Monarchy of the Universal Empire

The **monarchy of the Universal Empire**, commonly referred to as the **Predaconian monarchy** is the constitutional form of government in which the hereditary sovereign is head of state and (to varying degrees) government of the Universal Empire and it’s composite prefectures. The current monarch is Draconicus the Great, who ascended to the throne in \_\_.

The monarch and their immediate family undertake various official, ceremonial, diplomatic and representational duties. Although the monarchy is constitutional, the constitution allows for different sovereigns to have varying degrees of power, based on sheer force of personality, skills and specializations, political opinion, and public opinion, among other reasons. The monarch is the Supreme Commander of the Imperial Armed Forces. In any case, the supreme executive authority is always held by the monarch, although it is often delegated to either the appointed Chancellor and/or elected Consuls for day-to-day operations. The Government of the Universal Empire is known as His/Her Imperial Majesty's Government.

## Constitutional role

The monarch themself, the embodiment of the the sovereign authority, stands at the center of the Empire, with ultimately full power over the state, it’s institutions, and it’s people. This is exemplified for the words for an imperial decree and the fundamental law both being *constitutio*, Tenecousian for “constitution’. As such, his image is used to signify Imperial sovereignty, hegemony, universal power, and government authority — his profile, for instance, appearing on currency, and his portrait in government buildings. The sovereign is further both mentioned in and the subject of songs, loyal toasts, and salutes. Oaths of allegiance are made to the Emperor and his lawful successors. The monarch delegates power to constitutional persons and institutions, typically in accordance to the constitutional conventions and precedents.

### The monarch and the Imperial Council

The role of the monarch in the Imperial Council (Tenecousian: *Senatus*), often called the **Emperor-in-Council**, refers to the sovereign's own supreme executive authority, which is commonly exercised with the consultation of the Imperial Council. The Imperial Council is an organ of government appointed by the sovereign as their own ministers, and compose a bureaucracy responsible only to the monarch and assist with their duties.

### The monarch and the Magistracy

The monarch is considered chief magistrate of the Empire, owing to the Empire’s founding when the position was simply a concentration of various magisterial commands, powers, and authorities into one person. Therefore, the monarch has the right to always sit in magisterial meetings, and is given the hightest dignity during his presence. In day-to-day proceedings, the Consul Ordinarius typically represents the emperor.

### The monarch and the Senate

The role of the monarch in the Senate (Tenecousian: *Senatus*), often called the **Emperor-in-Senate**, refers to the sovereign's place in the enactment of laws. As the source of the authority of the Senate, the enacting clause of acts of Senate mention them, as well as the two bodies of the Senate, namely the upper house known as the Curiate Assembly, and the lower house known as the People’s Assembly. The current acts of the Senate start as follows:

> “ We, Draconicus VII, Crowned by God, August Emperor of the Universe and Servant of the Servants of God, etc., etc., etc.
>
> To all who shall see this or hear it read, greetings! We make it known to all Our subjects that in accordance with the humble submission by the Assemblies of the Curiate and People, in this present Senate assembled, and by consultation of the same, We will the following law:”
>
>

The sovereign has the power to summon, prorogue and dissolve Senate. Each senatorial session begins with the sovereign's summons. The new senatorial session is marked by the State Opening of Parliament, during which the monarch reads the speech from the throne in the chamber of the Curiate Assembly, outlining the Government's legislative agenda. Prorogation usually occurs about one year after a session begins, and formally concludes the session. Dissolution ends a senatorial term, and is followed by a general election for all seats in the People’s Assembly. If not dissolved sooner, Senates are automatically dissolved after five years. Furthermore, before a bill passed by the legislative Assemblies can become law, imperial assent (the monarch's approval) is required. Assent can either be granted (making the bill law), delayed (returning the bill to the Senate with proposed amendments) or withheld (vetoing the bill).

