70 The Origins of the Thirty Years War and the Revolt in Bohemia, 1618
Trier, as well as the prince of the Rhine Palatinate, although the remain-
der of the electorate was not defined. In the 1220s the duke of Saxony
and the margrave of Brandenburg were added to this group, which held
its own vote first, although a wider election still followed in which all
the ecclesiastical and temporal princes took part. By the time of another
disputed election in 1257 this latter formality had lapsed, and the same
six, with the addition at this stage of the king of Bohemia, had gained
the right of election, while the other princes had been excluded from
the process. Even then the principle of majority voting had not been
accepted, and this, together with a clear set of rules, had to await the
Golden Bull of 1356.^5
The available information thus indicates dates by when these suc-
cessive developments had occurred, but not how or why, and nor
is it apparent why these particular princes and prelates became elec-
tors while others did not. The three archbishops were also the arch-
chancellors of the territories of the Empire in Germany, Italy and
Burgundy respectively, while the temporal electors each held one of
the ceremonial offices of state (steward, marshal, chamberlain and cup-
bearer), but how they acquired these offices, and whether they became
electors by virtue of them or vice versa, remains obscure. It should also
be noted that in this period the elected candidate officially became only
king of the Romans, not progressing to emperor until crowned by the
pope, which often happened years or decades later, and sometimes not
at all, as it involved a long and possibly hazardous journey to Rome.
Charles V was the last emperor actually crowned by the pope, in 1530,
and as this made no practical difference the term ‘emperor’ is used
generically below. By the early modern period the title of king of the
Romans had acquired a different significance, that of emperor-designate,
and emperors began to seek election for their sons in their own lifetime
as a means of securing the succession.
Bohemia moved closer to the centre of events in the fourteenth cen-
tury, after Johann of Luxembourg, son of the then emperor, married the
younger sister of the last Pˇremyslid king, a teenager who had been assas-
sinated four years previously. Johann secured the throne of Bohemia for
himself in 1311, and his son succeeded him in 1346, going on to become
Emperor Karl IV in 1355. In this capacity he issued the Golden Bull of
1356 which, among other things, formalised the rules for the appoint-
ment of future emperors, naturally including the king of Bohemia as one
of the electors. Karl made Prague his capital, and he is considered to be
one of the most capable of the medieval emperors. Unfortunately this
proved to be a high point for Bohemia, as although Karl’s son Wenzel