Comitial envoy
Komitialgesandter was the name given to an envoy from an imperial estate in the Holy Roman Empire at the Perpetual Diet of the Holy Roman Empire in Regensburg in the years from 1663 to 1806, when the princes were hardly represented themselves, but were represented by envoys.
The name goes back to the expression of the Comitia (plural of Latin comitium "place of assembly"), the name for a popular assembly in the ancient Roman Empire .
Formal requirements
Each comitial envoy needed a power of attorney from the Reichsstand sending him, which he had to present once to the Reichstag directorate before he could take his seat and vote - he had his legitimation.
Demarcation
The term Komitialgesandter (also: Comitialgesandter or Comitial-Gesandter) was used for envoys in the electoral college and imperial council . The term deputy was mostly used for envoys from the imperial counts .
Since maintaining a permanent representation at the permanent Reichstag was very costly, many smaller principalities commissioned the envoys of friendly princes to look after their interests. Comitial ambassadors were those who were delegated by a Reichsstand to represent their interests. If such a person took over the representation of another prince at the same time, he was not his comitial envoy, but his representative. For example, the Comitial Envoys of the Principality of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel were often also representatives of the Margraviate of Baden-Durlach .
Some imperial estates had several envoys at the Reichstag and used the term pricipal envoys for them . There were repeated discussions about the status of envoys from foreign powers who were also imperial estates. The King of Sweden was also Duke of Vor-Pomerania and thus imperial prince who was able to send a comitial envoy to Regensburg. But this could not also be the royal Swedish envoy.
Comitial delegates could come from all classes of the nobility, but could also be of bourgeois origin or come from the clergy.
literature
- Johann Jacob Moser : New German constitutional law. From the Teutschen Reichs-Tagen. First part , Franckfurt and Leipzig 1774, p. 160 Google digitized
- Brockhaus' Konversationslexikon , FA Brockhaus in Leipzig, Berlin and Vienna, 14th edition, 1894-1896, 10th volume: K - Lebensversicherung, p. 521
- Walter Fürnrohr: The Perpetual Reichstag in Regensburg. The Parliament of the Old Kingdom , Kallmünz 2 , 1987
- Gerhard Oestreich : Constitutional history from the end of the Middle Ages to the end of the old empire . In: Gebhardt Handbook of German History , ed. by Herbert Grundmann , Vol. 11. dtv, Munich, 1974 a. ö., ISBN 3-423-59040-8
- Anton Schindling : The beginnings of the everlasting Reichstag in Regensburg. Class representation and statecraft after the Peace of Westphalia . Philipp von Zabern, Mainz, 1991, ISBN 3-8053-1253-9 , ( contributions to the social and constitutional history of the Old Kingdom 11), ( publications of the Institute for European History Mainz, Department Universal History 143), (partly also: Würzburg, Univ., Habil.-Schr., 1982/83)