The Punctuation of Ems and the rights of the bishops of the Holy Roman Empire in the Age of Enlightenment: the case of the ecclesiastical principality of Liege (1786 - 1789)

In 1786, the archbishops of the Holy Roman Empire (Cologne, Mainz, Trier and Salzburg) met in Bad Ems (Palatinate) with the support of Joseph II to establish their relationship with the Holy See and the powers attributed to the bishops. The almost schismatic rupture between Rome and Vienna, following Pius VI’s appointment of a new apostolic nuncio for Bavaria, led to the Punctuation of Ems. In twenty-three articles, the archbishops reduced as much as possible the influence of the pope and assigned several powers of control over the bishops. They modified the body of canon law applicable in the empire by declaring, for example, that the extravagant Exsecrabilis and Ad regimen had fallen into disuse.
Above all, the Punctuation opened the way to the definitive abolition of the apostolic nunciatures which exercised a court of appeal of ecclesiastical sentences and control of the disciplinary constitution of the Church. But most of the empire’s ecclesiastical principalities, especially Speyer and Liege, defended the Holy See and denounced the attacks against canon law and their constitution. In Liège, principality on the border between France and the Austrian Netherlands, the response combined both legal and political interests since while preserving his episcopal rights, the prince-bishop sought to maintain his autonomy in the face of the pope and the emperor. He then revived the debate on the double dependence of bishops in Rome and Vienna by confronting the law of the Church with that of the Empire.
This paper looks at the bishops’ rebellion against the archbishops, and the legal issues raised by the prince-bishop of Liege, to show the extent to which the centuries-old conflict between the Papacy and the Empire was still shaping the balance of power within the Holy Roman Empire on the eve of the revolution era.