WITTELSBACH, FAMILY. - A noble German house descended from Margrave Luitpold, a relative of Emperor Arnulf, which is recorded as holding the castle of W. in 1115.

In 1180 OTTO of W. became Duke of Bavaria, and his son LOUIS I became Count Palatine of the Rhine in 1214. In 1294 the family split into two lines, the Palatine and the Bavarian. The Palatine line obtained the dignity of prince-elector through the Golden Bull of Charles IV in 1356, which it retained until 1623, when it was deprived of it in favor of the other, Bavarian line, because it adhered to Protestantism. One branch of the Palatine line, that of the Palatinate-Zweibrücken, reigned in Sweden from 1654 to 1718 with CHARLES X, CHARLES XI and CHARLES XII. The Bavarian line, from ALBERT V (1528-79) onward, constituted one of the most effective supports of Catholicism in Germany. The Dukes of Bavaria, princes-electors from 1623 (but in 1648 the electoral dignity was nonetheless restored to the Palatine line as well), acquired a very strong political position in Germany, were at the head of the Catholic League during the Thirty Years' War, and extended their influence into various parts of the Empire and in particular to the electorate of Cologne, where they held the archiepiscopal dignity uninterruptedly, from 27 June 1583 with ERNEST until CLEMENT AUGUSTUS, d. 6 Jan. 1761. At the same time the Dukes of Bavaria made no secret of their rivalry toward the Habsburgs, and during the War of the Austrian Succession, with CHARLES VII, they obtained, albeit for a very short time, the imperial throne. When the Bavarian line died out in 1777, it was succeeded in Bavaria by that of the Palatinate-Sulzbach with CHARLES THEODORE and subsequently, in 1799, by the other line of Zweibrücken. The prince-elector MAXIMILIAN IV received from Napoleon in 1806 the royal dignity, which he retained even after the Emperor's fall. In the struggle for German hegemony between Prussia and Austria, the kings of Bavaria maintained an attitude favorable to the latter, but ended by adhering to the German Empire. In Nov. 1918 LOUIS III had to abdicate following the revolution that broke out in Munich.

Bibliography6 works

BIBL.: C. Häutle, Genealogie des erlauchten Stammhauses W., Munich 1870; K. Th. v. Heigel, Die W.er, Munich 1880; id., Die W.er in Schweden, ibid. 1881; F. Schmidt, Gesch. der Erziehung der Bayrischen W.er von den frühesten Zeiten bis 1750, Berlin 1892; id. Gesch. der Erziehung der Pfälzischen W.er, ibid. 1899; O. Doering, Das Haus W., Munich 1924.

Silvio Furlani

@incollection{ec12_wittelsbach_famiglia, author = {Furlani, Silvio}, title = {Wittelsbach, famiglia}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {XII}, pages = {1706--1707}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1954}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/wittelsbach-famiglia} }

One of some 20,000 entries brought back from the twelve printed volumes (1948–54). Spotted something? Help us improve it.

Wittelsbach, Family

About this entry