MAINZA CIVITAS

Mainz has been selected by Roberto Amati in relation to the real history of european integration, then enlisted in the CITY OR CIVITAS category, accompanied by own fact SHEET useful to the comprehension, completed of historical MAPS AND IMAGES or with a direct linking to the related Blog contents dedicated to the entire history of european integration and the future of Europe.

Mainz is one of the most ancient cities of the history of European integration, signed in great part by Christianity. The Civitas Mainz was founded in 13 B.C. by Romans on a strategic point at the Rhin river on the northern Limes of the Roman Empire and called Mogontiacum from a celtic local god name, included into the Roman Respublica. In origin Mainz was a Castra of Germans and Romans veterans of the various legions and of the river fleet Classis Germanic there stationed: for this reason, within the reform of Augustus Mainz became the capital of the Germania Superior province and one of the most important trade and stategic civitas of the Imperium, connected throught the roman Germanica Way starting in Cologne and passing through the civitas of Strasbourg and Augst to end in Aosta. With the reform of Constantine I (see Christian Empire), Mainz became part of the imperial Gallia Diocesi and was the starting point of the emperor militar escalation to the power, rewarded with imperial governors resident in the city as an important and populated Christian community since IV century A.D., obtained a Roman bridge to pass the Rhin and take under control the Mainz river plain.

Mainz remained the principal strategic strong base against the Barbarian invasions until 460 A.D., when the city was occupied by the Salian Franks tribe and included in the Austrasia regna, then recovered to Christianity in the V.I. century by the Merovingian dinasty kings. Thanks to the english monks missions, who built the St. Stephan monastir as basis for the evangelization of Saxons, Frisons and Slavs, and to the renovatio imperii of Charlemagne Mainz became one of the biggest and wide Christian archibishopric, attribuited of temporal powers and included in the Imperial Diet for centuries. As a consequence, in its St. Alban's Abbey was baptized Harald "Klak" King of Jutland in 826 A.D., while the monks started to build the Cathedral. With the 843 A.D. Treaty of Verdun, Mainz fell into the dominion of Germany regna ruled by the emperor's families until 911 A.D., when the crown passed to german families: the emperor Otto I assigned the Archibishops of Mainz (the "primate" of Germany church) noteworthy with the prerogatives of secular princes power and archichancellors of the Empire endured until XX century A.D.!

From the X century A.D. there is evidence of a Jewish presence in Mainz, Speyer and Worms, coming from east Europe and known as "Askenaz people" for the study of the Talmud, creating a German Jewish tradition and a regular rabbis synods since then: sometimes they were expelled or persecuted, massacred or isolated in the Ghetto, but always returned to be a numerous community that could obtain a synagogue and the Jewish cemetery. Mainz was granted of a City Charter in 1244 A.D. by the Prince-Bishop with the citizen power to elect the city council, but it was revoked by the archibishop named by the roman Pope in XV century A.D. against the elected one. Within the Reich Empire, Mainz was seat of the Imperial Diet and of the Archibishopric-Electorate of Mainz from 1356 A.D., always on the Catholic side during the Protest crisis, had its priviliges confirmed with the Augusta Peace treaty and continued all along the modern era.

When the Holy Roman Empire was dissolved in 1806 A.D. by Napoleon I, the German states were reunited into the Rhin Confederation and Mainz was designated capital of the Hesse-Darmstadt Ducky and assigned to the homonimous family, while the city became one of the Fortresses against France and provided of strong garrison of Austrian, Prussian and Bavarian troops: after the 1871 A.D. war and the founding of the German Empire (II Reich), Mainz was demilitarized cause the new french borders had been moved to Alsace-Lorraine. So Mainz evolved in a rich industrial city in modern era, provided of a big railway station and the Rhin harbour to transport products and freights to/from the rest of the country. Between the First World War and the Second World War, Mainz was occupied by French troops, then by a Nazi Wermacht division and finally by the Allied french zone until 1949 A.D., when the new Germany state was founded.

What is built in Mainz? Today the city preserves lots of medieval buildings and religoius seats, such as the Old Jewish Cemetery (Judensand) and the "ShUM city of Speyer Worms and Mainz" enlisted in the UNESCO World Heritage. Nowadays Mainz is a medium size city in the west of Germany, capital of the Rhineland-Palatinate lander, whose patron is Saint Boniface the first archbishop in Mainz that converted to Christianity all Germany.

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