Prince-Bishops.

Coat-of-Arms of Cambrai.

Bishopric, then Archbishopric.

To France by 1678 Peace of Nijmegen.

Date: 23 January 2017.

Source: Own work.

Author Nomadic1

(Wikimedia Commons)

Text from Wikipedia - the free encyclopædia,

unless stated otherwise.

A Prince-Bishop is a Bishop who is also the Civil Ruler of some secular Principality and Sovereignty, as opposed to Prince of The Church, itself, a title associated with Cardinals.

Since 1951, the sole extant Prince-Bishop has been the Bishop of Urgell, Catalonia, who has remained, Ex-Officio, one of two Co-Princes of Andorra, along with the French president.[1][2]

In the West, with the decline of Imperial Power from the 4th-Century A.D., onwards, in the face of the barbarian invasions, sometimes Christian Bishops of Cities took the place of the Roman commander, made secular decisions for the City and led their own troops when necessary.

English: Coat-of-Arms of the Diocese of the former

Prince-Bishopric and Bishopric of Fulda.

Deutsch: Wappen des Bistums bzw. des ehemaligen Fürstbistums und Hochstiftes; Fulda.

Date: 29 December 2010.

Source: Own work.

Author: David Liuzzo

(Wikimedia Commons)

Later relations between a Prince-Bishop and the Burghers were invariably not cordial. As Cities demanded Charters from Emperors, Kings, or their Prince-Bishops and declared themselves independent of the secular territorial magnates, friction intensified between Burghers and Bishops.

The Principality or Prince-Bishopric (Hochstift), ruled politically by a Prince-Bishop, could wholly or largely have overlapped with his Diocesan jurisdiction, but some parts of his Diocese, even the City of his residence, could have been exempt from his Civil Rule, obtaining the status of Free Imperial City.

The Prince Bishops of Durham.

Durham Cathedral Guide, Maureen Potter.

Available on YouTube

HERE

If the Episcopal See was an Archbishopric, the correct term was Prince-Archbishop; the equivalent in the Regular (Monastic) Clergy was Prince-Abbot. A Prince-Bishop was usually considered an Elected Monarch.

With the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, the title finally became defunct in the Confederation of the Rhine. 

However, in respect to the lands of the former Holy Roman Empire outside of French control, such as the Habsburg Monarchy, including Austria proper (Salzburg, Seckau), the Lands of the Bohemian Crown (the bulk of Olomouc and parts of Breslau), as well as in respect to the parts of the 1795-partitioned Polish State, including those forming part of the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria or those acquired by the Kingdom of Prussia, the position continued in some cases nominally and was sometimes transformed into a new, titular type, initially recognised by the German Empire and Austria-Hungary until their demise, with the title ultimately abolished altogether by the Pope in 1951.