as a written language. However, there are places where the traditional regional dialects have been replaced by standard German (especially in major cities of Germany, and to some extent in Vienna). Standard German differs regionally, especially between German-speaking countries, especially in vocabulary, but also in some instances of pronunciation and even grammar. This variation must not be confused with the variation of local dialects. Even though the regional varieties of standard German are to a certain degree influenced by the local dialects, they are very distinct. German is thus considered a pluricentric language. In most regions, the speakers use a continuum of mixtures from more dialectical varieties to more standard varieties according to situation. In the German-speaking parts of Switzerland, mixtures of dialect and standard are very seldom used, and the use of standard German is almost entirely restricted to the written language. Therefore, this situation has been called a medial diglossia. Standard German is rarely spoken, for instance when speaking with people who do not understand the Swiss German dialects at all, and it is expected to be used in school.

Grammar

Main article: German grammar German is an inflected language.

Noun inflection

German nouns inflect into:
- one of four declension classes
- one of three genders: masculine, feminine, or neuter. Word endings indicate some grammatical genders; others are arbitrary and must be memorised.
- two numbers: singular and plural
- four cases: nominative, genitive, dative, and accusative case. Although German is usually cited as an outstanding example of a highly inflected language, it should be noted that the degree of inflection is considerably less than in Old German, or in Icelandic today. The three genders have collapsed in the plural, which now behaves, grammatically, somewhat as a fourth gender. With four cases and three genders plus plural there are 16 distinct possible combinations of case and gender/number, but presently there are only six forms of the definite article used for the 16 possibilities. Inflection for case on the noun itself is required in the singular for strong masculine and neuter nouns in the genitive and sometimes in the dative. This dative ending is considered somewhat old-fashioned in many contexts and often dropped, but it is still used in sayings and in formal speech or written language. Weak masculine nouns share an common case ending for genitive, dative and accusative in the singular. Feminines are not declined in the singular. The plural does have an inflection for the dative. In total, six inflectional endings (not counting plural markers) exist in German: -s, -es, -n, -en, -ns, -e In the German orthography, unlike any other orthography, nouns and most words with the syntactical function of nouns are capitalised, which makes it quite easy for readers to find out what function a word has within the sentence. On the other hand, things get more difficult for the writer. Like most Germanic languages, German forms left-branching noun compounds, where the first noun modifies the category given by the second, for example: Hundehütte (eng. doghouse). Unlike English, where newer compounds or combinations of longer nouns are often written in open form with separating spaces, German (like the other German languages) always uses the closed form without spaces, for example: Baumhaus (eng. tree house). Like English, German allows arbitrarily long compounds, but these are rare. (See also English compounds.) The longest official German word is Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz. There is even a child's game played in kindergartens and primary schools where a child begins the spelling of a word (which is not told) by naming the first letter. The next one tells the next letter, the third one tells the third and so on. The game is over when the a child can not think of another letter to be added to the word.

Verb Inflection

Standard German verbs inflect into:
- one of two conjugation classes, weak and strong (like English). (note: in fact there is a third class, called "gemischte Verben", which can be either weak ("active meaning") or strong ("passive meaning")) There are about 200 irregular verbs.
- three persons: 1st, 2nd, 3rd.
- two numbers: singular and plural
- three moods: Indicative, Subjunctive, Imperative
- two genera verbi: active and passive; the passive being composed and dividable into static and dynamic.
- 2 non-composed tenses (Present, Preterite) and 4 composed tenses (Perfect, Plusquamperfect, Future I, Future II)
- no distinction between aspects (in English, perfect and progressive; in Polish between completed and incompleted form; in Turkish between first-hand and second-hand information) There are also many ways to expand, an sometimes radically change, the meaning of a base verb through several prefixes. Example: haften=to stick, verhaften=to imprison The word order is much more flexible than in English. The word order can be changed for subtle changes of a sentence's meaning. In normal positive sentences the verb always has position 2, in questions it has position 1. Most German vocabulary is derived from the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family, although there are significant minorities of words derived from Latin, French, and most recently English.

Writing system

German is written using the Latin alphabet. In addition to the 26 standard letters, German has three vowels with Umlaut, namely ä, ö and ü, as well as a special symbol for "ss", which is used only after long vowels or diphthongs (and not used at all in Switzerland), the Eszett or Scharfes-S (sharp "s") ß. Until the early 20th century, German was mostly printed in blackletter typefaces (mostly in Fraktur, but also in Schwabacher) and written in corresponding handwriting (for example Kurrent and Sütterlin). These variants of the Latin alphabet are very different from the serif or sans serif antiqua typefaces used today, and are difficult for the untrained to read. They were abolished by the Nazis (incorrectly claiming that these letters are Jewish) in 1941 but this has been retained for broader and easier usability.

Alphabet

Main article: German alphabet.

Phonology

Main article: German phonology (pronunciation, historical sound changes).

