List of elections for the Roman-German kings

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The election of the Roman-German king or, later directly, the Roman-German emperor in the Holy Roman Empire was the responsibility of a small college of imperial princes , the electors, from the 13th century at the latest . The election as king or emperor was for life. In 1356, Emperor Charles IV proclaimed the Golden Bull, a constitution for the election of all future kings and emperors.


The electors The Spiritual Cures  · The Secular Cures  · Subsequent Changes
14th Century 1376  · May 1400  · August 1400
15th century 1410  · 1411  · 1438  · 1440  · 1486
16th Century 1519  · 1531  · 1562  · 1575
17th century 1612  · 1619  · 1636  · 1653  · 1658  · 1690
18th century 1711  · 1742  · 1745  · 1764  · 1790  · 1792

The electors

The emperor and the eight electors (from Trier, Cologne, Mainz, Bohemia, Bavaria, Saxony, Brandenburg and the Palatinate). Copper engraving by Abraham Aubry, Nuremberg 1663/64

The seven original cures whose electors elected the King of the Germans or, since the 16th century , directly the Roman-German Kaiser or in some cases the Roman-German King (the emperor's designated heir, the vivente imperatore ) were:

The spiritual cures

The secular cures

Later changes

Later, the following secular cures were added to the college:

In the following, all elections that took place according to the modalities of the Golden Bull are listed. Exclusions from and re-admissions and new admissions to the circle of electors are also dealt with.

14th Century

Election of 1376

The election took place on June 10, 1376 in Frankfurt am Main .

Electors

Elected Wenzel of Brandenburg, Roman King

This was the first election after the entry into force of the Golden Bull, which precisely defined the qualifications of the electors and the course of the election and became the basis for all subsequent elections. Wenzel, son of Emperor Charles IV and Elector of Brandenburg, was elected Rex Romanorum and thus Charles's heir. Two years later, when Charles died on November 29, 1378, he was his successor as Roman-German King and King of Bohemia .

I. Election of 1400

The election took place on May 22nd, 1400 in Frankfurt am Main .

Electors

Elected Friedrich von Braunschweig and Lüneburg

The electors were dissatisfied with Wenceslas exercise as Roman-German king and came together to discuss alternatives. Friedrich von Braunschweig and Lüneburg was elected against the incumbent Wenceslaus. The three spiritual electors of Mainz, Trier and Cologne as well as Wenzel himself did not recognize the election. It was therefore legally invalid, since it was only worn by a minority of the electors. Friedrich was murdered two weeks later, on June 5, 1400.

II. Election of 1400

The election took place on August 21, 1400 in Rhens .

Electors

Elected Ruprecht , Roman King

The three clerical electors and Ruprecht met again on August 20, 1400 to remove Wenzel from his office. The next day Ruprecht was unanimously elected as the new Roman King. The electors of Saxony ( Rudolf III ), Brandenburg ( Jobst ) and Bohemia (Wenzel) were not present, however, and Wenzel never recognized the validity of his deposition and the election of Ruprecht.

15th century

Elections of 1410

The elections took place on September 20, 1410 and October 1, 1410.

Electors

Elected Sigismund and Jobst of Moravia

These elections followed Ruprecht's death on May 18, 1410. On September 20, three of the Electors proclaimed Sigismund, King of Hungary and son of the late Charles IV, to be king. Among them was Friedrich I , Burgrave of Nuremberg , who acted on behalf of Sigismund and claimed to represent Kurbrandenburg, but without having been authorized to do so by the incumbent Margrave Jobst, the nephew of the deceased emperor.

The dubious election of Sigismund in September was not accepted by the other electors. On October 1, 1410 they voted Jobst of Moravia in opposition to his cousin Sigismund, but Jobst died three months later. The 1410 elections were the last to elect a king and an opposing king .

Election of 1411

Sigismund, Roman king, later emperor

The election took place on July 21, 1411.

Electors

Elected Sigismund , Roman King

After Jobst's death on January 18, 1411, there were no longer any obstacles for the elector to recognize Sigismund (now the rightful elector of Brandenburg) as king. An election was held after six months. In recognizing this election, Sigismund simultaneously tacitly recognized the invalidity of his election of 1410.