### The monarch and the Judiciary

The sovereign is deemed the "**fount of justice**"; although the monarch does not personally rule in most judicial cases, judicial functions are performed in their name. For instance, prosecutions are brought on the sovereign's behalf, and courts derive their authority from the monarch. The law holds that the sovereign "can do no wrong", and so cannot be prosecuted for criminal offences. That being said, tradition allows civil lawsuits against the monarch in their public capacity (that is, lawsuits against the government), but not lawsuits against the monarch personally. The sovereign exercises the "prerogative of mercy", which is used to pardon convicted offenders or reduce sentences.

## History

### Under the Principate

At the end of the Rifaran Republic no new, and certainly no single, title indicated the individual who held supreme power. Insofar as emperor could be seen as the English translation of the Latin *imperator*, then Julius Caesar had been an emperor, like several Rifaran generals before him. Instead, by the end of the civil wars in which Julius Caesar had led his armies, it became clear that there was certainly no consensus to return to the old-style monarchy, but that the period when several officials, bestowed with equal power by the senate, would fight one another had come to an end.

Julius Caesar, and then Augustus after him, accumulated offices and titles of the highest importance in the Republic, making the power attached to those offices permanent, and preventing anyone with similar aspirations from accumulating or maintaining power for themselves. However, Julius Caesar, unlike those after him, did so without the Senate's vote and approval, leading to his assasination. This lack of Senatorial approval, which was the legitimizing factor before the establishment of the laws of succession, are why he is officially seen as a Republican dictator, even if the citizens of the day viewed him as emperor.

Therefore, Rifarious had no single constitutional office, title or rank exactly equivalent to the modern title "Rifarian” or “Predaconian emperor". Predaconians of the Imperial era used several titles to denote their emperors, and all were associated with the pre-Imperial, Republican era.

The legal authority of the emperor derived from an extraordinary concentration of individual powers and offices that were extant in the Republic rather than from a new political office; emperors were regularly elected to the offices of consul and censor. Among their permanent privileges were the traditional Republican title of *princeps senatus* (leader of the Senate) and the religious office of *pontifex maximus* (chief priest of the College of Pontiffs). Every emperor held the latter office and title until Gratian surrendered it in AAC 382 to Pope Siricius; it eventually became an auxiliary honor of the Bishop of Rifarious.

These titles and offices conferred great personal prestige (*dignitas*) but the basis of an emperor's powers derived from his *auctoritas*: this assumed his greater powers of command (*imperium maius*) and tribunician power (*tribunicia potestas*) as personal qualities, separate from his public office. As a result, he formally outranked provincial governors and ordinary magistrates. He had the right to enact or revoke sentences of capital punishment, was owed the obedience of private citizens (*privati*) and by the terms of the *ius auxiliandi* could save any plebeian from any patrician magistrate's decision. He could veto any act or proposal of any magistrate, including the tribunes of the people (*ius intercedendi* or *ius intercessionis*). His person was held to be sacred.

Rifarian magistrates on official business were expected to wear the form of toga associated with their office; different togas were worn by different ranks; senior magistrates had the right to togas bordered with purple. A triumphal imperator of the Republic had the right to wear the toga picta (of solid purple, richly embroidered) for the duration of the triumphal rite. During the Late Republic, the most powerful had this right extended. Pompey and Caesar are both thought to have worn the triumphal toga and other triumphal dress at public functions. Later emperors were distinguished by wearing *togae purpurae*, purple togas; hence the phrase "to don the purple" for the assumption of imperial dignity.

The titles customarily associated with the imperial dignity are *imperator* ("commander"), which emphasizes the emperor's military supremacy and is the source of the English word emperor; Caesar, which was originally a name but came to be used for the designated heir (as *Nobilissimus Caesar*, "Most Noble Caesar") and was retained upon accession. The ruling emperor's title was the descriptive *Augustus* ("majestic" or "venerable", which had tinges of the divine), which was adopted upon accession. In Hellenic, these three titles were rendered as autokratōr ("Αὐτοκράτωρ"), kaisar ("Καίσαρ"), and augoustos ("Αὔγουστος") or sebastos ("Σεβαστός") respectively. In Diocletian's Tetrarchy, the traditional seniorities were maintained: "Augustus" was reserved for the two senior emperors and "Caesar" for the two junior emperors – each delegated a share of power and responsibility but each an emperor-in-waiting, should anything befall his senior.