Cognates with English

There are many German words that are cognate to English words. Most of them are easily identifiable and have almost the same meaning. When these cognates have slightly different consonants, this is often due to the High German consonant shift. There are cognates whose meanings in either language have changed through the centuries. It is sometimes difficult for both English and German speakers to discern the relationship. On the other hand, once the definitions are made clear, then the logical relation becomes obvious. There are many English loanwords in German, and a somewhat smaller number of German loanwords in English. Sometimes these also involve semantic changes, for example German Dogge, 'mastiff', from English dog, or German Handy, 'mobile phone'. German and English also share many borrowings from other languages, especially from Latin, French and Greek, but also from many other languages. Most of these word have the same meaning, while a few have subtle differences in meaning. As many of these words have been borrowed by numerous languages, not only German and English, they are called internationalisms in German linguistics.

Examples of German

Names of the German language in other languages

Because of the turbulent history of both Germany and the German language, the names that other peoples have chosen to use to refer to it varies more than for most other languages. In general, the names for the German language can be arranged in five groups according to their origin: Lao is unique in that both under the influence of English "German" (through Thai "yenman") and French (the colonial language) "Allemand", it chose a name in between: ພາສາເຢຍລະມັນ (phaxa yeylaman), which could be ranked both under category 2 and category 5. Note: The Romanian language used to use in the past the Slavonic term "nemţeşte", but "germană" is now widely used. Hungarian "német" is also a Slavonic loan-word. The Arabic name for Austria, النمسا ("an-namsa"), is derived from the Slavonic term. A possible explanation for the use of "mute" to refer to German (and also to Germans) in Slavic languages is that Germans were the first people Slavic tribes encountered, with whom they could not communicate. The corresponding experience for the Germans was with the Volcae, whose name they subsequently also applied to the Slavs, see etymology of Vlach. Hebrew traditionally (nowadays this is not the case) used the Biblical term Ashkenaz (Genesis 10.3) to refer to Germany, or to certain parts of it, and the Ashkenazi Jews are those who originate from Germany and Eastern Europe and formerly spoke Yiddish as their native language, derived from Middle High German.

See also


- Umlaut, ß
- German spelling reform of 1996
- Germish
- German family name etymology
- German placename etymology
- Ethnic German
- German as a Minority Language
- List of German proverbs
- Common phrases in various languages
- List of German expressions in English
- List of German words and phrases

External links


-
- [http://www.declan-software.com/german German language learning audio software]
- [http://learno.com/german Online Learno german course] Free online German tutorial at Learno.com
- [http://www.washjeff.edu/capl/ Culturally Authentic Pictorial Lexicon] Free online visual lexicon of the German language with authentic photos from German speaking world.
- [http://www.sprachtausch.net Sprachtausch.net] — German website to find someone to teach you, for example german in exchange with your language.
- [http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=deu Ethnologue report for German]
- [http://www.travlang.com/languages/german/ihgg/ Internet Handbook of German Grammar]
- [http://www.lsa.umich.edu/german/hmr/ German resources] at the University of Michigan
- [http://german.languages4everyone.com Learn German Online] with this internet German course for beginners
- [http://www.dw-world.de/dw/0,1595,2469,00.html Deutsche Welle's Online German Courses]
- [http://www.applelanguages.com/en/learn/german.php German courses in Germany]
- [http://www.vds-ev.de Verein Deutsche Sprache] (in German)
- A beginning [http://wikibooks.org/wiki/German German Language Textbook] under development at [http://wikibooks.org/ Wikibooks]
- [http://www.diwa.info/ Digital Wenker-Atlas] Project publishing the 19th century Linguistic Atlas of the German Empire
- [http://www.geocities.com/language_directory/languages/german.htm List of online German-related resources]
- [http://eserver.org/langs/the-awful-german-language.txt That awful German language] — A humourous essay by Mark Twain
- [http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/e/languages/german/index.html Why learn German? A German language profile]
- [http://www.vistawide.com/german/why_german.htm Why learn German?] — 12 reasons to learn German
- [http://www.actilingua.com/german_courses/german_language.php Short summary on German language and varieties with a map!]
- [http://www.ielanguages.com/German.html Free German Language Tutorial from ielanguages.com]
- [http://www.passwort-deutsch.de/ Passwort Deutsch] - A German course
- [http://www.deutsch-lernen.com/ Learn German Online] containing free courses
- [http://www.loecsen.com/travel/discover_pop.php?lang=en&to_lang=1&learn-German/ Learn and listen to useful expressions in German] Each expression is presented with an audio recording and an illustration
- [http://www.expatica.com/source/site_content_subchannel.asp?subchannel_id=37&name=Germany+Education Articles on learning German] Also has a service whereby learners of German can send questions to a German teacher

