The Imperial Diet

© by V. Rozn (edited by Guy Stair Sainty)

The Imperial Diet consisted of three Councils:

Electors (Kurfürsten), Princes (Fürsten) and the Free or Imperial Cities (Freistädte oder Reichsstädte).

By the Golden (i.e. Imperial) Bull of 1356 the Council of Electors consisted of seven members:

King of Bohemia(Czechy)
Archbishop of Mainz
Archbishop of Trier
Archbishop of Cologne(Köln)
Duke of Saxony(-Wittenberg)
Markgraf of Brandenburg
Count Palatine of the Rhine;

These rulers had the right to elect the head of the Holy Roman Empire, the Emperor.

During the Thirty Years war (1618-1648) the Count Palatine of Rhine was deprived of his status of Elector which was conferred on his distant cousin the Duke of Bavaria. With the end of the War settled by the Treaty of Westphalia (1638), an 8th Electorate was created and given to the Count Palatine of the Rhine (1648). In 1692, the Duke of Brunswick-Hanover became the 9th member of the Council. In 1777, the dynasty of Bavaria died out and the Count Palatine of the Rhine inherited Bavaria, whereupon the Electoral voices (votes) of Bavaria and Palatinate were merged.

THE COUNCIL OF PRINCES (and COUNTS)