Prince-Bishopric of Trent

The Prince-Bishopric of Trent was an ecclesiastical principality roughly corresponding to the present-day Northern Italian autonomous province of Trentino. It was created in 1027 and existed until 1802, when it was secularised and absorbed into the County of Tyrol held by the House of Habsburg. Trent was a Hochstift, an Imperial State under the authority of a prince-bishop at Trento. History Middle Ages A first Bishop of Trent is recorded as a participant of the synod at Aquileia in 381. The area was part of the Lombard Kingdom and the Kingdom of Italy, until the 951 campaign of German king Otto I against King Berengar II of Italy. In 952 Berengar had to cede the March of Verona to Otto, who enfeoffed his younger brother Duke Henry I of Bavaria. From 1004 Emperor Henry II the Saint and his successor Conrad II separated several smaller territories in the northeast of the Veronese march and granted them to the Trient diocese. Originally a Bavarian fief, by 1027 the prince-bishopric was established by Conrad II, together with the similar Prince-Bishopric of Brixen. The states were created to favor passage to Imperial armies across the Alps towards Italy along the two ancient roads, the Via Claudia-Augusta and the Via Altinate, entrusting the area to two bishops instead of often rebellious lay princes.