Dictionary and word translations


- [http://dict.leo.org/ The LEO Online Dictionary] German-English-German dictionary at Leo.org
- [http://dict.tu-chemnitz.de/ TU Chemnitz Dictionary] a 185000+ German-English Dictionary with proverbs and pronounciation
- [http://www.dict.cc/ dict.cc: User-editable German-English-German Dictionary] works similar to Wikipedia, more than 840,000 keywords (420,000 translation pairs)
- [http://odge.info/ Odge.info] uses dict.cc's data according to [http://odge.info/License/ license] page
- [http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/German-english/ German — English Dictionary]: from [http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org Webster's Online Dictionary] — the Rosetta Edition.
- [http://www.canoo.net/index_en.html German Grammar, Online Dictionary for Spelling, Infection and Wordformation for the German Language]
- [http://www.geodic.de GEODic] German-English-Online-Dictionary
- [http://www.woerterbuch.info woerterbuch.info — Free English-German Online Dictionary] with over 600.000 translations
- [http://www.dwds.de The Digital Dictonary Project]in German - Dictionary, Corpus and Statistics
- http://www.dedict.de - English-German Online Dictionary
- http://www.spell-it.net - Free English-German Online Dictionary

Grammar


- [http://www.wm.edu/modlang/gasmit/grammar/grammnu.html Grammar of German]
- [http://www.arts.uwaterloo.ca/~skidmore/grammarpage.htm German Grammar on the Web]
- [http://io.uwinnipeg.ca/~oberle/courses/review.html German Review Grammar]
- [http://www.cas.muohio.edu/~greal/netzgrammatik/grammar.html German Grammar Charts]

Reference


- George O. Curme, A Grammar of the German Language (1904, 1922) — the most complete and authoritative work in English
- [http://www.uni-wuerzburg.de/germanistik/spr/suf/baydat-udi/pdf/Grob%FCbersicht%20Dialekte.pdf Dialect map of the German language area (in German)] Category:Fusional languages Category:German language Category:High Germanic languages Category:Languages of Belgium Category:Languages of Brazil Category:Languages of Luxembourg Category:Languages of France Category:Languages of Germany Category:Languages of Italy Category:Languages of Switzerland Category:Languages of Liechtenstein Category:Languages of Austria Category:Languages of Hungary Category:Guttural R als:Deutsche Sprache ko:독일어 ms:Bahasa Jerman ja:ドイツ語 simple:German language th:ภาษาเยอรมัน

Région in France

France is divided into 26 régions: 21 of these are in the continental part of metropolitan France, one is Corse on the island of Corsica (although strictly speaking Corse is in fact a "territorial collectivity", not a région, but is referred to as a région in common speech), 4 are overseas. Régions are further subdivided into départements.

General characteristics

In continental France (metropolitan France excluding Corsica), the median land area of a région is 25,809 km² (9,965 sq. miles), which is about one-fifth of the median land area of a U.S. state, but 28% larger than the median land area of a German state, and 67% larger than the median land area of a region of England. In 2004, the median population of a région in continental France was 2,329,000 inhabitants, which is a little less than one-half of the median population of a region of England, a little more than one-half of the median population of a U.S. state, and three-quarter of the median population of a German state. A median région of continental France is made up of four départements.

Role

Régions do not have legislative autonomy, nor can they issue regulations. They do levy taxes (or, rather, the national government gives them a portion of the taxes it levies) and have sizeable, though not considerable budgets. Their main legal attribution is to build and pay equipment costs for high schools; in March 2004, the French national government announced a controversial plan to transfer to the régions some categories of non-teaching school personnel. Critics of this plan contend that it is doubtful that sufficient fiscal resources for these additional charges will be transferred, and that such measures will increase inequalities between régions. Apart from these legal attributions, régions have considerable discretionary spending for infrastructure (education, public transportation systems, aid to universities and research, support for entrepreneurs). Because of this, being president of a wealthy région such as Île-de-France or Rhône-Alpes may be quite a high profile position. There are, from time to time, discussions about giving limited legislative autonomy to the régions, but such proposals are controversial. There are also proposals to suppress the local governments of the départements and to folding them into the régions, keeping the départements only as administrative subdivisions.

List

# Alsace # Aquitaine # Auvergne # Basse-Normandie # Bourgogne # Bretagne # Centre # Champagne-Ardenne # Corse (special status) # Franche-Comté # Haute-Normandie
  1. Île-de-France
  2. Languedoc-Roussillon
  3. Limousin
  4. Lorraine
  5. Midi-Pyrénées
  6. Nord-Pas de Calais
  7. Pays de la Loire
  8. Picardie
  9. Poitou-Charentes
  10. Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur
  11. Rhône-Alpes
Rhône-Alpes

- Régions which are also départements d'outre-mer (DOM)
(Overseas departments), each of them consisting of a single département coterminous with a région:
  - 971 Guadeloupe
  - 972 Martinique
  - 973 French Guiana
  - 974 Réunion