Election of 1438

Albrecht II, Roman King

The election took place in the March 18, 1438 Frankfurt held

Electors

Elected Albrecht II , Roman King

This election followed the death of Emperor Sigismund on December 9, 1437.

Albrecht II, the elected king, was nominally King of Bohemia through his marriage to Elisabeth of Luxembourg , but was only crowned after his election. Since he was at war in Bohemia at the time, Albrecht was not present at his own election.

The Electorate of Brandenburg was transferred to the House of Hohenzollern in 1415 , with whom it remained until the end of the empire.

Election of 1440

Friedrich III., Roman king, later emperor

The election took place on February 2, 1440 in Frankfurt am Main .

Electors

The office of King of Bohemia was vacant in this election because King Albrecht II had died on October 27, 1439. He left behind his pregnant wife Elisabeth of Luxembourg . Their child Ladislaus Postumus was born on February 22nd, 1440, a few days after the election.

Elected Friedrich III. , Duke of Austria (Habsburg), Roman King

Election of 1486

Maximilian I, Roman king, later emperor

The election took place on February 16, 1486 in the Imperial Cathedral of St. Bartholomew in Frankfurt am Main .

Electors

Elected Maximilian I , Roman King

Maximilian I, Archduke of Austria , was elected Roman King and succeeded his father, Emperor Friedrich III. on the throne after his death on August 19, 1493. Since Maximilian was unable to travel to Rome for the coronation of the emperor due to a blockade of the Republic of Venice , Pope Julius II awarded him the title "Electus Romanorum Imperator" , "Elected Roman Emperor" in 1508 . Later elected people also called themselves emperors instead of just kings, even without papal coronation.

16th Century

Election of 1519

Charles V, Roman king, later emperor

The election took place on June 28, 1519 in Frankfurt am Main .

Electors

Elected Charles V , Roman King

This election took place after the death of Maximilian I on January 12, 1519 and was one of the most violently contested in the empire. The two main applicants were Charles V, grandson of Maximilian and, as his heir, Archduke of Austria, but also King of Spain and Francis I , King of France . The outsider candidate was Henry VIII , King of England . Although Karl was a Habsburg and the grandson of the late Emperor Maximilian I, he spoke French , not German , and was perceived as just as foreign as Franz.

Karl and Franz tried to outdo each other in their bribes. In the end, thanks to the Spanish silver mines in America and the financial support of Jakob Fugger , Karl was able to fall back on the greater resources. Karl could count on the voice of the King of Bohemia, his brother-in-law. Franz had bought the Archbishop of Trier, the electors of Mainz, Brandenburg and the Palatinate were still available. Although the details of the election were never made public, it is possible that the electors wanted to escape their dilemma by electing the Elector of Saxony, who refused the election. In the end, Charles was unanimously elected against the reservations of the Elector of Brandenburg.

Election of 1531

Ferdinand I, Roman king, later emperor

The election took place on January 5, 1531 in Cologne .

Electors

Elected Ferdinand I , King of Rome

Charles V realized that a single man could not control all the Habsburg possessions. His brother Ferdinand I, who also became King of Bohemia and Hungary in 1526, ruled over the original Habsburg possessions. Charles V would have liked to bequeath the imperial crown to his son Philip II . But the German princes knew what it meant when an emperor was hardly in the empire, especially in times of internal religious tension and external threat from the Ottomans , and stood up for Ferdinand. As a compromise, Karl accepted Ferdinand's election as Roman King and thus his successor, on the condition that Philip would succeed Ferdinand (which never happened). Although he was elected in 1531, Ferdinand had to wait more than a quarter of a century until Charles abdicated in 1558 before he became emperor.

The election took place in the middle of the Reformation , and the first divisions between Catholic and Protestant electors became apparent. The Electors of Mainz and Brandenburg were strictly pro-Catholic, whereas the Elector of Saxony was Lutheran . The elector of Cologne, although he was a Catholic archbishop, showed Reformation inclinations and was finally removed from his office as bishop in 1546. At the time of the election, however, it was by no means ruled out that there might be a compromise between Catholics and Lutherans.

