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Electoral College

Electoral college

An electoral college is a set of electors who are empowered as a deliberative body to elect someone to a particular office. Often these electors represent different organization or entity with each organization or entity represented by a particular number of electors or with votes weighted in a particular way. Many times, though, the electors are simply important persons whose wisdom, it is hoped, would provide a better choice than a larger body.

Beginnings of Electoral Colleges

Electoral colleges are an ancient institution. Ancient Germanic law stated that the Germanic king led only with the support of his nobles. Thus Pelayo needed to be elected by his Visigothic nobles before becoming king of Asturias, and so did with the Frankish nobles in order to become the first Carolingian king. While most other Germanic nations went to a strictly hereditary system by the first millennium, the Holy Roman Empire could not, and the King of the Romans, who would become Holy Roman Emperor or at least Emperor-elect, was selected by the college of prince-electors from the late Middle Ages until 1806. Christianity also used electoral colleges in ancient times, but not until late antiquity. Initially, the entire membership of a particular church (both the clergy and laity) elected the bishop/chief presbyter. However, due to various reasons, such as reducing the influence of the state in church matters or removing the laity's voice in the matter, the electing power moved to the clergy alone and then, in the case of the Western Church, to only a college of the canons of the cathedral church. In the Pope's case, the system of people and clergy was eventually replaced by a college of the important clergy of Rome, which eventually evolved into the College of Cardinals. Since 1059, it has had exclusive authority over papal elections.

Modern Electoral Colleges

papal election Some nations with complex regional electorates elect a head of state by means of an electoral college rather than a direct popular election. The prime example is the United States, where an executive president is elected by an Electoral College, made up of electors representing the 50 states. Each state has a number of electors equivalent to its total Congressional representation, with the non-state District of Columbia receiving three electors. The electors generally cast their votes for the winner of the popular vote in their respective states. See U.S. Electoral College for details. Similar systems are used or have been used in other presidential elections around the world. For example, the President of Finland was elected by an electoral college between 1919 and 1987. The short-lived Confederate States of America provided for election of its president in virtually the same manner as set forth in the U.S. constitution. In Germany and India, the members of the lower house of Parliament together with an equal number of members from the state parliaments elect the President of the Republic, whilst in Italy the presidential electoral college is composed of the members of both houses of Parliament and three members elected by each of the regional assemblies. Another type of electoral college is used by the British Labour Party to choose its leader. The college consists of three equally weighted sections: the votes of Labour MPs and MEPs; the votes of affiliated trade unions and socialist societies; and the votes of individual members of Constituency Labour Parties. Nations with Electoral College systems outside the United States include Brazil, Estonia, France (for the Senate), Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Kazakhstan, South Korea, Madagascar, Nepal, Pakistan, and Trinidad and Tobago. Ecclesiastical electoral colleges abound in modern times, especially among Protestant and Eastern rite churches. In the Eastern rite churches, all the bishops of an autocephalous church elect successor bishops, thus serving as an electoral college for all the episcopal sees.

Elector

An elector can be:
- In the "Holy Roman Empire of German Nation", the collegiate of seven Electors (eight since 1648) (Kurfürsten) consisted of those lay or clerical princes who had the right to vote in the election of the king or Holy Roman Emperor; see prince-elector.
- Specifically in the United States, electors are delegates who have the right to vote in the U.S. Electoral College for the President of the United States.
- Generally, any voter can be called an elector; collectively such electors may comprise an electorate. The term "voter" to represent the general voting public is commonly used in American English, whereas the term "elector" is commonly used in Australian English.
- The title of a science fiction novella written by Charles Stross that appeared in the September 2004 issue of Asimov's Science Fiction. It was one of a series of shorter works that were combined to form Stross's 2005 novel Accelerando. The original story can be found online here [http://www.asimovs.com/_issue_0409/elector.shtml], and the novel here[http://www.accelerando.org].

