Franconia

Franconia, a loosely connected aggregate of districts and territories lying chiefly within the basins of the Rhine, the Main, and the Neckar, the exact boundaries of which have varied at different periods of history. Strictly taken, the name seems to have come into general use as a politico-territorial designation in the end of the 9th century, to indicate the districts included within a line drawn from Cologne to Cassel, thence to the Fichtelgebirge, and further by way of Nuremberg and Spires back to Cologne. This region was looked upon as the original home of the Frankish people, and as the centre of the Germanic empire; within its boundaries, and on its soil, the king of the Germans was for a long time both elected and crowned. It was, however, divided into two portions, East Franconia and Rhenish Franconia, the line of division between them coinciding, generally speaking, with the Spessart. The first duke in (not of) Franconia was Conrad I., recognised in 906, but five years later elevated to the German throne. Shortly afterwards Franconia became immediately subject to the imperial crown, the dignity of duke being, it would seem, conferred or withheld at the emperor's pleasure. Meanwhile the region itself was split up into a great number of lordships, countships, and ecclesiastical domains, these last belonging in great part to the powerful bishops of Würzburg, Worms, Spires, Bamberg, and Mayence. In 1268, however, the bishop of Würzburg successfully asserted his claim to the title of duke in East Franconia, but it was a Franconia reduced to little more than the territory immediately subject to the bishop. In 1501 Maximilian I., when dividing the empire into circles, abolished Rhenish Franconia, and restricted the title Franconia to a circle nearly conterminous with the district included within a line drawn through Würzburg, Bayreuth, and Eichstätt. The name, however, ceased to be used officially from 1806 to 1837; in this latter year the three northern divisions of the kingdom of Bavaria (q.v.) were called Upper, Middle, and Lower Franconia.