Golden Bull of 1356

Timeline

1. 1356Nuremberg · Holy Roman EmpireAfter his coronation in Rome, Charles IV convened the Imperial Diet at Nuremberg and on January 10, 1356 promulgated the first twenty-three chapters of the Golden Bull. The provisions detailed the seven electors' voting rights, their journey to Frankfurt and safe conduct, and the principle that a majority vote sufficed to elect the King of the Romans, aiming to reduce double elections and papal intervention.
2. 1356Metz · LorraineOn Christmas Day of the same year, Charles IV promulgated chapters twenty-four through thirty-one at the Imperial Diet in Metz, supplementing provisions on the indivisibility of the electors' territories, court etiquette, the sites of election and coronation, and the requirement that electors know foreign languages. The texts from both places were combined into a complete charter, with copies authenticated for each elector by the golden seal.
3. 1376–1378Frankfurt · Holy Roman EmpireIn 1376, Charles IV arranged for his son Wenzel to be elected King of the Romans according to the Bull's procedure, demonstrating that the seven-elector mechanism could operate smoothly within the dynasty. After Charles IV's death in 1378, Wenzel succeeded him by this law, consolidating both the electors' privileges and the imperial status of the Bohemian throne.
4. 1378–1806Holy Roman Empire · Holy Roman EmpireFor more than four centuries thereafter, imperial elections and the electors' privileges largely followed this Bull. It dispersed imperial authority among a few great princes, shaping the pluralistic pattern of German politics, and lost its constitutional force only with the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806.