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 HESSE

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HESSE

celled up into numerous territories. Among the Hessian nobility, the most prominent in the tenth and eleventh centuries were the Counts of Ziegenhain, of Felsberg, of Schaumburg, of Diez, but above all the Gisos, Counts of Gudensberg. The daughter of the fourth and last Giso married in 1122 Count Louis I of Thuringia, who in 1130 was raised to the rank of land- grave by Emperor Lothair. As the Hessian nobihty recognized him as their overlord, Hesse was thus united with Thuringia. Louis at the same time re- ceived the protectorate of the most important re- ligious foundations of the land, and for a period of more than a century the union of Hesse and Thur- ingia continued unbroken. With Henry Raspe, the brother-in-law of St. EUzabeth of Thuringia, the male line of the Thuringian landgraves became extinct in 1247, whereupon the Hessians chose Henry of Brabant, Elizabeth's grandson, as their landgrave. Hesse was separated from Thuringia, and, after a long struggle with other claimants of the title, Henry established his authority as Landgrave of Hesse. For a large portion of his territories he owed fealty to the Arch- bishops of Mainz; for his allodial estate and the im- perial fiefs which he possessed, he received in 1292 from King Adolph of Nassau the hereditary rank of prince of the empire. He chose Kassel as his residence, and from him is descended the present princely house of Hesse, which can thus trace its line back to St. Elizabeth.

By the acquisition of previously independent terri- tories (Giessen, Treffurt, Schmalkalden, Katzenellen- bogen, Diez, etc.) Henry's successors increased the domain of the landgraviate to such an extent that it became one of the most powerful German principali- ties. Hermann I (1377-1-113) played an important role in ecclesiastical affairs. Intended originally for Holy orders and surnamed "the learned" on account of his love of the sciences, he espoused during the Great Schism the cause of Gregory XII in opposition to Mainz. The slumbering quarrel with Mainz broke out under Hermann's son, Louis I the Peaceful (1413- 58), and Archbishop Conrad of Mainz suffered a decisive defeat at Fulda in 1427. The schism and the wrangles between the landgraves and the archbishops greatly contributed to disturb ecclesiastical order, and in many of the numerous monasteries the ancient discipline had fallen into decay. On the whole, how- ever, the Hessian Church was in an excellent con- dition at the outbreak of the Reformation in Germany.

After repeated divisions, all the Hessian lands were reunited by William II. Philip the Magnanimous (1509-67), William's son and successor, at first adopted a hostile attitude towards the doctrines of Luther, which soon found adherents in the Franciscan Jacob Limburg of Marburg and the Augustinian provincial Tilemann Schnabel of Alsfeld. He banished or im- prisoned the heretical preachers, and came to be re- garded by them as the most dangerous opponent of "the Gospel". In 1525, however, he was won over to Protestantism by Joachim Camerarius and Melanch- thon, who wrote for him the " Epitome renovatae ecclesiasticae doctrinae". The recess of the Diet of Speyer in 1526 enabled him to set up a territorial Church. At a synod of the higher dignitaries of the regular and secular clergy at Homberg in October, 1526, the reform regulations devised by the ex-Francis- can, Lambert of Avignon, were adopted. The Fran- ciscan guardian, Nikolaus Ferber of Marburg, alone raised his voice against their adoption, but his protest was disregarded. At the Convention of Hitzkirch, in 152S, the Archbishop of Mainz, Albert of Branden- burg, found himself compelled to waive temporarily his claims to ecclesiastical jurisdiction in Hesse. Thus the Reformatory ordinances {Reforwation.i- ordnung) — which were of an extreme type, rejecting the Mass, feasts of the saints, pilgrimages, pictures, relics, etc. — spread rapidly over the country. Foun-

dations and monasteries were suppressed, their property confiscated, public worship forbidden to Catholics. To establish the new teaching on a firmer basis the first Protestant university was founded at Marburg in 1527, while the Rituals of 1537, 1539, and 1566, in the composition of which Bucer's influence is unmistakable, fi.xed the constitution of the Hessian Church on an episcopal synodal basis.

Philip's imprisonment by Charles V scarcely exer- cised a perceptible influence on the progress of the Reformation, and in 1551 Sebastian von Heusen- stamm, Archbishop of Mainz, was compelled to re- sign finally all claims to jurisdiction in Hesse. In this manner was the Church foundeil by St. Boniface, almost entirely annihilated. The Reformation was also introduced into the territories which were subse- quently (e. g. in 1648) acquired by Hesse; only in the domain of the Abbey of Fulda and in a few enclaves belonging to the Archljishopric of Mainz (Fritzlar, Amoneburg, Neustadt) diil the Catholic Faith sur- vive. Philip the Magnanimous divided Hesse at his death among his four legitimate sons, but, as two of these died without heirs in 15S3 and 1604 respect- ively, his family was split into two chief lines — that of Hesse-Darmstadt, represented by George I, and that of Hesse-Kassel, representetl by William IV. From these two lines sprang in the course of time some collateral lines, but no member of the family at pres- ent occupies a throne. In contrast to his father, the first Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt, George I (1567- 96) espoused the cause of the Hapsburgs. He in- creased his family possessions considerably, and in this his example was followed by his eldest son Louis V (1596-1626), who for his attachment to the em- peror was called "the Faithful". He founded the University of Giessen in 1607. George II (1628-61) acquired a portion of Upper Hesse in 1648; his brother Frederick returned to the Catholic Faith, became Cardinal and Prince-Bishop of Breslau, and died in 1682. Although three sons of Louis VI (1661-78) also returned to Catholicism, there was no mitigation in the stern Lutheranism of the land.

Only in the territory belonging to the collateral branch, Hesse-Rheinfels-Rotenburg, which became Catholic in 1652 and extinct in 1S34, was the Catholic Church tolerated. Landgraves Ernest Louis (1678- 1739) and Louis VIII (1739-68) sought an under- standing with Austria. Louis IX (1768-90) afforded free religious facilities to the Reformed Churches; in 1786 he granted to the Catholics of Darmstadt as a "privilege" permi.ssion to hold Divine service. Gen- eral freedom was first received by the Catholics under Louis X (1790-1830), who created the present Grand Duchy of Hesse. In the war against revolutionary France, the possessions of Hesse-Darmstadt on the right bank of the Rhine were ceded to the French by the Peace of Luneville, a few districts in Baden and Nassau being also lost. In compensation Louis re- ceived the Duchy of Westphalia, which had previously belonged to the Archdiocese of Cologne, and some districts in the Archdiocese of Mainz and the Bishopric of Worms, and later (1809) three Hessian domains of the German Order, the Fulda domain of Herbstein, and the estates of the Order of Malta in Hesse. In 1806 Louis received the title of Grand Duke (Louis I) ; at the Congress of Vienna he received in compensa- tion for the Duchy of Westphalia, which fell to Prussia, the old. ecclesiastical and palatinate lands on the left bank of the Rhine together with the towns Mainz and Worms. With the accession of such Catholic terri- tories, the existing anomalous ecclesiastical conditions could no longer be maintained. Hesse therefore took part in the negotiations of several German states, which resulted in the erection of the ecclesiastical province of the Upper Rhine by the papal Bulls "Provida solersque" (1821) and "Ad Dominici gregis custodiam" (1827). In furtherance of these arrange-