The Prince-Archbishopric of Salzburg () was an ecclesiastical principality and state of the Holy Roman Empire. It comprised the secular territory ruled by the archbishops of Salzburg, as distinguished from the much larger Catholic diocese founded in 739 by Saint Boniface in the German stem duchy of Bavaria. The capital of the archbishopric was Salzburg, the former Roman city of .
From the late 13th century onwards, the archbishops gradually reached the status of Imperial immediacy and independence from the Bavarian dukes. Salzburg remained an ecclesiastical principality until its secularisation to the short-lived Electorate of Salzburg (later Duchy of Salzburg) in 1803. Members of the Bavarian Circle from 1500, the prince-archbishops bore the title of , though they never obtained electoral dignity; actually of the six German prince-archbishoprics (with Mainz, Cologne and Trier), Magdeburg, Bremen and Salzburg received nothing from the Golden Bull of 1356. The last prince-archbishop exercising secular authority was Count Hieronymus von Colloredo, who was a patron of the Salzburg-native composer, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
Geography
The prince-archbishopric's territory was roughly congruent with the present-day Austrian state of Salzburg. It stretched along the Salzach river from the High Tauern range—Mt. Großvenediger at —at the main chain of the Alps in the south down to the Alpine foothills in the north. Here it also comprised the present-day Rupertiwinkel on the western shore of the Salzach, which today is part of Bavaria. The former archepiscopal lands are traditionally subdivided into five historic parts (Gaue): Flachgau with the Salzburg capital and Tennengau around Hallein are both located in the broad Salzach valley at the rim of the Northern Limestone Alps; the mountainous (Innergebirg) southern divisions are Pinzgau, Pongau around Bischofshofen, and southeastern Lungau beyond the Radstädter Tauern Pass.
In the north and east, the prince-archbishopric bordered on the Duchy of Austria, a former Bavarian margraviate, which had become independent in 1156 and, raised to an archduchy in 1457, developed as the nucleus of the Habsburg monarchy. The Salzkammergut border region, today a UNESCO World Heritage Site, as an important salt trade region was gradually seized by the mighty House of Habsburg and incorporated into the Upper Austrian lands. In the southeast, Salzburg adjoined the Duchy of Styria, also ruled by the Habsburg (arch-)dukes in personal union since 1192. By 1335, the Austrian regents had also acquired the old Duchy of Carinthia in the south, the Styrian and Carinthian territories were incorporated into Inner Austria in 1379. The Habsburg encirclement was nearly completed when in 1363 the archdukes also attained the County of Tyrol in the west. Only in the northwest did Salzburg border on the Duchy of Bavaria (raised to an Electorate in 1623), and the tiny Berchtesgaden Provostry, which was able to retain its independence until the Mediatisation in 1803.
Previous history
The Vita Sancti Severini biography by the Early Christian chronicler Eugippius, reported that during the Decline of the Roman Empire about 450 AD the local capital Iuvavum in the Noricum ripense province was already home to two churches and a monastery. Very little is known of the early bishopric during the Migration Period, and the legendary Saint Maximus of Salzburg is the only abbot-bishop known by name. A disciple of Saint Severinus, he was martyred in the retreat from Noricum, after the Germanic Western Roman officer Odoacer had deposed the last Emperor Romulus Augustulus and declared himself King of Italy in 476. In his conflict with the Rugii tribes, Odoacer had his brother Onoulphus evacuate the Noricum ripense province in 487/88, whereby Iuvavum was abandoned and with it the bishopric. Saint Severinus had already died in 482 in the castrum of Favianis (present-day Mautern in Lower Austria), six years before the departure of the Roman legions from the region.
Bavarian bishopric (c. 543/698–798)