Berg was a state—originally a county, later a duchy—in the Rhineland of Germany. Its capital was Düsseldorf. It existed as a distinct political entity from the early 12th to the 19th centuries. It was a member state of the Holy Roman Empire.
The name of the county lives on in the modern geographic term Bergisches Land, often misunderstood as bergiges Land (hilly country).
History
Ascent
The Counts of Berg emerged in 1101 as a junior line of the dynasty of the Ezzonen, which traced its roots back to the 9th-century Kingdom of Lotharingia, and in the 11th century became the most powerful dynasty in the region of the lower Rhine.
In 1160, the territory split into two portions, one of them later becoming the County of the Mark, which returned to the possession of the family line in the 16th century. The most powerful of the early rulers of Berg, Engelbert II of Berg died in an assassination on November 7, 1225.[1][2] In 1280 the counts moved their court from Schloss Burg on the Wupper river to the town of Düsseldorf. Count Adolf VIII of Berg fought on the winning side in the Battle of Worringen against Guelders in 1288.
The power of Berg grew further in the 14th century. The County of Jülich united with the County of Berg in 1348,[3] and in 1380 the Emperor Wenceslaus elevated the counts of Berg to the rank of dukes, thus originating the Duchy of Jülich-Berg.
During the 30 Years' War, even though there were no significant battles around Berg, the territories still had to deal with the stresses of war.[4] At the end of the 30 Years' War, Wolfgang Wilhelm tried to spread Catholicism in the duchies. The Elector of Brandenburg, Frederick Wilhelm, still claimed the Duchy of Berg, and declared war, claiming to be the defender of protestants in Berg. This led to the Düsseldorf Cow War. In the following years however, tension over Berg between Neuburg and Brandenburg greatly decreased.
Upon the extinction of the senior Wittelsbach dynasty ruling the Electorate of the Palatinate in 1685, the Neuburg line inherited the Electorate and generally made Düsseldorf its capital. Elector Charles III Philipp disliked Düsseldorf, because the estates there did not want to grant the funds he demanded. As such, he moved his capital from Düsseldorf to Mannheim, where it remained until the Elector Palatine, Charles Theodore, inherited the Electorate of Bavaria in 1777.
The French occupation (1794–1801) and annexation (1801) of Jülich (French: Juliers) during the French revolutionary wars separated the two duchies of Jülich and Berg, and in 1803 Berg separated from the other Bavarian territories and came under the rule of a junior branch of the Wittelsbachs. In 1806, in the reorganization of the German lands occasioned by the end of the Holy Roman Empire, Berg became the Grand Duchy of Berg, under the rule of Napoleon's brother-in-law, Joachim Murat.[5] Murat's arms combined the red lion of Berg with the arms of the duchy of Cleves. The anchor and the batons came to the party due to Murat's positions as Grand Admiral and as Marshal of the Empire. As the husband of Napoleon's sister Caroline Bonaparte, Murat also had the right to use the imperial eagle.
In 1809, one year after Murat's promotion from Grand Duke of Berg to King of Naples, Napoleon's young nephew, Prince Napoleon Louis Bonaparte (1804–1831, elder son of Napoleon's brother Louis Bonaparte, King of Holland) became the Grand Duke of Berg; French bureaucrats administered the territory in the name of the child. The Grand Duchy's short existence came to an end with Napoleon's defeat in 1813 and the peace settlements that followed.
The historic coat of arms of Berg shows a red lion with a double tail and blue crown, tongue, and claws – blazoned as: Argent a lion rampant gules, queue fourchée crossed in saltire, armed, langued, and crowned azure. This lion originates from the arms of the Duke of Limburg as the Berg title in the 13th century fell to the Limburg line.