See also


- Conseil régional
- Administrative divisions of France
- Ranked list of French régions
- List of capitals of subnational entities
- French regional elections, 2004
- Subdivisions of France
- Flags of French regions France, Regions of
- Category:Subdivisions of France ko:레지옹 (프랑스) ja:フランスの地域圏

Duchy of Lorraine

The Duchy of Lorraine or Duchy of Upper Lotharingia was an independent duchy for most of the period of time between 977 to 1766. The Duchy, which occupied most of the modern region of Lorraine in the north-east of France, was the focus of centuries of dispute between France and Germany. Germany after ca. 1180.]] Between 843 and 870, Lotharingia was an independant kingdom, ruled by the heirs of Charles the Great. From about 910, the first Dukes of Lotharingia appear in a royal charters. In 959, the duchy was divided into the Upper and Lower region following the death of Duke Bruno. Upper Lotharingia was first denominated as Duchy of the Mosel, both in charters and narrative sources. Starting from around the 15th century, when the imperial fief of Upper Lotharingia passes to the Dukes of Anjou, it adopted the French equivalent Lorraine. The House of Guise, which played an important role in the Wars of Religion of the 16th century, is a junior branch of the House of Lorraine. In the 17th century, the French kings began to covet Lorraine, which lay between France proper and its possessions in Alsace. Lorraine, after siding with the Emperor in the Thirty Years War, was largely occupied by France in 1641. In 1670, the French invaded again, forcing Duke Charles III to flee to a Viennese exile. The French continued to occupy Lorraine for almost thirty years, only giving it up to Charles's heir by the Treaty of Ryswick which ended the Nine Years War in 1697. The Duchy was again occupied by France during the War of the Spanish Succession, although Duke Leopold Joseph continued to reign. Leopold's son and successor, Francis Stephen, was forced to give up the Duchy in 1737, after the War of the Polish Succession, in exchange for the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. Francis Stephen was betrothed to Archduchess Maria Theresa, daughter and heir to Charles VI, and the French would only approve the marriage if Francis gave up his rights to Lorraine. Francis and Maria Theresa's marriage resulted in the House of Habsburg-Lorraine. Replacing Francis Stephen in Lunéville was the last Duke of Lorraine, Stanislaus Leszczynski, former king of Poland, Louis's son-in-law, with the understanding that it would revert to the French crown upon his death. With Stanislas's death in 1766, the long independent history of the Duchy of Lorraine came to an end, and the Duchy was annexed to France.

Dukes of Lorraine (Upper Lotharingia)

House of Ardennes-Bar


- Frederick I (959-978)
- Thierry I (978-1026/1027)
- Frederick II (1026/1027)
- Frederick III (1026/1027-1033)

House of Ardennes-Verdun


- Gothelo (r. 1033 - 1044), Duke of Upper and Lower Lotharingia.
- Godfrey, the Bearded (r. 1044 - 1046)

House of Ardennes-Metz


- Adalbert (r. 1047 – 1048)
- Gerhard of Metz (r. 1048 – 1070)
- Thierry II (r. 1070 – 1115)
- Simon I (r. 1115 – 1138)
- Matthias I (r. 1138 – 1176)
- Simon II (r. 1176 – 1205)
- Frederick I (r. 1205 – 1206)
- Frederick II (r. 1206 – 1213)
- Theobald I (r. 1213 – 1220)
- Matthias II (r. 1220 – 1251)
- Frederick III (r. 1251 – 1302)
- Theobald II (r. 1302 – 1312)
- Frederick IV (r. 1302 – 1329)
- Rudolph (r. 1329 – 1346)
- John I (r. 1346 – 1390)
- Charles I (r. 1390 – 1431)
- Isabella (r. 1431 – 1453)
  - with her husband René, Duke of Anjou and King of Naples

House of Anjou


- John II of Anjou (r. 1453 – 1470), also King of Naples
- Nicholas I of Anjou (r. 1470 – 1473)

House of Vaudemont

Junior branch of the previous rulers of Ardennes-Metz
- René II (r. 1473 – 1508), also Duke of Bar
- Antoine, the Good (r. 1508 – 1544)
- Francis I (r. 1544 – 1545)
- Charles II (r. 1545 – 1608)
- Henry I, the Good (r. 1608 – 1624)
- Francis II (r. 1624)
- Charles III (r. 1624 – 1634)
- Nicholas II (r. 1634 – 1661)
- Charles IV (r. 1661 - 1669)
  - From 1669 to 1697, Lorraine is under French control. Titular Dukes:
    - Charles IV 1669-1675
    - Charles V 1675-1690
    - Leopold Joseph 1690-1697
- Leopold Joseph (r. 1697 – 1729)
  - From 1702 to 1714, under French occupation.
- Francis III Stephen (r. 1729 – 1737) in 1745 he became Holy Roman Emperor