Election of 1562

Maximilian II, Roman king, later emperor

The election took place on November 24, 1562 in Frankfurt am Main . The coronation also took place for the first time in Frankfurt, not in Aachen on November 30, 1562.

Electors

Elected Maximilian II , Roman King

This election took place during his lifetime Emperor I. Ferdinand instead. Maximilian was elected King of Rome and became Emperor almost two years later after Ferdinand's death on July 25, 1564.

This was the first time that a member of the Albertines took part as Elector of Saxony. The Albertines had ousted the older Ernestines from the electorate in 1547.

In 1562 the division between Catholics and Protestants spread throughout the empire. The ecclesiastical electors and the King of Bohemia remained Catholic. The Count Palatine near Rhine had been a Calvinist since 1561 , the Elector of Saxony was a Lutheran, and from 1555 also the Elector of Brandenburg.

Election of 1575

Rudolf II, Roman king, later emperor

The election took place on October 27, 1575 in Regensburg .

Electors

Elected Rudolf II , Roman King

Rudolf II. Was elected Roman King during the lifetime of his father Maximilian II. When Maximilian died on October 12, 1576, Rudolf became emperor. The religious division among the electors was the same as in the last election.

17th century

Election of 1612

Emperor Matthias

The election took place on June 13, 1612 in Frankfurt am Main . The coronation at the same place followed on June 24, 1612.

Electors

Elected Matthias , Elected Roman Emperor

The election took place after the death of Emperor Rudolf II on January 20, 1612. Ferdinand of Bavaria , the elector of Cologne, campaigned for the election of his brother Maximilian I , Duke of Bavaria. Maximilian refused the throne. Instead, Rudolf's brother Matthias, who had already assumed rule over Bohemia and Hungary, was elected.

The religious division among the electors was the same as in the last election.

Election of 1619

Emperor Ferdinand II.

The election took place on August 28, 1619 in Frankfurt am Main . The coronation followed on September 9, 1619 at the same place.

Electors

Elected Ferdinand II , Elected Roman Emperor

This election, which followed the death of Emperor Matthias on March 20, 1619, coincided with the beginning of the Thirty Years' War . Two days before the election, the Bohemian estates had deposed Ferdinand and elected Frederick V , the Elector of the Palatinate, King of Bohemia. The other electors nevertheless refused to listen to a delegation of the Bohemian estates and recognized Ferdinand as the holder of the bohemian electoral dignity against the protest of the delegation from Electoral Palatinate. The Count Palatine at Rhine initially voted for Maximilian I , Duke of Bavaria, but withdrew the vote and also voted for Ferdinand.

Since this election took place only seven years after the previous one, apart from the King of Bohemia, the same persons held the offices as in 1612, and the religious division among the electors was the same as in the previous election.

Election of 1636

Ferdinand III, Roman king, later emperor

The election took place on December 22, 1636 in Regensburg .

Electors

Elected Ferdinand III. , Roman king

This election took place during the Thirty Years' War and during the reign of Emperor Ferdinand II . His son Ferdinand III, who had already become King of Bohemia in 1627, was elected King of Rome, and when his father died less than three months later on February 15, 1637, he also became Emperor.

In 1621 Friedrich V, Elector of the Palatinate , was relieved of his electoral dignity and his possessions. The electoral vote and the office of Count Palatinate had passed to a distant relative, the Duke of Bavaria. Since the Bavarian was a Catholic, the college of electors now consisted of five Catholics and two Lutherans.

Election of 1653

Ferdinand IV, Roman King

The election took place on May 31, 1653 in Augsburg .

Electors

Elected Ferdinand IV , King of Rome

With the election of Ferdinand as Roman King, an automatic succession for Emperor Ferdinand III. to be taken care of. Ferdinand died of smallpox a year after his election on July 9, 1654 .

This election was the first after the Thirty Years War . Through the Peace of Westphalia , the Count Palatine had received a new electoral dignity. However, the Duke of Bavaria retained the old Palatinate electoral dignity, which he had held since 1623, under the title "Elector of Bavaria". So there were now eight electors. In order to rule out the possibility of a tie, the King of Bohemia (who now had the best chance of winning future elections anyway) agreed to abstain from voting, but retained his electoral dignity. From here on, the Bohemian elector is listed in brackets.