Office

:This article is about traditional meanings of the word office. For computer office applications suites, see List of office suites. :For the television program, see "The Office." An office is a room or other area in which people work, but may also denote a position within an organisation with specific duties attached to it (see officer, office-holder, official); the latter is in fact an earlier usage, office as place originally referring to the location of one's duty. When used as an adjective, the term office may refer to business-related tasks. In legal writing, a company or organization has offices in any place that it has an official presence, even if that presence consists of, for example, a storage silo rather than an office. An office is an architectural and design phenomenon and a social phenomenon, whether it is a tiny office such as a bench in the corner of a "Mom and Pop shop" of extremely small size (see SOHO) through entire floors of buildings up to and including massive buildings dedicated entirely to one company. In modern terms an office usually refers to the location where white-collar workers are employed during the day.
History of offices
white-collar worker
- The very word stems from the Latin officium (see that article), as its equivalents in various (mainly romance) languages. Interestingly, this was not necessarily a place, but rather an -often mobile- 'bureau' in the sense of a human staff or even the abstract notion of a formal position (such as a magistrature). Anyway, Rome can be considered the first society which, mainly because of the rule of law, developed a relatively elaborate bureaucracy, which would not be equaled for centuries in the West after the fall of Rome, even partially reverting to illiteracy, while the east preserved a more sophisticated administrative culture, both under Byzantium and under islam.
- Offices in classical antiquity were often part of a palace complex or a large temple. There was usually a room where scrolls were kept and scribes did their work. Ancient texts mentioning the work of scribes allude to the existence of such "offices". These rooms are sometimes called "libraries" by some archaeologists and the general press because one often associates scrolls with literature. In fact they were true offices since the scrolls were meant for record keeping and other management functions such as treaties and edicts, and not for writing or keeping poetry or other works of fiction.
- The medieval chancery was usually the place where most government letters were written and were laws were copied in the administration of a kingdom. The rooms of the chancery often had walls full of pigeonholes, constructed to hold rolled up pieces of parchment for safekeeping or ready reference (a precursor to the book shelf). The introduction of printing during the Renaissance did not change these early government offices much.
- Pre-industrial illustrations such as paintings or tapestries often show us personalities or eponyms in their private offices, handling record keeping books or writing on scrolls of parchment. All kinds of writings seemed to be mixed in these early forms of offices. Before the invention of the printing press and its distribution there was often a very thin line between a private office and a private library since books were read or written in the same space at the same desk or table, and general accounting and personal or private letters were also done there.
Space arrangement in offices
There are many different ways of arranging the space in an office and whilst these vary according to function, managerial fashions and the culture of specific companies can be even more important. Choices include, how many people will work within the same room. At one extreme, each individual worker will have their own room; at the other extreme a large open plan office can be made up of one main room with tens or hundreds of people working in the same space. Open plan offices which put multiple workers together in the same space and some studies in particular areas have shown that they give short term productivity, for example within a single software project. At the same time the loss of privacy and security can increase the incidence of theft and loss of company secrets. A type of compromise between open plan and individual rooms is provided by the cubicle, possibly made most famous by the Dilbert cartoon series, which solves visual privacy to some extent, but often fails on acoustic separation and security.
Office buildings
While offices can be built in almost any location in almost any building, some modern requirements for offices make this more difficult. These requirements can be both legal (light levels must be sufficient, for example) or technical (requirements for networking). Along side such other requirements such as security and flexibility of layout, this has led to the creation of special buildings which are dedicated only or primarily for use as offices. An office building (also called an office block) is a form of commercial building which contains spaces mainly designed to used for offices. The primary purpose of an office building is to provide a workplace and working environment primarily for administrative and managerial workers. These workers usually occupy set areas within the office building, and usually are provided with desks, PC's and other equipment they may need within these areas. An office building will be divided into sections for different companies or may be dedicated to one company. In either case, each company will typically have a reception area, one or several meeting rooms, singular or open-plan offices, as well as toilets. Many office buildings also have kitchen facilities and a staff room, where workers can have lunch or take a short break.
Standard facilities in modern office buildings

- water
- electricity (distribution through entire office space with many separate points)
- private branch exchange
- optical connections to local telecommunications providers
- parking (often underground under the office)
- structured cabling (category 5 or better) for internal networking and telecommunications
Smoking in office buildings
Gradually, smoking is becoming restricted within large offices and other work spaces in most countries. Sometimes smoking is allowed in this case but is confined to an area clearly defined as a smoking room. Depending on the culture and the business occupying the building, smokers may not be allowed to smoke inside the building at all. In the case of an office buildings this can lead to a large interconnected area where smoking is disallowed. In this case, smokers are forced to either forego smoking during the day or, more commonly, to leave the buildings for short periods of time. Depending on the climate of the surrounding area and the particular weather on that day, this may be an unpleasant experience. In some cases smokers may have some form of shelter outside the building to use when they want a cigarette.
See also