House of Leszczyński


- Stanislaus Leszczyński (r. 1737 – 1766) former king of Poland
  - after him, the Duchy is inherited by his son in law, king Louis XV of France and incorporated in his dominions

See also


- Lorraine – Dukes of Lorraine family tree
- Duchy of Guise

External links


- [http://genealogy.euweb.cz/index.html Genealogy of the Dukes of Lorraine]
- Lorraine

1737

Events


- 12 February — The San Carlo, the oldest working opera house in Europe, is inaugurated in Naples, Italy.
- May 28 — The planet Venus passed in front of Mercury. The event is witnessed during the evening hours by the amateur astronomer John Bevis at the Royal Greenwich Observatory. As of 2005, it is still the only such planet/planet occultation that has been directly observed.
- Benjamin Franklin created the Philadelphia police force - the first city-paid force.
- In Britain the Theatrical Licensing Act requires plays to be submitted to the Lord Chamberlain for censorship.
- Georg August University of Göttingen Founded
- The direct male line of the Medici family becomes extinct
- Richmond, Virginia founded
- Austro-Turkish War begins
- Our Lady of Guadalupe is designated the patron saint of Mexico City
- The (Belfast) News Letter newspaper founded in Ireland
- Lancaster County Prison is first constructed
- North Adams, Massachusetts first settled
- New Salem, Massachusetts first settled
- Hardwick, Massachusetts first settled
- Westminster, Massachusetts first settled

Births


- January 23 - John Hancock, American statesman and revolutionary (d. 1793)
- January 29 - Thomas Paine, American patriot and pamphleteer (d. 1809)
- April 27 - Edward Gibbon, English historian (d. 1794)
- May 20 - William Petty, 2nd Earl of Shelburne, British statesman (d. 1805)
- September 9 - Luigi Galvani, Italian physician and physicist (d. 1798)
- September 14 - Michael Haydn, Austrian composer (d. 1806)
- September 19 - Charles Carroll of Carrollton, signer of the American Declaration of Independence (d. 1832)
- December 26 - Prince Josias of Coburg, Austrian general (d. 1815)
- Frances Abington, English actress (d. 1815)
- John Hunter, second governor of New South Wales (d. 1821)
- Johann Friedrich Struensee, Danish royal physician (d. 1772)
- Tokugawa Ieharu, Japanese shogun (d. 1786)

Deaths


- January 17 - Matthäus Daniel Pöppelmann, German architect (b. 1662)
- January 29 - George Hamilton, 1st Earl of Orkney, British soldier (b. 1666)
- February 14 - Charles Talbot, 1st Baron Talbot of Hensol, Lord Chancellor of Great Britain (b. 1685)
- March 16 - Benjamin Wadsworth, American President of Harvard University (b. 1670)
- May 4 - Eustace Budgell, English writer (b. 1686)
- May 10 - Emperor Nakamikado of Japan (d. 1702)
- July 9 - Gian Gastone de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany (b. 1671)
- September 27 - John Sidney, 6th Earl of Leicester, English privy councillor (b. 1680)
- November 20 - Caroline of Ansbach, queen of George II of Great Britain (b. 1683)
- December 11 - John Strype, English historian and biographer (b. 1643)
- December 18 - Antonio Stradivari, Italian luthier (b. 1644)
- December 19 - James Sobieski, Crown Prince of Poland (b. 1667)
- December 27 - William Bowyer, English printer (b. 1663)
- William Wake, Archbishop of Canterbury (b. 1657) Category:1737 ko:1737년

Provinces of France

The Kingdom of France was organized into provinces until March 4, 1790, when the establishment of the département system superseded provinces. The change was an attempt to eradicate local loyalties based on feudal ownership of land and focus all loyalty on the central government in Paris. The names of the former provinces are still used by geographers to designate natural regions, and several French administrative regions carry their names.

The meaning of "province"

French départements, their names, and their borders were chosen by the central government. In contrast, the existence of provinces came from the droit coutumier ("customary law") and was merely certified by the state. A province, also called a pays ("country"), was characterized by the laws that belonged to it. A province itself could encompass several other provinces. For example, Burgundy was a province but Bresse — another province — was nevertheless a part of Burgundy. There is therefore no official list of provinces. The list of généralités, administrative subdivisions of the kingdom, is often presented when one wants to establish the list of provinces on the eve of the French Revolution. The list below is much larger, encompassing provinces throughout French history.