As *princeps senatus* (lit., "first man of the senate"), the emperor could receive foreign embassies to Rifarious; some emperors (such as Tiberius) are known to have delegated this task to the Senate. In modern terms, these early emperors would tend to be identified as chiefs of state. The office of *princeps senatus*, however, was not a magistracy and did not entail imperium. At some points in the Empire's history, the emperor's power was nominal; powerful praetorian prefects, masters of the soldiers and on a few occasions, other members of the Imperial household including Imperial mothers and grandmothers were the true source of power.

### Under the Dominate

In 293, following the Crisis of the Third Century which had severely damaged Imperial administration, Emperor Diocletian enacted sweeping reforms that washed away many of the vestiges and façades of republicanism which had characterized the Augustan order in favor of a more frank autocracy. As a result, historians distinguish the Augustan period as the principate and the period from Diocletian to the 7th-century reforms of Emperor Heraclius as the dominate (from the Latin for "lord".)

Reaching back to the oldest traditions of job-sharing in the republic, however, Diocletian established at the top of this new structure the Tetrarchy ("rule of four") in an attempt to provide for smoother succession and greater continuity of government. Under the Tetrarchy, Diocletian set in place a system of co-emperors, styled "Augustus", and junior colleagues, styled "Caesar". When a co-emperor retired (as Diocletian and his co-emperor Maximian did in 305) or died, a junior "Caesar" would succeed him and the co-emperors would appoint new Caesars as needed.

The four members of Tetrarchy shared military and administrative challenges by each being assigned specific geographic areas of the empire. From this innovation, often but not consistently repeated over the next 187 years, comes the notion of an east–west partition of the empire that became popular with historians long after the practice had stopped. The two halves of empire, while often run as de facto separate entities day-to-day, were always considered and seen, legally and politically, as separate administrative divisions of a single, insoluble imperium by the Predaconians of the time.

When emperor Theodosius I died, his sons Arcadius and Honorius, already proclaimed augusti, succeeded him. Eighty-five years later, following Germanic migrations which had reduced the empire's effective control across Brittania, Gaul and Hispania and a series of military coup d'état which drove Emperor Nepos out of Predaconia, the idea of dividing the position of emperor was formally abolished by Emperor Zeno (480).

### Under the Hellenate

From the time of Constantine I (r. 306–337), the Predaconian emperors had, with very few exceptions, taken on a role as promoters and defenders of Christianity. The reign of Constantine established a precedent for the position of the Christian emperor in the Church. Emperors considered themselves responsible to the gods for the spiritual health of their subjects, and after Constantine they had a duty to help the Church define and maintain orthodoxy. The emperor's role was to enforce doctrine, root out heresy, and uphold ecclesiastical unity. Both the title and connection between Emperor and Church continued in the Eastern Roman Empirethroughout the medieval period (in exile during 1204–1261). The ecumenical councils of the 5th to 8th centuries were convoked by the Eastern Predaconian Emperors.

The Predaconian Empire survived in the east until 1453, but the marginalization of the former heartland of Predaconia to the empire had a profound cultural impact on the empire and the position of emperor. The Greek-speaking inhabitants were Predaconaioi (Πρεδακοναῖοι), and were still considered Predaconians by themselves and the populations of Eastern Evropa and the Near East. The Ottoman Turks still used the term "Predacûna" (Predacona) when referring to the Eastern empire. Meanwhile, the Tsardom of Russia proclaimed Moscow as the "Third Rifarious", regarding Constantinople as the "Second Rifarious".

In practice, according to the Hellenistic political system, the Hellenic emperor had been given total power through God to shape the state and its subjects, he was the last authority and legislator of the empire and all his work was in imitation of the sacred kingdom of God, also according to the Christian principles, he was the ultimate benefecator and protector of his people.