- Factory
- Warehouse
- Business park
- Sick building syndrome
- Office supplies
- Office manager
- Class A office space
References

- Adams, Scott. What do you call a sociopath in a cubicle? : (answer, a coworker) Kansas City, Missouri. : Andrews McMeel Pub., 2002.
- Duffy, Francis. Colin Cave. John Worthington, editors. Planning Office Space. London: The Architectural Press Ltd., 1976.
- Klein, Judy Graf. The Office Book. New York: Facts on File Inc., 1982. Category:Buildings and structures Category:Rooms Category:Office work ja:オフィス

Organizations

:Alternative meaning: Organisation (band). An organisation (Commonwealth English) or organization (American English, and Oxford English) is a formal group of people with one or more shared goals. This topic is a broad one. Organisations are studied by researchers from several disciplines: sociology, economics, political science, psychology, engineering, etc. The area is commonly referred to as organisation theory, organisational behaviour or organisation analysis. it however consists of a number of different theories and perspectives, some of which are compatible and others that are competing. Among those that are or have been most influential are:
- Weberian organisation theory (referring to Max Weber's chapter on Bureaucracy in his book 'Economy and Society'
- Marxist organisation analysis
- Scientific Management (mainly following Frederick W Taylor)
- Human Relations Studies (going back to the Hawthorne studies, Maslow and Hertzberg)
- Administrative theories (with work by e.g. Henri Fayol and Chester Barnard)
- Contingency theory
- New institutionalism and new institutional economics
- Network analysis
- Economic Sociology
- Organisation ecology (or demography of organisations)
- Transaction cost economics
- Agency theory (sometimes called principal - agent theory)
- Studies of organisation culture
- Postmodern organisation studies
- Labour Process Theory
- Critical Management Studies
- Unicist Natural Organisation The most prestigious scientific journals focused on the study of organisations include organisation, Organisation Studies, Administrative Science Quarterly and Academy of Management Review. "Organisation" can also be used to define how the different parts of computer hardware are linked in order to execute the many computational activities most efficiently. Organisations that are legal entities: government, international organisation, non-governmental organisation, armed forces, corporation, partnership, charity, not-for-profit corporation, cooperative, university. The study of organisations includes a focus on optimising [organisational structure]. According to management science, most human organisations fall roughly into four types:
- Pyramids or hierarchies
- Committees or juries
- Matrix organisations
- Ecologies Organisation studies also includes research efforts to inform the effective management of organisations, and addresses organisational culture, organisational learning and managing change as major factors affecting organisational effectiveness, beyond the basics of organisational structure.

Pyramids or hierarchies

A hierarchy exemplifies an arrangement with a leader who leads leaders. This arrangement is often associated with bureaucracy. Hierarchies were satirised in The Peter Principle (1969), a book that introduced the term hierarchiology and the saying that "in a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence". An extremely rigid, in terms of responsibilities, type of organisation is exemplified by Führerprinzip.

Committees or juries

These consist of a group of peers who decide as a group, perhaps by voting. The difference between a jury and a committee is that the members of the committee are usually assigned to perform or lead further actions after the group comes to a decision, whereas members of a jury come to a decision. In common law countries legal juries render decisions of guilt, liability and quantify damages; juries are also used in athletic contests, book awards and similar activities. Sometimes a selection committee functions like a jury. In the middle ages juries in continental Europe were used to determine the law according to consensus amongst local notables. Committees are often the most reliable way to make decisions. Condorcet's jury theorem proved that if the average member votes better than a roll of dice, then adding more members increases the number of majorities that can come to a correct vote (however correctness is defined). The problem is that if the average member is worse than a roll of dice, the committee's decisions grow worse, not better! Staffing is crucial. Parliamentary procedure, such as Robert's Rules of Order, helps prevent committees from engaging in lengthy discussions without reaching decisions.

