Frankfurt Electoral Day

The Frankfurt Elector's Day of 1558 took place from February 25th to March 20th in Frankfurt am Main . There the transfer of the imperial dignity from the resigned Emperor Charles V to Ferdinand I was confirmed under imperial law. Through this act, which came about without the participation of the Pope, the election of the emperor took on its modern form. In addition, the Kurverein was renewed . There the members gave themselves the statutes valid until the end of the empire.

Form and participants

Outwardly, the conference falls outside the framework of the other Electoral Days in various respects . It was not about an event for the election of a new king in the normal sense, but also not about a non- voting day for electors convened by the Mainz Elector. Instead, the event was convened by Ferdinand I, albeit in consultation with Mainz and the other electors. It was also unusual that three groups of participants were present. On the one hand there were the electors , then King Ferdinand with his advisers and finally the ambassadors of Charles V.

On the part of the electors were the Archbishop of Mainz Daniel Brendel von Homburg , the Archbishop of Cologne Anton von Schaumburg , the Archbishop of Trier Johann von der Leyen , the Rhenish Count Palatine Ottheinrich von der Pfalz , the Duke of Saxony August of Saxony and the Margrave von Brandenburg Joachim II of Brandenburg present.

Content

After Charles V resigned from his post, the transfer of the post to Ferdinand had to be confirmed. The electors had previously rejected an automatic change and demanded their participation. This also happened, but without a real coronation and solemn church inauguration. This procedure, even if it is unique in practice, should also be used in the future in similar cases. The electors consciously renounced the papal approbation and confirmation, because they feared that this would endanger the peace of Augsburg . The papal confirmation was not obtained in the future either.

Connected with the recognition of Ferdinand was a new election surrender . In it he had to confirm the resolutions of the Augsburg Reichstag of 1555 and thus also the Augsburg religious peace . All previous imperial laws were only to be valid if they did not contradict the resolutions of Augsburg. Ferdinand was thus obliged to respect the religious peace criticized by his brother Karl. He also had to comply with the Landfriedens- und Kammergerichtsordnung . The emperor's strict obligation to comply with these provisions and, of course, the golden bull made a previously vaguely formulated right of resistance of the electors to a concrete constitutional guarantee when the emperor disregarded the foundations of the empire.

But for the electors themselves, hardly any electors' day was more decisive than that of 1558. From then on, their right to vote was not tied to the Catholic denomination. The Electoral College was the first of all imperial organs to achieve full denominational parity in the middle of the 16th century.

In this context, the Kurverein was renewed on March 18, 1558. The electors issued a statute that was valid until the end of the empire in 1806. In the interests of the empire, this emphasized the unity of the electoral college. In doing so, they emphasized their prominent position. Regular meetings were arranged and consensus was sought on disputes. From then on, the majority of the electors swore to the statutes, even if they were not mandatory.

literature

• Helmut Neuhaus: The role of the Mainz electors and arch-chancellors on Imperial Deputation and District Days in the second half of the 16th century. Online version
• Joseph Leeb: The position of the Mainz Elector and Imperial Arch Chancellor to the other Electors on the Electoral Congress. The example 1558. Digitized version (PDF; 412 kB)

Web links

• Thomas Ott: Review of: Leeb, Josef (Ed.): The Kurfürstentag in Frankfurt 1558 and the Reichstag in Augsburg 1559. Göttingen 1999 in: H-Soz-u-Kult, July 12, 2000, online