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Prince-Bishopric of Brixen | |||||||||||
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1027–1803 | |||||||||||
Status | Prince-Bishopric | ||||||||||
Capital | Brixen | ||||||||||
Common languages | Southern Bavarian, Ladin | ||||||||||
Government | Prince-Bishopric | ||||||||||
Historical era | Middle Ages Early modern period | ||||||||||
• Ingenuinus Bishop of Sabiona | 579 | ||||||||||
• Gained Reichsfreiheit | 1027 | ||||||||||
1179 | |||||||||||
• Joined Austrian Circle | 1512 | ||||||||||
• Mediatised to Tyrol | 1803 | ||||||||||
• To Austrian Empire | 1814 | ||||||||||
Currency | Brixen Thaler | ||||||||||
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The Prince-Bishopric of Brixen (German: Hochstift Brixen, Fürstbistum Brixen, Bistum Brixen) was an ecclesiastical principality of the Holy Roman Empire in the present-day northern Italian province of South Tyrol. It should not be confused with the larger Catholic diocese, over which the prince-bishops exercised only the ecclesiastical authority of an ordinary bishop. The bishopric in the Eisack/Isarco valley was established in the 6th century and gradually received more secular powers. It gained imperial immediacy in 1027 and remained an Imperial Estate until 1803, when it was secularised to Tyrol. The diocese, however, existed until 1964, and is now part of the Diocese of Bolzano-Brixen.