Staff organisation or cross-functional team

A staff helps an expert get all his work done. To this end, a "chief of staff" decides whether an assignment is routine or not. If it's routine, he assigns it to a staff member, who is a sort of junior expert. The chief of staff schedules the routine problems, and checks that they are completed. If a problem is not routine, the chief of staff notices. He passes it to the expert, who solves the problem, and educates the staff -- converting the problem into a routine problem. In a "cross functional team," like an executive committee, the boss has to be a non-expert, because so many kinds of expertise are required.

Matrix organisation

This organisational type assigns each worker to two bosses in two different hierarchies. One hierarchy is "functional" and assures that each type of expert in the organisation is well-trained, and measured by a boss who is super-expert in the same field. The other direction is "executive" and tries to get projects completed using the experts. Projects might be organised by regions, customer types, or some other schema. See matrix management.

Ecologies

This organisation has intense competition. Bad parts of the organisation starve. Good ones get more work. Everybody is paid for what they actually do, and runs a tiny business that has to show a profit, or they are fired. Companies who utilise this organisation type reflect a rather one-sided view of what goes on in ecology. It is also the case that a natural ecosystem has a natural border - ecoregions do not in general compete with one another in any way, but are very autonomous. The pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline talks about functioning as this type of organisation in [http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,3604,1294443,00.html this external article] from The Guardian.

"Chaordic" organisations

The chaordic model of organising human endeavours emerged in the [1990]s, based on a blending of chaos and order (hence "chaordic"), comes out of the work of Dee Hock and the creation of the VISA financial network. Blending democracy, complex system, consensus decision making, co-operation and competition, the chaordic approach attempts to encourage organisations to evolve from the increasingly nonviable hierarchical, command-and-control models. Similarly, see Emergent organisations, and the principle of self-organisation. See also group entity for an anarchist perspective on human organisations.

References

- Organisations by Richard Scott: ISBN 0132663546
- Organisations and Institutions by Richard Scott
- Understanding organisations by Charles Handy.
- The Peter Principle, Dr. Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull, Pan Books 1970 ISBN 0-330-02519-8
- The Nature of the Firm by Ronald Coase.

External links

- [http://www.globaldharma.org Website of Global Dharma Center, a not-for-profit organisation offering (free) training modules, research papers, workshop exercises etc on Culture Development and Individual/Organisation Transformation] Category:Organizational theory

Vote

:Vote redirects here. For the Finno-Ugric people, see Votes. Voting is a method of decision making wherein a group such as a meeting or an electorate attempts to gauge its opinion—usually as a final step following discussions or debates. Alternatives to voting include consensus decision making (which works to avoid polarization and the marginalization of dissent) and betting (as in an anticipatory democracy). In a democracy, voting commonly implies election, i.e. a way for an electorate to select among candidates for office. In politics voting is the method by which the electorate of a democracy appoints representatives in its government. A vote, or a ballot, is an individual's act of voting, by which he or she express support or preference for a certain motion (e.g. a proposed resolution), a certain candidate, or a certain selection of candidates. A secret ballot, the standard way to protect voters' political privacy, generally takes place at a polling station. (Compare postal ballot). The act of voting in most countries is voluntary, however some countries, such as Australia, Belgium and Brazil, have compulsory voting systems. Nevertheless, a country's having an election featuring the populace casting votes does not necessarily mean the country is democratic. Many authoritarian governments have "elections" but the candidates are pre-chosen and approved by elites, there is no competition, voter qualifications are restrictive, and voting is often a sham. Some people think that whenever votes are recorded in a medium which is invisible to humans, electors lose any possibility to verify how their votes are collected and tallied up to produce the final result, thus they need to have an absolute faith in the accuracy, honesty and security of the whole electoral apparatus. This is said to be particularly true for electronic elections because, for people who didn’t program them, computers act just like black boxes and their operations can truly be verified only by knowing the input and comparing the expected output with the actual output [http://www.acm.org/classics/sep95/], but under a secret ballot system, there is no known input, nor is there any expected output with which to compare electoral results [http://www.electronic-vote.org].