List of former provinces of France

Provinces

Parts of France in 1789


- Alsace
  - Basse-Alsace
  - Haute-Alsace
  - Sundgau
- Angoumois
- Anjou
  - Besugeois
  - Mauges
- Artois
  - Boulonnais
- Aunis
- Auvergne
- Basse-Navarre
- Béarn
  - Soule
- Beaujolais
- Berry
- Bourbonnais
- Burgundy
  - Autunois
  - Auxerrois
  - Auxois
  - Bassigny
  - Châlonnois
  - Charollois
  - Dijonnais
  - Mâconnais
- Bresse
  - Bugey
  - Dombes
  - Pays de Gex
  - Valromey
- Brittany
- Champagne
  - Brie champenoise
  - Perthois
  - Rhemois
  - Senonais
  - Vallage
- Corsica
- Dauphiné
  - Baronnies
  - Briançonnois
  - Champsaur
  - Diois
  - Gapençais
  - Graisivaudan
  - Embrunais
  - Valentinois
  - Viennois
- Flanders
  - Flandre maritime
  - Flandre wallonne
  - Hainaut
  - Cambresis
- Pays de Foix
  - Donnezan
- Forez
- Franche-Comté
- Gascony
  - Agenois
  - Armagnac
  - Bigorre
  - Comminges
  - Condomois
  - Couserans
  - Estarac
  - Grave
  - Lomagne
  - Marsan
  - Nébouzan
  - Quatre-Vallées
- Guyenne
  - Bordelais
  - Bazadois
  - Chalosse
  - Labourd
  - Lannes
  - Périgord
  - Quercy
  - Rouergue
- Île-de-France
  - Beauvaisis
  - Brie française
  - Gâtinais français
  - Hurepoix
  - Laonnois
  - Mantois
  - Multien
  - Noyonnais
  - Omois
  - Parisis
  - Pays de France
  - Quart de Noyon
  - Soissonnois
  - Vexin français
  - Valois
- Languedoc
  - Gévaudan
  - Principality of Orange
  - Velay
  - Vivarais
- Landau (Imperial Free City occupied in 1680, restored to Bavaria in 1815)
- Limousin
- Lorraine
  - Barrois
- Lyonnais
  - Plat pays de Lyonnais
  - Lyon
  - Franc-Lyonnais
- Maine
- Marche
  - Combrailles
- Nivernais
- Normandy
  - Avranchin
  - Pays d'Auge
  - Bessin
  - Pays de Bray
  - Campagne de Caen
  - Pays de Caux
  - Cotentin
  - le Houlme
  - Lieuvin
  - Campagne de Neubourg
  - Pays d'Ouche
  - Roumois
  - Campagne de Saint-André
  - Vexin Normand
- Orléanais
  - Blésois
  - Pays chartrain
  - Dunois
  - Gâtinais orléanais
  - Vendômois
- Perche
  - Perche-Gouët
  - Thimerais
- Picardy
  - Amienois
  - Ponthieu
  - Santerre
  - Thiérache
  - Vermandois
  - Vimeu
- Poitou
- Provence
- Roussillon
  - Cerdagne
  - Conflent
- Saintonge
- Touraine
- Trois-Évêchés

Provinces not part of France in 1789

[none] France, Provinces
- France ko:프랑스의 옛 프로뱅스

Three Bishoprics

The Three Bishoprics (French: Trois-Évêchés) were a province of pre-Revolutionary France. The three bishoprics in question were Metz, Toul and Verdun in the region of Lorraine. These were territories of the Holy Roman Empire until they were seized by French King Henry II between April and June of 1552, this conquest being legitimised ahead of time by a January 15, 1552 treaty with the Protestant Imperial princes and the Ottoman Empire against the Habsburgs, signed at Chambord, which confirmed the French king's lordship over Metz, Tour, Verdun "and other towns of the Empire that do not speak German". At the end of the Thirty Years' War, they were awarded to France by the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia.

Sources


- Trois-Évêchés on the French Wikipedia
- [http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/actualites/celebrations2002/metz.htm 450th anniversary celebrations] on the French Ministry of Culture's website
- [http://www.insecula.com/contact/A000304.html Biography of Henry II] Category:History of France

Holy Roman Empire

:This page is about the Germanic empire. For the ancient empire centred on Rome, see Roman Empire. The Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation (German: Heiliges Römisches Reich Deutscher Nation , Latin Sacrum Romanum Imperium Nationis Germanicae, see names and designations of the empire) was a political conglomeration of lands in Central Europe in the Middle Ages and the early modern period. Emerging from the eastern part of the Frankish realm after its division in the Treaty of Verdun (843), it lasted almost a millennium until its dissolution in 1806. By the 18th century, it consisted of the larger part of modern Germany, the Czech Republic, Austria, Liechtenstein, Slovenia, Belgium, and Luxembourg, as well as large parts of modern Poland and small parts of the Netherlands. Previously, it had included all of the Netherlands and Switzerland, and parts of modern France and Italy. In the 18th century, Voltaire ridiculed its nomenclature by saying that the Holy Roman Empire was "neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire".

