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Archbishop of Trier

The Archbishopric of Trier was one of the important ecclesiastical principalities of the Holy Roman Empire. It encompassed territory along the Moselle River between Trier, near the French border, and Koblenz on the Rhine. The Archbishop of Trier was traditionally an Imperial Elector, and held the honorary office of Archchancellor of Gaul (here taken to mean the Kingdom of Arles, or Burgundy, along with Germany and Italy one of the three component kingdoms of the Empire).

Unlike the other Rhenish Archbishoprics, Mainz and Cologne, which were raised to archepiscopal status during the Carolingian period, Trier, as the important Roman city of Augusta Treverorum, had been home to an Archbishop since Roman times.

From 1795, the territories of the Archbishopric on the left bank of the Rhine (i.e. almost all of it) were under French occupation, and were annexed in 1801. In 1803, what was left of the Archbishopric was secularized and annexed by the Princes of Nassau.

Archbishops of Trier, 273-1803