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Subject Area: Economics
Subject Area: Political Theory
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MEDIATIZATION - John Joseph Lalor, Cyclopaedia of Political Science, Political Economy, and of the Political History of the United States, vol. 2 East India Co. - Nullification [1881]

Edition used:

Cyclopaedia of Political Science, Political Economy, and of the Political History of the United States by the best American and European Authors, ed. John J. Lalor (New York: Maynard, Merrill, & Co., 1899). Vol 2 East India Co. - Nullification

Part of: Cyclopaedia of Political Science, Political Economy, and of the Political History of the United States, 3 vols.

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MEDIATIZATION

MEDIATIZATION. In consequence of the wars of the revolution and the empire, a great number of immediate principalities, counties and baronies of Germany, that is to say, such as had no other suzerain than the emperor under whose immediate authority they were, were subordinated to princes formerly their equals; this has been termed mediatization. In other words, their prerogatives, property and honors were left them, and their sovereignty taken away. The federal act of the Germanic confederation recognizes (Art. 14) their exceptional position; the mediatized lords (slandesherrn) continued to be the equals of sovereign princes, in this sense that the latter might and (may?) without mésalliance, intermarry with them (ebenbürtigkeit); and they enjoy certain immunities for themselves and their families, such as exemption from military service. Several decisions of the federal diet have recognized for the princes the title of durchlaucht, (serene highness), and to the counts that of erlaucht, (excellency). Several German states granted them other privileges; they are, for instance, nearly everywhere hereditary peers. Since the dissolution of the Germanic confederation their situation has not been so well defined. In a case tried in Berlin in February or March, 1872, the court refused to recognize the right of privileged jurisdiction in the case of two lords. (They had been members of the board of management in a joint stock company which had failed.)

—The number of mediatized rulers is somewhat considerable. There are fourteen in Austria, twenty-nine in Prussia, twenty-two in Bavaria, thirty-five in Würtemberg, eight in Baden, and nineteen in the grand duchy of Hesse. But it is proper to remark that some are mentioned twice, in this sense, and that several houses, such as those of La Tour and Taxis, figure in a number of states. Further, Prussia granted the title of standesherrn to twenty-eight other houses of princes and counts. Among mediatized rulers we find the names Aremburg, Croy, Bentheim, Sayn-Wittgenstein, Salm, Solms, Wied, Esterhazy, Schwarzenberg, Windischgraciz Fugger, Hohenlohe, Ottingen, Waldburg, Loewenstein, Stadion, Leiningen, Furstenberg, Loyen, Isenburg, Erbach, Stolberg, and others.

M. B.