Palatinate , German Palatinate , in German history the land of the Count Palatine, a title derived from a leading mundane Princes of Palatinate is held Holy Roman Empire . Geographically, the Palatinate was divided into two small groups of areas:the Rhenish or Lower Palatinate and the Upper Palatinate. The Rhine Palatinate included areas on both sides of the Middle Rhine between the Main and Neckar tributaries. The capital was Heidelberg until the 18th century. The Upper Palatinate was located in northern Bavaria on both sides of the river Naab, which flows south towards the Danube, and extended east to the Bohemian Forest. The boundaries of the Palatinate varied with the political and dynastic destiny of the Counts Palatine.
In early medieval Germany served Counts Palatine in the absence of the Holy Roman Emperors as Manager royal territories. In the 12th century the lands of the Counts Palatine of Lotharingia (Lorraine) were formed into their own territory of the (Rhenish) Palatinate. In 1214 the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II granted these lands to Ludwig I, Duke of Bavaria of the House of Wittelsbach . This old Bavarian Dynasty was to rule the Palatinate in one or the other branch through its later history. In 1329, in an internal dynastic settlement, the northern March of Bavaria was separated from the Bavarian Wittelsbachs and handed over to the branch of the family, which also owned the Rhenish areas. The Nordmark was then known as Oberpfalz. In the 14th and 15th centuries, the Counts Palatine brought firm rule and prosperity to their country. They fought for the rights of the German princes against the universalistic ambitions of popes and emperors. They won the right to participate in the election of the emperor, a right granted by the Golden Bull from 1356, which made the elector the secular prince of the Holy Roman Empire.
The Palatinate remained Roman Catholic during the early Reformation but was adopted Calvinism in the 1560s under Elector Friedrich III . The Palatinate became Bulwark of the Protestant cause in Germany. Elector Friedrich IV. Was 1608 Head of the Protestant Union well-known Protestant military alliance . His son The acceptance of the Bohemian crown by Friedrich V in 1619 contributed to the beginning of Thirty Years' War at , which proved disastrous for the Palatinate. Frederick V was expelled from Bohemia in 1620 and deprived of his German lands and electoral dignity, which were conferred on Bavaria, in 1623. Catholic troops devastated the Rhine Palatinate. The Peace of Westphalia (1648) Frederick's son Charles Louis returned the Rhenish lands and a new electoral dignity. The Upper Palatinate remained with Bavaria afterwards.
During the In the War of the Grand Alliance (1689–97) devastated the French monarch's troops Louis XIV The Rhine Palatinate and prompted many Germans to emigrate. Many of America's early German settlers (the Pennsylvania German , commonly called Pennsylvania Pennsylvania Dutch) were refugees from the Palatinate. During the French War of Independence and the Napoleonic Wars, the territories of the Palatinate on the western bank of the Rhine were incorporated into France, while the eastern territories were largely divided between neighboring Baden and Hesse. After the defeat of Napoleon (1814–15), the Congress of Vienna gave the Ostuferland to Bavaria. These areas, along with some surrounding areas, re-adopted the name Palatinate in 1838. French troops temporarily occupied the Rhenish territories after Germany's defeat in World War I .
After the World War II parts of the Rhenish areas were incorporated into the newly founded constituted Bund Country (state) of Rhineland-Palatinate (Rheinland-Pfalz) in (then West) Germany. See Rhineland-Palatinate .