House of WittelsbachThe House of Wittelsbach (Haus Wittelsbach) is a former German dynasty, with branches that have ruled over territories including the Electorate of Bavaria, the Electoral Palatinate, the Electorate of Cologne, Holland, Zeeland, Sweden (with Swedish-ruled Finland), Denmark, Norway, Hungary (with Romania), Bohemia, and Greece. Their ancestral lands of Bavaria and the Palatinate were prince-electorates, and the family had three of its members elected emperors and kings of the Holy Roman Empire.
Henry the LionHenry the Lion (Heinrich der Löwe; 1129/1131 – 6 August 1195) was a member of the Welf dynasty who ruled as the duke of Saxony as Henry III and Bavaria as Henry XII from 1142 and 1156, respectively, until 1180. Henry was one of the most powerful German princes of his time, until the rival Hohenstaufen dynasty succeeded in isolating him and eventually deprived him of his duchies of Bavaria and Saxony during the reign of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa and of Frederick's son and successor Henry VI.
NeckarThe Neckar (ˈnɛkaʁ) is a river in Germany, mainly flowing through the southwestern state of Baden-Württemberg, with a short section through Hesse. The Neckar is a major right tributary of the Rhine. Rising in the Schwarzwald-Baar-Kreis near Schwenningen in the Schwenninger Moos conservation area at a height of above sea level, it passes through Rottweil, Rottenburg am Neckar, Kilchberg, Tübingen, Wernau, Nürtingen, Plochingen, Esslingen, Stuttgart, Ludwigsburg, Marbach, Heilbronn and Heidelberg, before discharging on average of water into the Rhine at Mannheim, at above sea level, making the Neckar its 4th largest tributary, and the 10th largest river in Germany.
Lake ConstanceLake Constance (Bodensee, ˈboːdn̩ˌzeː) refers to three bodies of water on the Rhine at the northern foot of the Alps: Upper Lake Constance (Obersee), Lower Lake Constance (Untersee), and a connecting stretch of the Rhine, called the Lake Rhine (Seerhein). These waterbodies lie within the Lake Constance Basin (Bodenseebecken) in the Alpine Foreland through which the Rhine flows. The lake is situated where Germany, Switzerland, and Austria meet. Its shorelines lie in the German states of Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria, the Swiss cantons of St.
Early modern periodThe early modern period of modern history spans the period after the Late Middle Ages of the post-classical era (1400–1500) to the beginning of the Age of Revolutions (1800). Although the chronological limits of this period are open to debate, the timeframe is variously demarcated by historians as beginning with the fall of Constantinople in 1453, the Renaissance period in Europe and Timurid Central Asia, the end of the Crusades, the Age of Discovery (especially the voyages of Christopher Columbus beginning in 1492 but also Vasco da Gama's discovery of the sea route to India in 1498), and ending around the French Revolution in 1789, or Napoleon's rise to power.
Free imperial cityIn the Holy Roman Empire, the collective term free and imperial cities (Freie und Reichsstädte), briefly worded free imperial city (Freie Reichsstadt, urbs imperialis libera), was used from the fifteenth century to denote a self-ruling city that had a certain amount of autonomy and was represented in the Imperial Diet. An imperial city held the status of Imperial immediacy, and as such, was subordinate only to the Holy Roman Emperor, as opposed to a territorial city or town (Landstadt) which was subordinate to a territorial prince - be it an ecclesiastical lord (prince-bishop, prince-abbot) or a secular prince (duke (Herzog), margrave, count (Graf), etc.
Duchy of LorraineThe Duchy of Lorraine (Lorraine lɔʁɛn; Lothringen ˈloːtʁɪŋən), originally Upper Lorraine, was a duchy now included in the larger present-day region of Lorraine in northeastern France. Its capital was Nancy. It was founded in 959 following the division of Lotharingia into two separate duchies: Upper and Lower Lorraine, the westernmost parts of the Holy Roman Empire. The Lower duchy was quickly dismantled, while Upper Lorraine came to be known as simply the Duchy of Lorraine.
AugsburgAugsburg (UKˈaʊɡzbəːrɡ , USˈɔːɡz- , ˈaʊksbʊʁk; Ougschburg) is a city in Swabia, Germany, around west of Bavarian capital Munich. It is a university town and regional seat of the Regierungsbezirk Swabia with an impressive Altstadt (historical city centre). Augsburg is an urban district and home to the institutions of the Landkreis Augsburg. It is the third-largest city in Bavaria (after Munich and Nuremberg), with a population of 304,000 and 885,000 in its metropolitan area.
Hussite WarsThe Hussite Wars, also called the Bohemian Wars or the Hussite Revolution, were a series of civil wars fought between the Hussites and the combined Catholic forces of Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund, the Papacy, and European monarchs loyal to the Catholic Church, as well as various Hussite factions. At a late stage of the conflict, the Utraquists changed sides in 1432 to fight alongside Roman Catholics and opposed the Taborites and other Hussite spin-offs. These wars lasted from 1419 to approximately 1434.
BaiuvariiThe Baiuvarii, Bavarii, or Bavarians (Bajuwaren) were a Germanic people. The Baiuvarii had settled in modern-day Bavaria (which is named after them), Austria, and South Tyrol by the 6th century AD, and are considered to be the ancestors of modern-day Bavarians, Austrians and South Tyroleans. It is believed that they spoke an early version of the Bavarian language. The name of the Baiuvarii is also spelled Baiuvari. It probably means "men from Bohemia".
