Free City of Frankfurt

Common card · No. 206712

Frankfurt was a major city of the Holy Roman Empire, serving as the seat of imperial elections since 885 and as the site of imperial coronations from 1562 (previously held in the Free Imperial City of Aachen) until 1792. Frankfurt was declared an Imperial Free City (Freie und Reichsstadt) in 1372, giving it the status of Imperial immediacy, meaning it was directly subordinate to the Holy Roman Emperor rather than to any territorial prince. Due to its imperial significance, Frankfurt survived mediatisation in 1803. Following the collapse of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, Frankfurt fell to the rule of Napoleon I, who granted the city to Karl Theodor Anton Maria von Dalberg; the city became known as the Principality of Frankfurt. The Catholic cleric Dalberg emancipated Catholics living with the city boundary. In 1810 Dalberg merged Frankfurt with the Principality of Aschaffenburg, the County of Wetzlar, Fulda, and Hanau to form the Grand Duchy of Frankfurt. After the defeat of Napoleon and...

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