Types of votes

Different voting systems use different types of vote. Suppose that the options in some election are Alice, Bob, Charlie, Daniel, and Emily. In a voting system that uses a single vote, the voter can select one of the five that they most approve of. First past the post uses single votes. So, a voter might vote for Charlie. This precludes him voting for anyone else. In a voting system that uses a multiple vote, the voter can vote for any subset of the alternatives. So, a voter might vote for Alice, Bob, and Charlie, rejecting Daniel and Emily. Approval voting uses such multiple votes. In a voting system that uses a ranked vote, the voter has to rank the alternatives in order of preference. For example, they might vote for Bob in first place, then Emily, then Alice, then Daniel, and finally Charlie. Many voting systems use ranked votes. See preference voting. In a voting system that uses a scored vote (or range vote), the voter gives each alternative a number between one and ten (the upper and lower bounds may vary). See range voting. Kenneth Arrow lists five characteristics of a fair voting system. Unfortunately, Arrow's impossibility theorem shows that it is impossible for any voting system to have all 5 characteristics at the same time.

Issues

Casting a vote expresses an implied willingness to participate in a common process with some shared outcome. Those who feel unable to express their limits or boundaries of tolerance in a voting system may be more likely to resist or fight or fail to support decisions made through it (more of an issue with parties or policies). Those who feel unable to express their real preferences may lack all enthusiasm for the choices or for the eventually chosen representative or leader. Any vote balances both kinds of considerations. One common issue, especially in first-past-the-post systems, is that of the protest vote: one might "waste one's vote" on a minor party to send a signal of strong preference for a candidate or party that cannot win, or of intolerance for the "more mainstream" options. However it is difficult to tell from the vote alone whether one is positively inclined to the minor party or negatively inclined to the major party. Russia offers its electors a "None of the Above" option, so that protest votes can be properly tallied. Other jurisdictions may record the incidence of (apparently deliberately) "spoiled" ballot papers. Also, it is often not clear whether the voter really understands how his or her vote is counted in the voting system, especially with the more complex types. This often leads to issues with the results. Ballot design and the use of voting machines have particular importance, given this issue. Optimally participants in a vote should perceive the results, especially of a political vote, as fair. If fairness appears lacking, resistance to the results may lead at best to confusion, at worst to violence and even civil war, in the case of political rivals. In an effort to make balloting cheaper and more transparent, Argentina introduced electronic voting for a gubernatorial election scheduled for 14 September 2003. The pilot test involved 500,000 voters distributed among 20 constituencies in the eastern Argentine province of Buenos Aires.

