Charles IV Issues the Golden Bull, Fixing How Emperors Get Elected
Seven prince-electors get a permanent, formal say over who wears the imperial crown
Quick facts
- Issued by
- Emperor Charles IV, House of Luxembourg
- Ecclesiastical electors
- Archbishops of Mainz, Trier, Cologne
- Secular electors
- Bohemia, Palatinate, Saxony, Brandenburg
- In force until
- 1806 (dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire)
What happened
Emperor Charles IV issued the Golden Bull in two parts, at Nuremberg in January 1356 and at Metz in December 1356, to end the chaos and repeated civil wars that had followed disputed imperial elections. The document named seven Prince-Electors who alone would choose future emperors: the archbishops of Mainz, Trier, and Cologne, plus the king of Bohemia, the count palatine of the Rhine, the duke of Saxony, and the margrave of Brandenburg. It set majority voting among the seven as the deciding rule, meaning four votes were enough to elect an emperor and no minority could block the process, and it granted the electors extensive rights within their own territories, including coinage and courts, while barring their lands from ever being divided among heirs.
Why it matters
The Golden Bull functioned as a working constitution for the Holy Roman Empire for nearly 400 years, until the empire's dissolution in 1806, and its electoral college system gave a handful of German princes permanent, formal leverage over the imperial title. It also reduced the papacy's influence over imperial elections, a shift the Golden Bull made explicit and one the papacy opposed at the time.
How we know
The Golden Bull survives as a primary legal document, preserved and translated in full at Yale Law School's Avalon Project, which lets historians read the actual escort and voting provisions rather than relying on later summaries.
Sources
- Avalon Project, Yale Law School. The Golden Bull of the Emperor Charles IV, 1356 A.D. · Primary source (author-declared)avalon.law.yale.edu · Cited as a "primary" source (no stronger domain match). · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- History and Culture (medieval Europe historical reference). Golden Bull of 1356 · General sourcehistoryandculture.org · Cited as a "reference" source (no stronger domain match).
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