The Golden Bull of 1356

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Count Palatine of the Rhine, Duke Friedrich the Fair of Austria, Duke of Bavaria, Emperor Charles IV, Emperor Ludwig IV, Holy Roman Empire, House of Habsburg, House of Wittelsbach, Prince-Elector, The Golden Bull of 1356

The Golden Bull of 1356 was a decree issued by the Imperial Diet of the Holy Roman Empire at Nuremberg and Metz (Diet of Metz, 1356/57) headed by Emperor Charles IV which fixed, for a period of more than four hundred years, important aspects of the constitutional structure of the Holy Roman Empire. It was named the Golden Bull for the golden seal it carried.

Though the election of the King of the Romans by the chief ecclesiastical and secular princes of the Holy Roman Empire was well established, disagreements about the process and papal involvement had repeatedly resulted in controversies, most recently in 1314 when Ludwig IV of Bavaria and Friedrich of Austria had been elected by opposing sets of electors.

Ludwig, who had eventually subdued his rival’s claim on the battlefield, made a first attempt to clarify the process in the Declaration of Rhense of 1338, which renounced any papal involvement and had restricted the right to choose a new king to the Prince-Electors. The Golden Bull, promulgated by Ludwig’s s successor and rival, Charles IV, was more precise in several ways.

Prince-Electors

Firstly, the Bull explicitly named the seven Prince-Electors who were to choose the King and also defined the Reichserzämter, their (largely ceremonial) offices at court:

Secondly, the principle of majority voting was explicitly stated for the first time in the Empire. The Bull prescribed that four (out of seven) votes would always suffice to elect a new King; as a result, three Electors could no longer block the election. Thirdly, the Electoral principalities were declared indivisible, and succession to them was regulated to ensure that the votes would never be divided.

Finally, the Bull cemented a number of privileges for the Electors, confirming their elevated role in the Empire. It is therefore also a milestone in the establishment of largely independent states in the Empire, a process to be concluded only centuries later, notably with the Peace of Westphalia of 1648.

Codification of Prince-Electors, though largely based on precedence, was not uncontroversial, especially in regard to the two chief rivals of the ruling House of Luxembourg:

The House of Wittelsbach ruled the Duchy of Bavaria as well as the County Palatinate. Dynastic divisions had caused the two territories to devolve upon distinct branches of the house. The Treaty of Pavia, which in 1329 restored the Palatinate branch, stipulated that Bavaria and the Palatinate would alternate in future elections, but the Golden Bull fixed the electoral vote upon the Palatinate and not upon Bavaria, partly because Charles’s predecessor and rival Ludwig IV was of that branch.

Ludwig IV’s sons, Ludwig V and Stephan II of Bavaria, protested this omission, feeling that Bavaria, one of the original duchies of the realm and their family’s chief territory for over 170 years, deserved primacy over the Palatinate. The omission of Bavaria from the list of Prince-Electors also allowed Bavaria, which had only recently been reunited, to fall into dynastic fragmentation again.

Brandenburg was in the hands of the Bavarian Wittelsbachs (though held by a junior member of the house) in 1356; they eventually lost the territory to the Luxemburgs in 1373, leaving the Bavarian branch without representation in the electoral college until 1623.

The House of Habsburg, long-time rivals of the Luxembourgs, were completely omitted from the list of Prince-Electors, leading to decreased political influence and dynastic fragmentation. In retaliation, Duke Rudolph IV, one of the dukes of fragmented Austria, had the Privilegium Maius forged, a document supposedly issued by Emperor Friedrich I Barbarossa.

The document gave Austria – elevated to the position of an Archduchy – special privileges, including primogeniture. While ignored by the Emperor and other princes at the time, the document was eventually ratified when Friedrich of Austria himself became Emperor in the 15th century. Still, the Habsburgs remained without an electoral vote until they succeeded to the Kingdom of Bohemia in 1526.

Procedures

The bull regulated the whole election process in great detail, listing explicitly where, when, and under which circumstances what should be done by whom, not only for the prince-electors but also (for example) for the population of Frankfurt, where the elections were to be held, and also for the counts of the regions the prince-electors had to travel through to get there.

The decision to hold the elections in Frankfurt reflected a traditional feeling dating from days of the Kingdom of East Francia that both election and coronation ought to take place on Frankish soil. However, the election location was not the only specified location; the bull specified that the coronation would take place in Aachen, and Nuremberg would be the place where the first diet of a reign should be held. The elections were to be concluded within thirty days; failing that, the bull prescribed that the Prince-Electors were to receive only bread and water until they had decided.

Besides regulating the election process, the chapters of the Golden Bull contained many minor decrees. For instance, it also defined the order of marching when the Emperor was present, both with and without his insignia.

A relatively major decision was made in chapter 15, where Charles IV outlawed any conjurationes, confederationes, and conspirationes, meaning in particular the city alliances (Städtebünde), but also other communal leagues that had sprung up through the communal movement in mediaeval Europe. Most Städtebünde were subsequently dissolved, sometimes forcibly, and were re-founded, their political influence was much reduced. Thus the Golden Bull also strengthened the nobility in general to the detriment of the cities.

The pope’s involvement with the Golden Bull of 1356 was basically nonexistent, which was significant in the history of relations between the popes and the emperors. When Charles IV laid down procedure for electing a King of the Romans, he mentioned nothing about receiving papal confirmation of the election. However, Pope Innocent VI did not protest this because he needed Charles’s support against the Visconti. Pope Innocent continued to have good relations with Charles IV after the Golden Bull of 1356 until the former’s death in 1362.

