Duchy of Franconia
The Duchy of Franconia (German: Herzogtum Franken) was one of the five stem duchies of East Francia and the medieval Kingdom of Germany emerging in the early 10th century. The word Franconia, first used in a Latin charter of 1053, was applied like the words Francia, France, and Franken, to a portion of the land occupied by the Franks.[1]
Duchy of FranconiaHerzogtum Franken (German)
Geography[edit]
It stretched along the valley of the River Main from its confluence with the Upper Rhine up to the Bavarian March of the Nordgau, in the areas of the present-day Bavarian region of Franconia, the adjacent southern parts of the Free State of Thuringia, northern Baden-Württemberg (i.e. Rhine-Neckar and Heilbronn-Franken) and Hesse. It also included several Gaue on the left bank of the Rhine around the cities of Mainz, Speyer and Worms comprising present-day Rhenish Hesse and the Palatinate region.
Located in the centre of what was to become the German kingdom about 919, it bordered the stem Duchy of Saxony in the north, Austrasian Lorraine (Upper and Lower Lorraine) in the west, the Duchy of Swabia in the southwest and the Duchy of Bavaria in the southeast. It was located in Germany.
In 1168 the duchy of Franconia was bestowed by the Emperor Frederick I on the Bishopric of Würzburg. The bishops continued to rule until the bishopric was secularized in 1803 and absorbed into the Electorate of Bavaria.[1] When the Grand Duchy of Würzburg, the Archbishopric of Mainz and most other parts of Franconia became part of the Kingdom of Bavaria in 1814, the kings assumed the ducal title. The present head of the House of Wittelsbach, Franz, Duke of Bavaria (born 1933) is still traditionally styled as His Royal Highness the Duke of Bavaria, Duke in Swabia and Franconia, Count Palatine of the Rhine.