princeelectors

Prince-electors, or Kurfürsten, were the princes within the Holy Roman Empire who held the exclusive right to elect the Emperor. The institution was formalized in the Golden Bull of 1356, which fixed the Empire’s Electoral College at seven electors: three ecclesiastical rulers—the Archbishop of Mainz, the Archbishop of Trier, and the Archbishop of Cologne—and four secular princes—the King of Bohemia, the Count Palatine of the Rhine, the Duke of Saxony, and the Margrave of Brandenburg. The electors convened to choose the King of the Romans, who would typically become Emperor.

The electors occupied a privileged position in Imperial governance. Their votes determined the succession of the throne, and they acted as a counterbalance to the Emperor within the constitutional framework of the Empire. The electors generally belonged to high-ranking territorial rulers, many wielding both secular authority over their lands and, in some cases, control over ecclesiastical territories.

Over the late medieval and early modern periods, the composition of the electors remained seven, though the fortunes and borders of their realms shifted due to dynastic marriages, inheritances, and the broader political transformations of the era. The system persisted until the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806 following the Napoleonic Wars, after which the election mechanism ceased to function.

Today, the term prince-electors denotes a historical status central to studies of the Empire’s constitutional order, illustrating how dynastic power, religious authority, and political influence were organized to determine imperial succession.