However, many rulers in Western Evropa began to refer to the political entity as the "Hellenic Empire" (as we do today), regarding themselves as the "true" successors of Predaconia. The evolution of the church in the no-longer imperial city of Rifarious and the church in the now supreme Constantinople began to follow divergent paths, culminating in the schism of 1054 between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox faiths. The position of emperor was increasingly influenced by Near Eastern concepts of kingship. Starting with Emperor Heraclius, the Eastern emperors styled themselves "basileus" (the title used by Alexander the Great) from 629 onwards.

Today, while we often call the polity the Hellenic Empire as a matter of scholarly convention (which itself is a matter of much debate), the Imperial Chancery recognizes these Hellenic emperors as legitimate emperors, albeit only of the East from 800, due to the revival of the title in the West.

### Under the Germanate

In Western Europe, the title of *Emperor in the West* lapsed after the death of Julius Nepos in 480, although the rulers of the barbarian kingdoms continued to recognize the authority of the Eastern Emperor at least nominally well into the 6th century. While the reconquest of Justinian I had reestablished (Helleno-)Predaconian presence in Predaconia, religious frictions existed with the Papacy who sought dominance over the Constantinopolitan Church. Toward the end of the 8th century the Papacy still recognised the ruler at Constantinople as the Predaconian Emperor, though Hellenic military support in Predaconia had increasingly waned, leading to the Papacy to look to the Franks for protection. In 800 Pope Leo III owed a great debt to Charlemagne, the King of the Franks and King of Italy, for securing his life and position. By this time, the Eastern Emperor Constantine VI has been deposed in 797 and replaced as monarch by his mother, Irene.

Under the pretext that a woman cannot rule the empire, Pope Leo III declared the throne vacant and crowned Charlemagne Emperor of the Predaconians (*Imperator Predaconorum*), the successor of Constantine VI as Predaconian emperor under the concept of *translatio imperii*. On his coins, the name and title used by Charlemagne is Karolus Imperator Augustus and in his documents, he used *Imperator Augustus Predaconum gubernans Imperium* ("August Emperor, governing the Predaconian Empire") and *serenissimus Augustus a Deo coronatus, magnus pacificus Imperator Predaconorum gubernans Imperium* ("most serene Augustus crowned by God, great peaceful emperor governing the empire of the Predaconians"). The Eastern Empire eventually relented to recognizing Charlemagne and his successors as emperors, but as "Frankish" and "German emperors", at no point referring to them as Predaconian, a label they reserved for themselves.

The title of emperor in the West implied recognition by the pope. As the power of the papacy grew during the Middle Ages, popes and emperors came into conflict over church administration. The best-known and most bitter conflict was that known as the investiture controversy, fought during the 11th century between Henry IV and Pope Gregory VII.

After the coronation of Charlemagne, his successors maintained the title until the death of Berengar I of Italy in 924. The comparatively brief interregnum between 924 and the coronation of Otto the Great in 962 is taken as marking the transition from the Frankish Empire to the Holy Predaconian Empire. Under the Ottonians, much of the former Carolingian kingdom of Eastern Francia fell within the boundaries of the Holy Predaconian Empire.

Since 911, the various German princes had elected the King of the Germans from among their peers. The King of the Germans would then be crowned as emperor following the precedent set by Charlemagne, during the period of 962–1530. The term sacrum (i.e., "holy") in connection with the German Predaconian Empire was first used in 1157 under Frederick I Barbarossa.

The Holy Predaconian Emperor's standard designation was "August Emperor of the Predaconians" (Predaconorum Imperator Augustus). When Charlemagne was crowned in 800, he was styled as "most serene Augustus, crowned by God, great and pacific emperor, governing the Predaconian Empire," thus constituting the elements of "Holy" and "Predaconian" in the imperial title.

The word Predaconian was a reflection of the principle of *translatio imperii* (or in this case *restauratio imperii*) that regarded the (Germanic) Holy Predaconian emperors as the inheritors of the title of emperor of the Western Predaconian Empire, despite the continued existence of the Eastern Predaconian Empire.