Mediatization

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Mediatization, defined broadly, is the annexation of one monarchy by another monarchy in such a way that the ruler of the annexed state keeps his or her noble title, and sometimes a measure of power. Thus, for example, when a sovereign county is annexed to a larger principality, its reigning count might find himself subordinated to a prince, but would nevertheless remain a count, rather than be stripped of his title.

The term "mediatization" was originally applied to the reorganization of the German states during the early 19th century. This process is sometimes known simply as "the Mediatization". Mediatization has occurred in a number of other countries, however: Italy (e.g., Orsini, Doria) and Russia (e.g., Sibirsky, Vorotynsky) are notable examples.

Often, mediatized noble houses were officially ranked higher than other houses of nominally equal (or higher) rank who had never ruled a state.^{[citation needed]} This division was considered of great social significance, as mediatized nobles were considered legally equal to royals for marriage purposes; in essence they were regarded as royalty. This meant for example that if a woman from the most obscure mediatized family (say the daughter of an impoverished mediatized count) married an emperor or a king, their alliance was considered equal and their children were not regarded as morganatic, retaining their succession rights. On the other hand, if the daughter of a non-mediatized noble married a royal, their children were treated as morganatic and excluded from the succession line in most monarchies.^{[citation needed]} This is one of the reasons why so many monarchs married German princesses: German mediatized families were especially abundant.

The authoritative guide to the royal and noble houses of Europe, the Almanach de Gotha, is divided into three sections: sovereign houses, mediatized houses, and other noble houses.

[edit] Holy Roman Empire

Main article: German Mediatisation

Between 1803 and 1806, the vast majority of the states of the Holy Roman Empire were mediatized. These states lost their Reichsunmittelbarkeit ("imperial immediacy") and became part of other states. The number of states was reduced from about three hundred to about thirty. Mediatization went along with secularization: the abolition of most of the ecclesiastic states.

The legal basis for mediatization was the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss of 1803, which had become necessary under pressure from France. The Treaty of the Confederation of the Rhine of 1806 continued the process of mediatization. The constitution of the German Confederation of 1815 confirmed the mediatization, but gave certain rights to the mediatized princes, such as first instance jurisdiction.

[edit] United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom there were no mediatized families at all and consequently no British people outside of the royal family itself were eligible to contract equal marriages with members of royal families of countries in which the distinction between mediatized and non-mediatized nobles was observed. An English duke might be many times richer than a minor German mediatized prince, his title was theoretically equal, and his political power might be greater, but the German prince and his children counted as royalty, and the Englishman and his children did not. This meant for example that the English duke's daughter was too low in rank to marry the German prince as an equal.

Morganatic marriage does not exist in English law, and the British royal family and British aristocracy, while traditionally concerned with rank, often adopted a far more flexible attitude than their counterparts in many Continental European countries. Queen Victoria allowed her granddaughter Princess Louise to contract an equal marriage with a non-mediatized noble in 1889, which would have been completely out of the question for a member of continental sovereign house at that time, and the princess's father Edward VII later elevated her to the status of Princess Royal, the highest honour bestowed on a female member of the royal family. When Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, the daughter of a non-mediatized noble, became Queen consort of England in 1936 her rank wasn't an issue at all, though it would have been an insurmountable obstacle to her elevation in some European countries.

Within the British aristocracy no stigma was attached to marrying a partner from a non-noble background, providing he or she was upper class (which in this context meant anyone from or closely allied to an aristocratic or gentry landowning family).