- Décapole
-
Colmar Haguenau Kaysersberg Mulhouse Munster Obernai Rosheim Sélestat Turckheim Wissembourg The Décapole (Dekapolis or German: Zehnstädtebund) was an alliance formed in 1354 by ten Imperial cities of the Holy Roman Empire in the Alsace region to maintain their rights, it was disbanded in 1679.
In 1354 Emperor Charles IV of Luxembourg ratified the treaty uniting the towns of Haguenau, Colmar, Wissembourg, Turckheim, Obernai, Kaysersberg, Rosheim, Munster, Sélestat and Mulhouse.[1] Haguenau became its capital while the Imperial city of Strasbourg, though venue of the league's diets, remained outside the alliance. The town of Seltz joined the league when it received immediate status in 1357, but had to leave it after its mediatization to the Electoral Palatinate in 1414.
The affiliation at first discontinued after Charles' death in 1378, it was however re-established in the next year. The ten cities joined the Upper Rhenish Circle in 1500. In 1515, Mulhouse pulled out of the alliance in order to associate with the Old Swiss Confederacy. They were replaced by the Palatinate city of Landau in 1521.[1]
The alliance was strongly shaken by the Thirty Years' War which ravaged the region, allowing King Louis XIV of France to acquire the suzerainty over the cities according to the 1648 Peace of Westphalia. The signing of the Treaties of Nijmegen in 1679 finally brought an end to the Décapole, when Alsace was annexed by France. Mulhouse remained an independent city and exclave of the Swiss Confederation until in 1798 its citizens voted to join the French First Republic. Landau together with the Palatinate fell to Bavaria after the 1815 Congress of Vienna.
See also
References
Categories:- Alsace
- Holy Roman Empire
- 1354 establishments
- 1679 disestablishments
- Imperial free cities
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.