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Bavaria: Lower Bavaria
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The districts of Lower Bavaria, Upper Bavaria and the Upper Palatinate are almost wholly Roman Catholic, while in the Rhine Palatinate, Upper Franconia, and especially Middle Franconia, the preponderance is on the side of the Protestants. The exercise of religious worship in Bavaria is altogether free. The Protestants have the same civil rights as the Roman Catholics, and the sovereign may be either Roman Catholic or Protestant. Of the Roman Catholic Church the heads are the two archbishops of Munich-Freising and Bamberg, and the six bishops of Eichstatt, Spires, Wurzburg, Augsburg, Regensburg and Passau, of whom the first three are suffragans of Bamberg. The "Old Catholic" party, under the bishop of Bonn, has failed, despite its early successes, to take deep root in the country. Among the Protestants the highest authority is the general consistory of Munich.
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In Bavaria, unlike Prussia, a national parliament based on estates dated from 1818 and in 1848, with no changes in its make-up, began to debate the reforms agreed to in principle by both Ludwig and Maximilian. In summer 1848 this parliament passed a wide-ranging series of laws providing for abolition of most the older restrictions on landowning and dues owed to noble landlords, reform of the court system, freedom of the press, a new and liberal electoral law and ministerial responsibility for the cabinet. Elections conducted under the new laws took place in November 1848 and resulted in an assembly dominated by liberals and democrats. Despite the electoral gains made by the left in November, the political pendulum had begun to swing to the right in Bavaria as in Germany. After the parliament in Frankfurt passed the Basic Rights (Grundrechte), the Bavarian Lower House of parliament did likewise on January 16, 1849, while the Upper House (of Lords) rejected it. This action stimulated a new wave of popular action in the form of assemblies that formulated and submitted to parliament petitions for and against the Basic Rights. In early March 1849 Maximilian adjourned parliament until May 16 and, in the interim, appointed a new Foreign Minister, Ludwig von der Pfordten, a moderate conservative, and chose new heads for most major state ministries with the same moderate-conservative attitudes.
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Bavaria is divided into seven administrative districts: Upper and Lower Bavaria; Upper, Middle, and Lower Franconia; Swabia; and the Upper Palatinate. Until the early 19th cent. Bavaria did not include Swabia and Franconia, which have separate histories. Upper Bavaria, with Munich as its capital, rises to the Bavarian Alps, along the Austrian border, and culminates in the Zugspitze, Germany's highest peak. Between the Alps and the Bohemian Forest, which forms the border with the Czech Republic, lies the Franconian Jura plateau, traversed by the Danube. Lower Bavaria comprises part of this plateau and part of the Bohemian Forest. Franconia, in N Bavaria, includes the Frankenwald, the Fichtelgebirge, and the Main valley.
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In the traditional provinces of Lower and Upper Bavaria along with the Upper Palatinate, opinion clearly favored the king. In the newer Franconian provinces and Swabia feelings ran counter to the government, but even in radical Lower Franconia there was no significant resort to violence. But in the Palatinate on the left bank of the Rhine antagonism to the government was intense and resulted in armed action.
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The extent of forest forms nearly a third of the total area of Bavaria. This is owing to various causes: the amount of hilly and mountainous country, the thinness of the population and the necessity of keeping a given extent of ground under wood for the supply of fuel. More than a third of the forests are public property and furnish a considerable addition to the revenue. They are principally situated in the provinces of Upper Bavaria, Lower Bavaria and the Palatinate of the Rhine. The forests are well stocked with game, deer, chamois (in the Alps), wild boars, capercailzie, grouse, pheasants, &c. being plentiful.
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The predominant faith is Catholicism, particularly in the southern parts of Bavaria and Lower Franconia. As per the most recent available Kirchliche Statistik Eckdaten from the Deutsche Bischofskonferenz, Bavaria is one of two Bundesländer with a population that is in majority Catholic. As per this source, in 2005 57.8 % of the Bavarian population was Catholic. Meanwhile, Lutheranism has a significant presence in large parts of Franconia. Religion remains important to many in the region, as expressed by the typical Bavarian and Austrian greeting: "Grüß Gott!" (God bless you).
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Lower Bavaria