Reichsdeputationshauptschluss

The Reichsdeputationshauptschluss (formally the Hauptschluss der außerordentlichen Reichsdeputation, or "Principal Conclusion of the Extraordinary Imperial Delegation"), sometimes referred to in English as the Final Recess or the Imperial Recess of 1803, was a resolution passed by the Reichstag (Imperial Diet) of the Holy Roman Empire on 24 March 1803. It was ratified by the Emperor Francis II and became law on 27 April. It proved to be the last significant law enacted by the Empire before its dissolution in 1806.

The resolution was approved by an Imperial Delegation (Reichsdeputation) on 25 February and submitted to the Reichstag for acceptance. It was based on a plan agreed in June 1802 between France and Russia, and broad principles outlined in the Treaty of Lunéville of 1801. The law secularized nearly 70 ecclesiastical states and abolished 45 imperial cities to compensate numerous German princes for territories to the west of the Rhine that had been annexed by France as a result of the French Revolutionary Wars.

The secularized ecclesiastical states (prince-bishoprics, prince-priories, prince-abbeys and imperial abbeys) were generally annexed to neighbouring secular principalities, with several of the abbeys being given as secular fiefs to those small princes who had lost their estates west of the Rhine. Only three ecclesiastical states survived as non-secular states: the Archbishopric of Regensburg, which was raised from a bishopric with the incorporation of part of the Archbishopric of Mainz, and the lands of the Teutonic Knights and Knights of Saint John. Also of note is the former Archbishopric of Salzburg, which was secularized as a duchy with an increased territorial scope, and was also made an electorate.

...
Wikipedia