Character of the empire

Empire The Holy Roman Empire was an institution that is unique in world history and therefore difficult to grasp. To understand what it was, it might be helpful to assess first what it was not.
- It was never a nation state. Despite the German ethnicity of most of its rulers and subjects, from the very beginning many ethnicities constituted the Holy Roman Empire. Many of its most important noble families and appointed officials came from outside the German-speaking communities. At the height of the empire it contained most of the territory of today's Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Czech Republic and Slovenia, as well as eastern France, northern Italy and western Poland. Its languages thus comprised not only German and its many dialects and derivatives, but many Slavic languages and the languages which became modern French and Italian. Furthermore, its division into territories ruled by numerous secular and ecclesiastical princes, prelates, counts, imperial knights, and free cities made it, in the early modern period at least, far less cohesive than the emerging modern states around it.
- However, during most of its time it was more than a mere confederation. The concept of the Reich not only included the government of a specific territory, but had strong Christian religious connotations (hence the holy prefix). Until 1508, German Kings were not considered Emperors of the Reich until the Pope had formally crowned them as such. The Reich can thus best be described as a cross between a state and a religious confederation.

Names and designations of the empire

The Holy Roman Empire was an attempt to resurrect the Western Roman Empire in western Europe, which was established in 800 when Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne as Roman Emperor on Christmas Day, though the empire and the imperial office did not become formalized for some decades. Charlemagne went on to adopt the title 'Augustus' from earlier Roman times. The name of the Empire in different languages:
- German: Heiliges Römisches Reich (later: Heiliges Römisches Reich deutscher Nation)
- Italian: Sacro Romano Impero
- Latin: Sacrum Romanum Imperium
- Czech: Svatá říše římská (later: Svatá říše římská národa německého)
- French: Saint Empire Romain Germanique
- Spanish: Sacro Imperio Romano Germánico
- Portuguese: Sacro Império Romano-Germânico
- Polish: Święte Cesarstwo Rzymskie Narodu Niemieckiego
- Dutch: Heilige Roomse Rijk
- Slovene: Sveto rimsko cesarstvo
- Serbian: Sveto rimsko carstvo nemačke narodnosti
- Hungarian: Német-Római Császárság
- Russian: Священная Римская Империя (later: Священная Римская Империя немецкой нации) Contemporary terminology for the Empire varied greatly over the centuries. The term Roman Empire was used in 1034 to denote the lands under Conrad II, and Holy Empire in 1157. The use of the term Roman Emperor to refer to Northern European rulers started earlier with Otto II (Emperor 973–983). Emperors from Charlemagne (c. 742 or 747 – 814) to Otto I the Great (Emperor 962–973) had simply used the phrase Imperator Augustus ("August Emperor"). The precise term Holy Roman Empire dates from 1254; the final version Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation (German Heiliges Römisches Reich Deutscher Nation) appears in 1512, after several variations in the late 15th century. Contemporaries did not quite know how to describe this entity either. In his famous 1667 description De statu imperii Germanici, published under the alias Severinus de Monzambano, Samuel Pufendorf wrote: "Nihil ergo aliud restat, quam ut dicamus Germaniam esse irregulare aliquod corpus et monstro simile ..." ("We are therefore left with calling Germany a body that conforms to no rule and resembles a monster"). Voltaire later described it as "neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire". In Faust I, in a scene written in 1775, the German author Goethe has one of the drinkers in Auerbach's Cellar in Leipzig ask "Our Holy Roman Empire, lads, what still holds it together?" Goethe also has a longer, not very favourable essay about his personal experiences as a trainee at the Reichskammergericht in his autobiographical work Dichtung und Wahrheit.

Structure and institutions

From the High Middle Ages onwards, the Reich was stamped by a most peculiar coexistence of the Empire with the struggle of the dukes of the local territories to take power away from it. As opposed to the rulers of the West Frankish lands, which later became France, the Emperor never managed to gain much control over the lands that he formally owned. Instead, the Emperor was forced to grant more and more powers to the individual dukes in their respective territories. This process began in the 12th century and was more or less concluded with the 1648 Peace of Westphalia. Several attempts were made to reverse this degradation of the Reich's former glory, but failed. Formally, the Reich comprised the King, to be crowned Emperor by the pope (until 1508), on one side, and the Reichsstände (imperial estates) on the other.

King of the Romans (German king)

Peace of Westphalia.]] The pope's crowning of Charlemagne as Augustus in 800 formed the example that later kings would follow: it was the result of Charlemagne having defended the pope against the rebellious inhabitants of Rome, which initiated the notion of the Reich being the protector of the church. Becoming Emperor required becoming King of the Romans (Rex romanorum/römischer König) first. German kings had been elected since time immemorial: in the 9th century by the leaders of the five most important tribes (the Franks, Saxons, Bavarians, Swabians and Thuringians), later by the main lay and clerical dukes of the kingdom, finally only by the so-called Kurfürsten (electing dukes, electors). This college was formally established by a 1356 decree known as the Golden Bull. Initially, there were seven electors: the Count Palatine of the Rhine, the King of Bohemia, the Count Palatine of Saxony, the Margrave of Brandenburg, and the Archbishops of Köln, Mainz, and Trier. During the Thirty Years War, the Duke of Bavaria was given the right to vote as the eighth elector. In order to be elected king, a candidate had to first win over the electors, usually with bribes or promises of land. Until 1508, the newly-elected king then travelled to Rome to be crowned Emperor by the Pope. In many cases, this took several years while the King was held up by other tasks: frequently he first had to resolve conflicts in rebellious northern Italy or was in quarrel with the Pope himself. At no time could the Emperor simply issue decrees and govern autonomously over the Empire. His power was severely restricted by the various local leaders: after the late 15th century, the Reichstag established itself as the legislative body of the Empire, a complicated assembly that convened irregularly at the request of the Emperor at varying locations. Only after 1663 would the Reichstag become a permanent assembly.

