Imperial Chancellor System

Timeline

1. c. 800–900Aachen court · Carolingian EmpireCharlemagne and his successors established court notaries and chancellors (cancellarius) responsible for drafting decrees, managing the imperial seal, and handling diplomatic documents, laying the foundation of the medieval imperial documentary administrative tradition.
2. c. 950–1100Mainz, Cologne, Trier · RhinelandThe Ottonian emperors granted the title of Imperial Chancellor to the archbishops of Mainz, Cologne, and Trier, creating an arrangement in which ecclesiastical princes controlled imperial documents and the seal; the chancery became the hub of imperial administration.
3. c. 1171–1180Mainz and the imperial itinerant court · RhinelandFrederick I relied on the chancery headed by the Archbishop of Mainz to handle documents on the Lombard Wars, imperial diet decrees, and princely diplomacy; during the emperor's Italian campaigns the chancellor system sustained the empire's day-to-day administration.
4. c. 1350–1806Vienna and Regensburg · Holy Roman EmpireFrom the late Middle Ages the imperial chancery's division of labor grew ever finer, with vice-chancellors and departmental notaries; after the empire's dissolution in 1806 the chancellor system ended together with the Holy Roman Empire.