The Main Decree of the Imperial Deputation, or “Reichsdeputationshauptschluss” provided for the cleaning up of the three hundred or so small territories that were ruled by lower nobles or “Knights of the Empire” in a direct feudal relation to the Emperor that circumvented the Territorial Princes of the Empire. (These territories are generally too small to be depicted on the map.) Also some of the smaller Princelings lost their ruling status. The ecclesiastical states of the Empire were all but one done away with, mainly to compensate the Princes who had lost their lands west of the Rhine.
The Bishoprics of Cologne, Treves and Mayence, all Electorates had lost a lot of territory, in the case of Treves all of it, including their Episcopal sees to France. Also the Electorate Palatine was for the greatest part lost.
The only ecclesiastical Electorate that remained was Mayence, ruled by Archbisshop Karl Theodor von Dalberg. He was compensated with the Bishopric of Aschaffenburg that became his new Episcopal See within the Empire. The Palatine Electorate was held by the Bavarian ruler, the former Duke of Palatine-Zweibrücken, who had lost his lands in 1795 to the French and had succeeded to Palatine-Bavaria in 1799. He would have to make do with a single Electoral vote from now on, as the Palatine one was abolished. The lost Electorates were replaced by four brand new ones. The Margrave of Hesse-Cassel, the Margrave of Baden and the Duke of Württemberg were elevated to the Electorate, while the Habsburg Grand Duke of the Italian state of Tuscany, who had lost his lands in a similar Italian reshuffle instigated by the French First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte, received the Bishopric of Salzburg as a Duchy and Electorate in compensation.