The college of electors now consisted of five Catholics (four without Bohemia), two Lutherans (Brandenburg and Saxony) and one Calvinist (the Palatinate). After the Thirty Years War, religious differences played an increasingly less important role in the politics of the empire.

Election of 1658

Emperor Leopold I.

The election took place on July 18, 1658 in Frankfurt am Main . The Krönug followed on August 1, 1658 at the same place.

Electors

Elected Leopold I , Elected Roman Emperor

This choice took place after the death of Emperor Ferdinand III. on April 2, 1657, followed by the longest interregnum since the 13th century.

Election of 1690

Joseph I, Roman king, later emperor

The election took place on January 23, 1690 in Augsburg .

Electors

Elected Joseph I , King of Rome

This election took place during Leopold I's lifetime and during the War of the Palatinate Succession . Leopold's son and heir Joseph was crowned King of Rome, but had to be content with this lesser title for fifteen years until he became emperor with the death of his father on May 5, 1705.

In 1685 Philipp Wilhelm inherited the Palatinate from the Catholic line Pfalz-Neuburg , which means that there were now six Catholic votes against two Lutheran votes in the Electoral College.

18th century

Election of 1711

Emperor Charles VI.

The election took place on October 12, 1711 in Frankfurt am Main. The coronation at the same place followed on December 22, 1711.

Electors

Elected Charles VI. , Elected Roman Emperor

This election took place after the death of Emperor Joseph I on April 17, 1711 during the War of the Spanish Succession .

Since the election of 1690, there have been some changes in the composition of the Electoral College:

  • In 1692 the emperor conferred the electoral dignity for electoral Hanover to a ninth prince, the Lutheran Ernst August I , Duke of Braunschweig-Calenberg . The emperor's move met with considerable opposition and the Reichstag did not ratify it straight away.
  • In 1697 August the Strong , Elector of Saxony, converted to Catholicism to improve his chances of being elected King of Poland .
  • The War of the Spanish Succession against France began in 1701. In 1702, Maximilian II Emanuel (1679–1726), Elector of Bavaria, sided with the French. He was supported by his brother Joseph Clemens von Bayern (1688–1723), the Elector and Archbishop of Cologne.
  • In 1703 the elector and archbishop of Cologne had to flee into French exile, where he stayed for the rest of the war. The electors of Bavaria and Cologne were stripped of their elections in 1706 for their struggle on the side of the enemy.
  • At a session of the Reichstag in 1708, the two missing electoral dignities were compensated for by the fact that the Duke of Braunschweig-Lüneburg became elector of Hanover and that the King of Bohemia was again allowed to participate in the elections.

Since the electors of Saxony and the Palatinate were now Catholic, the electors of Hanover and Brandenburg were the only Protestants on the body.

Election of 1742

Emperor Charles VII

The election took place on January 24, 1742 in Frankfurt am Main . The coronation followed in the same place on February 12, 1742.

Electors

Elected Charles VII , Elected Roman Emperor

This election took place during the Austrian War of Succession . For the first time in over three hundred years no Habsburg was elected emperor.

The electors of Bavaria and Cologne had their electoral dignity back after the end of the War of the Spanish Succession in 1714, so that there were now nine electors. After the death of Emperor Charles VI. On October 20, 1740, the Elector of Bavaria marched into Bohemia and had himself crowned king, thereby securing two electoral votes and excluding Maria Theresa , Queen of Hungary, from the election. Maria Theresa did not recognize the election until after the emperor's death.

Election of 1745

Emperor Franz I.

The election took place on September 13, 1745 in Frankfurt am Main . The coronation followed in the same place on October 4, 1745.

Electors

Elected Franz I , Elected Roman Emperor

This election also took place during the War of the Austrian Succession . Emperor Charles VII died on January 20, 1745. The imperial crown came back into Habsburg hands; the Count Palatine of the Rhine and the Elector of Brandenburg, who were Austria's opponents in the war, did not take part in the election.

