Prince-abbot

Amand von Buseck, Prince-Abbot of Fulda 1737-1752

A Prince-Abbot is a cleric who is a Prince of the Church (like a Prince-Bishop), in the sense of an ex officio temporal lord of a feudal entity known as prince-abbacy or abbey-principality — a territory that is ruled by the head of an abbey. The holder, however, does not hold the ecclesiastical office of bishop.

The designated abbey may be a community of either monks or nuns. Thus, because of the possibility of it being a female monastery, an abbey-principality is one of the few cases in which the rule can be restricted to female incumbents, styled Princess-Abbess.

In some cases, the holder was a Prince of the Holy Roman Empire (Reichsfürst), with a seat and a direct vote (votum virile) in the Reichstag (Imperial diet). Most immediate abbots however, while bearing the title of a "Prince-Abbot", held the status of an Imperial prelate with only a collective vote in the Reichstag. Actual Prince-Abbots were:

• the Abbot of Fulda, "Archchancellor of the Empress", elevated to a Prince-Bishop by Pope Benedict XIV in 1752
• the Abbot of Kempten
• the Provost of Ellwangen
• the Abbot of Murbach
• the Provost of Berchtesgaden
• the Abbot of Weißenburg, held in personal union by the Bishop of Speyer from 1546
• the Abbot of Prüm, held in personal union by the Archbishop of Trier from 1576
• the Abbot of Stavelot-Malmedy
• the Abbot of Corvey, elevated to a Prince-Bishop in 1792

The Imperial prelates were represented in the Reichstag by the envoys of the Swabian and Rhenish College, both holding one collective vote.

Other examples include the Abbot Nullius of Pinerolo in the Piedmont, Italy and Belmont Abbey, North Carolina, which had the status of an Abbey Nullius until 1977.