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Article: Palatinate
- Article from:
- Europe, 1450 to 1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World
- Author:
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PALATINATE
PALATINATE.
The Electoral Palatinate
(Kurpfalz)
was a historical German principality consisting of the "Lower Palatinate" on the Upper Rhine with its capital in Heidelberg and the North Bavarian territory known as the "Upper Palatinate" along the Bohemian border.
MEDIEVAL ORIGINS
The origins of the Palatinate lay in the medieval period, when the Lotharingian count palatine (Latin,
comes palatinus
; German,
Pfalzgraf
) secured a territorial base in the Upper Rhine region. The Wittelsbach dynasty acquired the Palatinate with the sanction of Emperor Frederick II in 1214. The Treaty of Pavia (1329) assigned control of the Lower and Upper Palatinate to the elder branch of the ...