Election of 1764

Joseph II, Roman king, later emperor

The election took place on March 27, 1764 in Frankfurt am Main . This was followed by the coronation in Frankfurt on April 3, 1764.

Electors

Elected Joseph II , King of Rome

The election of 1764 took place while Francis I was still alive to arrange his succession. The elected person was to bear the title of Roman King until the emperor's death and would then automatically become emperor without further election. In fact, Francis I died the following year, on August 18, 1765.

Election of 1790

Emperor Leopold II

The election took place on September 30, 1790 in Frankfurt am Main . The coronation followed in the same place on October 9, 1790.

Electors

Elected Leopold II (HRR) , Elected Roman Emperor

This election took place after the death of Emperor Joseph II on February 20, 1790.

Joseph's brother Leopold was elected when the French Revolution had already started but was still in its constitutional phase and did not seem to threaten the institutions of Europe. Leopold had been Grand Duke of Tuscany during the reign of his brother and had excelled as a reformer. His election made it possible for his reforms to be carried out to all Austrian and Hungarian regions and possibly to the entire Holy Roman Empire. The development of the situation in France and Leopold's early death thwarted this possibility.

Karl Theodor , Count Palatine of the Rhine, became Duke and Elector of Bavaria on December 30, 1777. According to the rules for the collapse of rulers, which had already been laid down, the electoral vote of the Palatinate was suppressed in favor of the Bavarian.

Election of 1792

Emperor Franz II

The election took place on July 5, 1792 in Frankfurt am Main . The coronation in Frankfurt took place on the third anniversary of the storm on the Bastille, on July 14, 1792.

Electors

Elected Franz II. , Elected Roman Emperor

Leopold died on March 1, 1792. Less than two months later, France declared war on Franz II, not as emperor (since he had not yet been elected), but as "King of Hungary". The electors met under the impression of the revolutionary situation in France. But there was a general belief that a united coalition could easily defeat the revolutionaries. Indeed, the wars following the French Revolution led to the extinction of the Holy Roman Empire .

Under the reign of Franz II, the cures of Cologne, Trier and the Palatinate were abolished. The Mainz cure passed to the diocese of Regensburg and its other secular power to the newly created Grand Duchy of Hesse (where the previous Archbishop and Elector of Mainz, Dalberg, became Bishop of Regensburg and Grand Duke of Hesse for life); new cures were created for the Duchy of Salzburg , the Duchy of Württemberg , the Margraviate of Baden and the Landgraviate of Hesse-Kassel (1803), Franz also accepted the title of hereditary Emperor of Austria (1804) and thanked him as Emperor of 1806 Holy Roman Empire. The empire ceased to exist and the newly designed college of electors never met.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Friedrich Walter, The choice of Maximilian II., Heidelberg, phil. Diss. 1892, p. 64.
  2. ↑ Recueil des principaux Traités d'Alliance, de Paix, de Trêve, de Neutralité, de Commerce, de Limites, d'Échange etc. conclus par les Puissances de l'Europe tant entre alles qu'avec les Puissances et États dans d ' autres parties du Monde depuis 1761 jusqu'à présent; Tiré des copies publiées par autorité, des meilleures collections particulières de traités et des auteurs les plus estimés, par Geo. Fréd. de Martens, seconde édit. revue et augmentée par le Bn. Charles de Martens. Tome VII. 1800 - 1803. À Gottingue, dans la librairie de Dietrich. 1831, Nº 49 , from vol. VII, p. 435: Recès principal de la députation extraordinaire de l'Empire [literally "main conclusion of the extraordinary Reichsdeputation", in modern parliamentary language "main recommendation of the special committee of the Reichstag"; the law that became a few months later with the signature of the emperor remains nameless as such] concernant les indemnités à regler [sic] d'après le traité de Luneville [sic] ; en date du 25 févr. 1803; avec la première déclaration des puissances médiatrices de 1802. à côté. , here in particular ib. § XXV. P. 483: Le siége [sic] de Mayence est transféré à l'eglise [sic] cathédale de Ratisbonne. Les dignités de prince - électeur - archi - chancelier de l'Empire, ainsi que celles d'archévêque [sic] métropolitain et de primat de Germanie, y demeureront unies à perpétuité. [...]