Imperial estates

An entity was considered Reichsstand (imperial estate) if, according to feudal law, it had no authority above it except the Holy Roman Emperor himself. They included:
- Territories governed by a prince or duke, and in some cases kings. (Rulers of the Holy Roman Empire, with the exception of the King of Bohemia, were not allowed to become a king within the Empire, but some had kingdoms outside the Empire, as was, for instance, the case in the Kingdom of Great Britain, where the ruler was also the Prince-elector of Hanover.)
- Clerical territories led by a Bishop or Prince-Bishop. In the latter case, the territory was frequently the same as a bishopric, giving the Bishop both worldly and clerical powers. An example, among many others, was Osnabrück. A noteworthy Prince-Bishop (Fürstbischof) within the Holy Roman Empire was the Bishop of Mainz with his see at Mainz Cathedral.
- Imperial Free Cities The number of territories was amazingly large, rising to several hundred at the time of the Peace of Westphalia. Many of these comprised no more than a few square miles. The Empire is thus aptly described as a "patchwork carpet" (Flickenteppich) by many. For a list as in 1792, see List of Reichstag participants (1792).

Reichstag

The Reichstag was the legislative body of the Holy Roman Empire. It was divided into three distinct classes:
- The Council of Electors, which included the Electors of the Holy Roman Empire.
- The Council of Princes, which included both laypersons and clerics.
  - The Secular Bench: Princes (those with the title of Prince, Grand Duke, Duke, Count Palatine, Margrave, or Landgrave) held individual votes; some held more than one vote on the basis of ruling several territories. Also, the Council included Counts or Grafs, who were grouped into four Colleges: Wetterau, Swabia, Franconia, and Westphalia. Each College could cast one vote as a whole.
  - The Ecclesiastical Bench: Bishops, certain Abbots, and the two Grand Masters of the Teutonic Order and the Order of St John had individual votes. Certain other Abbots were grouped into two Colleges: Swabia and the Rhine. Each College held one collective vote.
- The Council of Imperial Cities, which included representatives from Imperial Cities grouped into two Colleges: Swabia and the Rhine. Each College had one collective vote. The Council of Imperial Cities was not fully equal to the others; it could not vote on several matters such as the admission of new territories.

Imperial courts

The Reich also had two courts: the Reichshofrat (also known in English as the Aulic Council) at the court of the King/Emperor (that is, later in Vienna), and the Reichskammergericht (Imperial Chamber Court), established with the Imperial Reform of 1495.

Imperial circles

As part of the Reichsreform, ten Imperial Circles were established in 1512. These were regional groupings of most (though not all) of the various states of the Empire for the purposes of defence and imperial taxation. Each circle had its own Kreisrat ("Circle Diet").

Chronology

From the East Franks to the Investiture Controversy

1512. From the 'Atlas to Freeman's Historical Geography', edited by J.B. Bury, Longmans Green and Co. Third Edition 1903.]] The Holy Roman Empire is usually considered to have been founded at the latest in 962 by Otto I the Great. Although some date the beginning of the Holy Roman Empire from the coronation of Charlemagne as Emperor of the Romans in 800, Charlemagne himself more typically used the title king of the Franks. This title also makes clearer that the Frankish Kingdom covered an area that included modern-day France and Germany and was thus the kernel of both countries. Most historians therefore consider the establishment of the Empire to be a process that started with the split of the Frankish realm in the Treaty of Verdun in 843, continuing the Carolingian dynasty independently in all three sections. The eastern part fell to Louis the German, who was followed by several leaders until the death of Louis the Child, the last Carolingian in the eastern part. The leaders of Alamannia, Bavaria, Frankia and Saxonia elected Conrad I of the Franks, not a Carolingian, as their leader in 911. His successor, Henry (Heinrich) I the Fowler (r. 919–936), a Saxon elected at the Reichstag of Fritzlar in 919, achieved the acceptance of a separate Eastern Empire by the West Frankish (still ruled by the Carolingians) in 921, calling himself rex Francorum orientalum (King of the East Franks). Heinrich designated his son Otto to be his successor, who was elected King in Aachen in 936. His later crowning as Emperor Otto I (later called "the Great") in