Prince-elector
Channel: 宇宙のすべての知識 プリンシピア
Date: 16/02/2019

Prince-elector, by Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14056 / CC BY SA 3.0

#Princes_of_the_Holy_Roman_Empire
#German_noble_titles
#Electors_of_the_Holy_Roman_Empire
#Electoral_colleges
#Imperial_election_(Holy_Roman_Empire)
Prince-elector

The Prince-electors ( pl. "Kurfürsten", , ) of the Holy Roman Empire, or Electors for short, were the members of the electoral college that elected the Holy Roman Emperor.

From the 13th century onwards, the Prince-Electors had the privilege of electing the King of the Romans, who would be crowned by the Pope as Holy Roman Emperor. Charles V was the last to be a crowned Emperor (elected 1519, crowned 1530); his successors were elected Emperors directly by the electoral college, each being titled "Elected Emperor of the Romans" (; ). In practice, every emperor from 1440 onwards (except for Charles VII and Francis I) came from the Austrian House of Habsburg, and the Electors merely ratified the Habsburg succession.

The dignity of Elector carried great prestige and was considered to be second only to that of King or Emperor. The Electors had exclusive privileges that were not shared with the other princes of the Empire, and they continued to hold their original titles alongside that of Elector. The heir apparent to a secular prince-elector was known as an electoral prince ().

The German element "Kur-" is based on the Middle High German irregular verb "kiesen" and is related etymologically to the English word "choose" (cf. Old English "ceosan" , participle "coren" 'having been chosen' and Gothic "kiusan"). In English, the "s"/"r" mix in the Germanic verb conjugation has been regularized to "s" throughout, while German retains the "r" in "Kur-". There is also a modern German verb "küren" which means 'to choose' in a ceremonial sense. "Fürst" is German for 'prince', but while the German language distinguishes between the head of a principality ("der Fürst") and the son of a monarch ("der Prinz"), English uses "prince" for ...