The next among the great duchies, that of _Eastern Francia_, _Franken_, or _Franconia_, is of much less importance in European history than that of Saxony. ♦Bishops of Würzburg Dukes.♦ It gave the ducal title to the Bishops of Würzburg; but it cannot be said to be in any sense continued in any modern state. ♦Extent of the Circle.♦ Its name gradually retreated, and the circle of _Franken_ or _Franconia_ took in only the most eastern part of the ancient duchy. ♦The Rhenish Circles.♦ The western and northern part of the duchy, together with a good deal of territory which was strictly Lotharingian, became part of the two Rhenish circles. Thus _Fulda_, the greatest of German abbeys, passed away from the Frankish name. In north-eastern Francia, the _Hessian_ principalities grew up to the north-west. Within the Franconian circle lay _Würzburg_, the see of the bishops who bore the ducal title, the other great bishopric of _Bamberg_, together with the free city of _Nürnberg_, and various smaller principalities. ♦Ecclesiastical States on the Rhine.♦ In the Rhenish lands, both within and without the old Francia, one chief characteristic is the predominance of the ecclesiastical principalities, _Mainz_, _Köln_, _Worms_, _Speyer_, and _Strassburg_. The chief temporal power which arose in this region was the _Palatinate of the Rhine_, a power which, like others, went through many unions and divisions, and spread into four circles, those of Upper and Lower Rhine, Westfalia, and Bavaria. ♦Bavaria.♦ This last district, though united with the Palatine Electorate, was, from the early part of the fourteenth century, distinguished from the Palatinate of the Rhine as the _Oberpfalz_ or _Upper Palatinate_. To the south of it lay the _Bavarian_ principalities. These, united into a single duchy, formed the power which grew into the modern kingdom. But neither this duchy nor the whole Bavarian circle at all reached to the extent of the ancient Bavaria which bordered on Italy. ♦Shiftings between Bavaria and the Palatinate, 1623. | Electorate of Bavaria, 1648.♦ The early stages of the Thirty Years’ War gave the Rhenish Palatinate, with its electoral rights, to Bavaria; the Peace of Westfalia restored the Palatinate, leaving Bavaria as a new electorate. ♦Union of the two, 1777.♦ Late in the eighteenth century, Bavaria itself passed to the Elector Palatine, thus forming what may be called modern Bavaria with its outlying Rhenish lands. ♦Cession to Austria, 1778.♦ This acquisition was at the same time partly balanced by the cession to Austria of the lands east of the Inn, known as the _Innviertel_. ♦Archbishopric of Salzburg.♦ The other chief state within the Bavarian circle was the great ecclesiastical principality of the archbishops of _Salzburg_ in the extreme south-east. ♦Lotharingia.♦