Prince-Archbishopric of Salzburg

Origins

Saint Rupert founded a church and monastery at the Roman town of Iuvavum around 696, and Salzburg became an archbishopric in 798. Its archbishops gained lands and immunities over the centuries, and by the early 13th century, around 1213, they were recognised as princes ruling a territory largely independent of the Duchy of Bavaria.

Rule and society

The archbishop, elected by the cathedral chapter, governed a land whose wealth came from salt at Hallein and gold and silver mines in the Gastein valley. Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau and Markus Sittikus rebuilt Salzburg in Italian baroque style, and Paris Lodron kept it out of the Thirty Years War. In 1731 Leopold Anton von Firmian expelled about 20,000 Protestants. Mozart was born there in 1756 and served Archbishop Hieronymus von Colloredo.

Decline and legacy

The see was secularised in 1803 as the Electorate of Salzburg for Ferdinand of Tuscany, then passed to Austria in 1805 and to Bavaria in 1810. In 1816 most of it was returned to Austria, of which it is now a federal state.