Prince-bishop in the context of "Archduke"

The Prince-Bishopric of Montenegro (Serbian: Митрополство Црногорско, romanized: Mitropolstvo Crnogorsko, lit. 'Metropolitanate of the Black Mountain') was a Serbian Orthodox ecclesiastical principality that existed from 1516 until 1852. The principality was located around modern-day Montenegro. It emerged from the Eparchy of Cetinje, later known as the Metropolitanate of Montenegro and the Littoral, whose bishops defied the Ottoman Empire overlordship and transformed the parish of Cetinje into a de facto theocracy, ruling it as Metropolitans (Vladike, also known as prince-bishops).

The first prince-bishop was Vavila. The system was transformed into a hereditary one by Danilo Šćepčević, a bishop of Cetinje who united the several tribes of Montenegro into fighting the Ottoman Empire that had occupied all of Montenegro (as the Sanjak of Montenegro and Montenegro Vilayet) and most of southeastern Europe at the time. Danilo was the first in the House of Petrović-Njegoš to occupy the position as the Metropolitan of Cetinje in 1851, when Montenegro became a secular state (principality) under Danilo I Petrović-Njegoš. The Prince-Bishopric of Montenegro also briefly became a monarchy when it was temporarily abolished in 1767–1773: this happened when the impostor Little Stephen posed as the Russian Emperor and crowned himself the Tsar of Montenegro.

A sacerdotal state is a state whose head is also an ecclesiastical leader designated by a religious body. An example of this kind of state is the Vatican City: its heads of state, the popes of the Catholic Church, have governed papal lands distinct from secular authority since the establishment of the Papal States in the 8th century AD. Andorra operates under a semi-sacerdotal system, as one of its co-heads of state is the bishop of Urgell, while the other is the head of state of France. However unlike the Vatican, the co-princes of Andorra are ceremonial and not closely involved in the government.

In the past, bishops commonly assumed temporal as well as spiritual authority and ruled as prince-bishops. This occurred, for example, in the Holy Roman Empire, where three of the seven imperial electors were prince-archbishops (those of Trier, Mainz and Cologne). After the 1648 Peace of Westphalia certain prince-bishoprics became bi-confessional and alternated between governance by Catholic bishops and by Protestant administrators.

Archduke (feminine: archduchess; German: Erzherzog, feminine form: Erzherzogin) was the title borne from 1358 by the Habsburg rulers of the Archduchy of Austria, and later by all senior members of that dynasty. It denotes a rank within the former Holy Roman Empire (962–1806), which was below that of emperor, and roughly equal to that of king, prince-(arch)bishop, and grand duke, but above that of sovereign prince and duke.

The territory ruled by an archduke or archduchess was called an archduchy. All remaining archduchies ceased to exist in 1918. The current head of the House of Habsburg is Karl Habsburg.

The Prince-Bishopric of Augsburg (German: Fürstbistum Augsburg; Hochstift Augsburg) was one of the Prince-bishoprics of the Holy Roman Empire, and belonged to the Swabian Circle. It should not be confused with the larger diocese of Augsburg, over which the prince-bishop exercised only spiritual authority.

The city of Augsburg proper, after it gained free imperial status, was a separate entity and constitutionally and politically independent of the prince-bishopric of the same name. The prince-bishopric covered some 2365 km and had approximately 100,000 inhabitants at the time it was annexed to Bavaria in the course of the German mediatization.

In the Holy Roman Empire, the collective term free and imperial cities (German: Freie und Reichsstädte), briefly worded free imperial city (Freie Reichsstadt, Latin: urbs imperialis libera), was used from the 15th century to denote a self-ruling city that had a certain amount of autonomy and was represented in the Imperial Diet.

An imperial city held the status of imperial immediacy, and was subordinate only to the Holy Roman Emperor, as opposed to a territorial city or town (Landstadt), which was subordinate to a territorial prince – be it an ecclesiastical lord (prince-bishop, prince-abbot), or a secular prince (duke (Herzog), margrave, count (Graf), etc.).

In the Holy Roman Empire, the German term Hochstift (plural: Hochstifte) referred to the territory ruled by a bishop as a prince (i.e. prince-bishop), as opposed to his diocese, generally much larger and over which he exercised only spiritual authority. The terms prince-bishopric (Fürstbistum, or simply Bistum) and ecclesiastical principality are synonymous with Hochstift. Erzstift and Kurerzstift referred respectively to the territory (prince-archbishopric) ruled by a prince-archbishop and an elector-archbishop while Stift referred to the territory ruled by an imperial abbot or abbess, or a princely abbot or abbess. Stift was also often used to refer to any type of ecclesiastical principality.

The Archdiocese of Reims or Rheims (Latin: Archidiœcesis Remensis; French: Archidiocèse de Reims) is a Latin Church archdiocese of the Catholic Church in France. Established as a diocese around 250 by Sixtus of Reims, it was elevated to an archdiocese around 750. In 1089, the archbishop received the title "primate of Gallia Belgica".

In 1023, Archbishop Ebles acquired the Countship of Reims, becoming a prince-bishop. Between 1060 and 1170, it was elevated to a duchy and a peerage.