What is the Electoral State

Also known as the Elector (German: kurfürst, plural: kurfürsten), it refers specifically to the princes of the Holy Roman Empire who have the right to elect the King of Germany and the Holy Roman Emperor.

Origins established.

In 1356, Emperor Charles IV of the Luxembourg dynasty, in order to seek the recognition of his son's succession to the throne by the princes, formulated the famous charter "Golden Seal Edict" in Nuremberg, officially confirming the legitimacy of the election of the emperor by the great feudal princes. The edict was based on the seven deadly sins of the world as a religious basis, establishing the seven electors of the empire. They were the three Electors of the Church

The Archbishop of Mainz, the Archbishop of Cologne, the Archbishop of Trier, and four secular electors: Duke of Saxony, Marquis of Brandenburg, Count of the Palatinate (or Count of the Rhine), and King of Bohemia. In fact, the person elected by the Seven Electors could only be called "King of Germany", and only the "King of Germany" after marching into Rome and being crowned by the Pope could use the title of "Holy Roman Emperor".

In 1623, during the Thirty Years' War, Ferdinand II transferred the right to vote for the counts of the Rhine to his cousin, the Duke of Bavaria; In the post-war Peace of Westphalia in 1648, an eighth Elector was established as a compensatory Earl of the Palace; Later, in 1777, the Count of the Rhine Palace became the heir, and his domain was transferred to the Bavarian Elector, and the electoral status was revoked.

In 1692, Emperor Leopold I granted Ernst August I, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg (more commonly known as Hanover), the ninth elector, but this was not recognized by the Reichstag until 1710.

In 1801, the Peace of Lüneville ceded the left bank of the Rhine to France, severing the electoral rights of Trier and Cologne and transferring the electorate of Mainz to the diocese of Regensburg.

In 1803, the Reichstag created four electorates for Württemberg, Baden, Hesse-Kassel and Salzburg, which were never exercised.

Demise In 1806, the Holy Roman Empire was dissolved by order of Napoleon, and the electorate lost its meaning. The Elector survived in the later German Empire as an honorary title, but it was far from what it was meant to be.

The Holy Roman Empire was nominally an empire, but in fact it had a strong ** control only in the early and middle Middle Ages, and for more than 400 years after the fourteenth century until its dissolution, it remained a loose union of feudal lords, and the title of "emperor" was not hereditary, but elective. The Golden Seal Edict of 1356 confirmed this system, in which the emperor was elected by the seven princes of the empire. These seven princes were the more powerful and prestigious powers within the empire, and were known as the Electors.

The emperor served for life, but after the emperor's death, the electors elected the next emperor. The electors are not static, and with the development of history, the electorate has declined and perished and been cut off, and there are also increases in seats for various reasons, roughly fluctuating between 7 and 9.

As for the Habsburgs, one of the most glorious aristocratic families in Europe, has monopolized the title of Holy Roman Emperor since 1438 (although it seems that the throne has always been passed down in the family, but in fact it is still the emperor elected by generations of electors, but the Habsburg family is the strongest and has been elected, and the succession to the throne has not been threatened by other candidates), and at its most glorious time, it ruled almost all of Central and Western Europe except France. The family lost all its territory in World War I, but the family itself survives to this day, and the current head of the family is the son of the last Austro-Hungarian crown prince.

Translated into Chinese, it is "Paladin", which is a transliteration, which means paladin, holy warrior, holy warrior.

Place names are generally transliterated and rarely translated, such as Salzburg, which means salt in German, and Habsburg, which means eagle.

By the way, "Palatin" itself is translated from English, and it is generally transliterated directly into the Palatinate (Pfalz) according to German, and "Paladin" is rarely used as a translation itself