The Privilegium Maius & The Archduchy of Austria

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Archduchess Anna of Austria, Archduchess of Austria, Archduchy of Austria, Archduke of Austria, Duke Rudolph IV of Austria, Emperor Charles IV, Emperor Friedrich III, House of Habsburg, Privilegium maius, The Holy Roman Empire

The Privilegium Maius was a medieval document forged in 1358 or 1359 at the behest of Duke Rudolph IV of Austria (1358–65) of the House of Habsburg. It was essentially a modified version of the Privilegium Minus issued by Emperor Friedrich I Barbarossa in 1156, which had elevated the former March of Austria into a duchy. In a similar way, the Privilegium maius elevated the duchy of Austria into an Archduchy of Austria.

The privileges described in the document had great influence on the Austrian political landscape, and created a unique connection between the House of Habsburg and Austria.

Rudolph IV, Duke of Austria

Background

The House of Habsburg had gained rulership of the Duchy of Austria in 1282. Rudolph IV (1339–1365) attempted to restore the Habsburg influence on the European political scene by trying to build relations with Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV (of Luxembourg) and increasing the respect of the Austrian rulers.

However, Rudolph IV did not belong to the seven Imperial Prince-Electors, who—as dictated by the Golden Bull of 1356—had the power to choose the Emperor. In the same way Charles IV had made Prague the center of his rule, Rudolph IV did the same for Vienna, giving it special privileges, launching construction projects and founding the University of Vienna.

All this aimed at increasing the legitimacy and influence of the House and its Austrian lands. For this purpose, in the winter of 1358/1359, Rudolph IV ordered the creation of a forged document called Privilegium maius (“the greater privilege”).

Document

The Privilegium maius consists of five forged deeds, some of which purported to have been issued by Julius Caesar and Nero to the historic Roman province of Noricum, which was roughly coterminous with the modern Austrian borders. Though purposefully modeled on the Privilegium minus, the original of which “got lost” at the same time, the bundle was already identified as a fake by contemporaries such as the Italian scholar Petrarch.

In the Privilegium Maius, Rudolph IV declared Austria an “archduchy”, endowed with rights similar to those of the prince-electors of the Holy Roman Empire such as:

Inseparability of the territory

Automatic inheritance of the first-born (primogeniture), later extended to female heirs in the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713 in favour of Archduchess Maria Theresa.

Independent jurisdiction and legislature, without any possibility to appeal to the Emperor (privilegium de non evocando)

Permission to display certain symbols of rule
Rudolf also created the title Pfalzerzherzog (“Archduke Palatine”), similar to the Elector Palatine of the Rhine, the holder of an electoral vote.

The first Habsburg ruler who actually used the title of an archduke was Ernst of Iron, ruler of Inner Austria from 1406 to 1424. From the 15th century onward, all princes of the Habsburg dynasty were called Erzherzöge (Archduke).

Effects

Emperor Charles IV refused to confirm the Privilegium maius, along with the refusal to recognize the title, as did his immediate successors. However, Emperor Charles IV did accepted some claims. The discoverer of the forgery was his advisor, the poet and scholar Petrarch.

Holy Roman Emperor Friedrich III, Duke of Austria

However, Emperor Friedrich III, a scion of the House of Habsburg, having become Holy Roman Emperor, was able to confirm the document and made it part of imperial law, thus making fiction become fact.

From then on, the status as claimed by the document became widely accepted. Emperor Friedrich III also extended the Privilegium Maius by granting the power of ennoblement for his family as hereditary rulers of Austria (this power was normally reserved for the emperor). Thus, the act of confirmation by Emperor Friedrich III was what elevated the House of Habsburg to a special rank within the Empire.

The Privilegium Maius had great influence on the Austrian political landscape. The Habsburg Archduke arrogated an almost king-like position, and demonstrated this to outsiders through the usage of special insignia.

The Habsburgs gained a new foundation for their rule in these lands; in a way, the House of Habsburg and Austria became a single unit. The family subsequently published special editions of the documents, and forbade all discussion of their authenticity.

With the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, the Privilegium maius finally lost its meaning. In 1852, it was proven a forgery by historian Wilhelm Wattenbach.

Although Emperor Friedrich III recognized Privilegium Maius, he himself used just “Duke of Austria”, never Archduke, until his death in 1493. The title was first granted to Friedrich III’s younger brother, Albrecht VI of Austria (died 1463), who used it at least from 1458.

In 1477, Emperor Friedrich III granted the title Archduke to his first cousin Sigismund of Austria, ruler of Further Austria. Emperor Friedrich III’s son and heir, the future Emperor Maximilian I, apparently only started to use the title after the death of his wife Mary of Burgundy in 1482, as Archduke never appears in documents issued jointly by Maximilian and Mary as rulers in the Low Countries (where Maximilian is still titled “Duke of Austria”). The title appears first in documents issued under the joint rule of Maximilian and Philipp (his under-age son) in the Low Countries.

Archduchess Anna of Austria, Queen of Spain

Archduke was initially borne by those dynasts who ruled a Habsburg territory, i.e., only by males and their consorts, appanages being commonly distributed to cadets. These “junior” archdukes did not thereby become independent hereditary rulers, since all territories remained vested in the Austrian crown.

Occasionally a territory might be combined with a separate gubernatorial mandate ruled by an Archducal cadet. From the 16th century onward, Archduke and its female form, Archduchess, came to be used by all the members of the House of Habsburg (e.g., Queen Marie Antoinette of France was born Archduchess Maria Antonia of Austria.