Prince-Bishopric of Trent | ||||||||||
Principato Vescovile di Trento (Italian) Hochstift Trient (German) |
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State of the Holy Roman Empire | ||||||||||
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Bishopric of Trent within the Holy Roman Empire in 1648; Ecclesiastical lands shaded in pale blue
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Capital | Trento | |||||||||
Languages | ||||||||||
Religion | Roman Catholicism | |||||||||
Government | Principality | |||||||||
Historical era |
Middle Ages Early modern period |
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• | Separated from Verona by Conrad II |
1027 | ||||||||
• | Bishops deposed by Frederick II |
1236 | ||||||||
• | Declared a commune | 1425 | ||||||||
• | Council of Trent | 1545–63 | ||||||||
• | Napoleonic invasion | 1796 | ||||||||
• | Secularised to Tyrol | 1803 | ||||||||
• | Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire |
6 August 1806 | ||||||||
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The Prince-Bishopric of Trent or Bishopric of Trent for short is a former ecclesiastical principality roughly corresponding to the present-day Northern Italian autonomous province of Trentino. It was created in 1027 and existed until 1802, when it was secularised and absorbed into the County of Tyrol held by the House of Habsburg. Trent was a Hochstift, an Imperial State under the authority of a prince-bishop at Trento.
A first Bishop of Trent is recorded as a participant of the synod at Aquileia in 301. The area was part of the Lombard Kingdom and the Kingdom of Italy, until the 951 campaign of German king Otto I against King Berengar II of Italy. In 952 Berengar had to cede the March of Verona to Otto, who enfeoffed his younger brother Duke Henry I of Bavaria.
From 1004 Emperor Henry II the Saint and his successor Conrad II separated several smaller territories in the northeast of the Veronese march and granted them to the Trient diocese. Originally a Bavarian fief, by 1027 the prince-bishopric was established, together with the similar Prince-Bishopric of Brixen. The states were created to favor passage to Imperial armies across the Alps towards Italy along the two ancient roads, the Via Claudia-Augusta and the Via Altinate, entrusting the area to two bishops instead of often rebellious lay princes.