Institution

This article is about institutions as social mechanisms. Please see Organization article for formal establishments. ---- Institutions are structures and mechanisms of social order and cooperation, governing the behavior of two or more individuals. Institutions are identified with a social purpose and permanence, transcending individual human lives and intentions, and with the making and enforcing of rules governing cooperative human behavior. The term, institution, is commonly applied to customs and behavior patterns important to a social community, as well as to particular formal organizations of government and public service. As structures and mechanisms of social order among humans, institutions are one of the principal objects of study in the social sciences, including sociology, political science and economics. Institutions are a central concern for law, the formal regime for political rule-making and enforcement. The creation and evolution of institutions is a primary topic for history.
Aspects of Institutions
Although individual, formal organizations, commonly identified as "institutions," may be deliberately and intentionally created by people, the development and functioning of institutions in society in general may be regarded as an instance of emergence; that is, institutions arise, develop and function in a pattern of social self-organization, which goes beyond the conscious intentions of the individual humans involved. As mechanisms of social cooperation, institutions are manifest in both objectively real, formal organizations, such as the U.S. Congress, the Roman Catholic Church or the Bank of England, and, also, in informal social order and organization, reflecting human psychology, culture, habits and customs. Most important institutions, considered abstractly, have both objective and subjective aspects: examples include money and marriage. The institution of money encompasses many formal organizations, including banks and government treasury departments and stock exchanges, which may be termed, "institutions," as well as subjective experiences, which guide people in their pursuit of personal economic well-being and wealth. Powerful institutions are able to imbue a paper currency with certain value, and to induce millions into cooperative production and trade in pursuit of economic ends abstractly denominated in that currency's units. The subjective experience of money is so pervasive and persuasive that economists talk of the "money illusion" and try to disabuse their students of it, in preparation for learning economic analysis. Marriage and family, as a set of institutions, also encompass formal and informal, objective and subjective aspects. Both governments and religious institutions make and enforce rules and laws regarding marriage and family, create and regulate various concepts of how people relate to one another, and what their rights, obligations and duties may be as a consequence. Culture and custom permeate marriage and family. In the United States and western Europe, a transition from a conception of marriage, as license for sexual intercourse granted by Church and State, to a conception of marriage as a form of contract, freely entered into, has occasioned momentous social and political controversies regarding laws and customs governing the freedom of women, divorce, cohabitation outside marriage, contraception, and homosexuality.
Perspectives of the Social Sciences
While institutions tend to appear to people in society as part of the natural, unchanging landscape of their lives, study of institutions by the social sciences tends to reveal the nature of institutions as social constructions, artifacts of a particular time, culture and society, produced by collective human choice, though not directly by individual intention. The relationship of institutions to human nature is a foundational question for the social sciences. Institutions can be seen as "naturally" arising from, and conforming to, human nature -- a fundamentally conservative view -- or institutions can be seen as artificial, almost accidental, and in need of architectural redesign, informed by expert social analysis, to better serve human needs -- a fundamentally progressive view. Adam Smith anchored his economics in the supposed human "propensity to truck, barter and exchange". Modern feminists have criticized traditional marriage and other institutions as elements of an oppressive and obsolete patriarchy. Economics, in recent years, has used game theory to study institutions from two perspectives. Firstly, how do institutions survive and evolve? In this perspective, institutions arise from Nash equilibria of games. For example, whenever people pass each other in a corridor or thoroughfare, there is a need for customs, which avoid collisions. Such a custom might call for each party to keep to their own right (or left -- such a choice is arbitrary, it is only necessary that the choice be uniform and consistent). Such customs may be supposed to be the origin of rules, such as the rule, adopted in many countries, which requires driving automobiles on the right side of the road. Secondly, how do institutions affect behaviour? In this perspective, the focus is on behaviour arising from a given set of institutional rules. In these models, institutions determine the rules (i.e. strategy sets and utility functions) of games, rather than arise as equilibria out of games. For example, the Cournot duopoly model is based on an institution involving an auctioneer who sells all goods at the market-clearing price. While it is always possible to analyse behaviour with the institutions-as-equilibria approach instead, it is much more complicated. Public choice theory, a branch of economics with a close relationship to political science, considers how government policy choices are made, and seeks to determine what the policy outcomes are likely to be, given a particular political decision-making process and context. Sociology traditionally analyzed social institutions in terms of interlocking social roles and expectations. Social institutions created and were composed of groups of roles, or expected behaviors. The social function of the institution was executed by the fulfillment of roles. Basic biological requirements, for reproduction and care of the young, are served by the institutions of marriage and family, for example, by creating, elaborating and prescribing the behaviors expected for husband/father, wife/mother, child, etc. In history, a distinction between eras or periods, implies a major and fundamental change in the system of institutions governing a society. Political and military events are judged to be of historical significance to the extent that they are associated with changes in institutions. In European history, particular significance is attached to the long transition from the feudal institutions of the Middle Ages to the modern institutions, which govern contemporary life.
See also

- nation, country, state.
- effect on individuals institutionalisation
- institutional economics
- establishment
- Institute
- Institution (computer science)
References

External links

- Avner Greif, [http://www-econ.stanford.edu/faculty/Greif_Instutions/GreifBook.html Institutions: Theory and History], Cambridge University Press, forthcoming.
- [http://www.isnie.org International Society for New Institutional Economics]
- [http://www.institutionalreform.org Institutional reform]
- category:Political science category:Economics ko:기관 (조직) ja:制度

Germanic king

The Germanic king originally had three main functions. #The king served as judge during the popular assemblies. #He served as a priest during the sacrifices (Blóts) at important cult sites, such as the Temple at Uppsala. Refusal to administer the blóts could lead to the king losing his power (see e.g. Haakon the Good and Anund Gårdske). #The king served as a warleader during wars. The office was hereditary, but originally a Germanic king had to have the consent of the people before he could assume the throne. All the sons of the king had the right to claim the throne, which often led to co-rulership (Diarchy) where two brothers were elected kings at the same time. This was common among Swedes, Norwegians, Franks and Anglo-Saxons (see e.g. Alfred the Great). This evolved into the territories being considered the hereditary property of the kings, Patrimonies, a system which fuelled feudal wars, because the kings could claim ownership of lands beyond their de facto rule.

Etymology

The name king is derived from the Anglo-Saxon cyning, which in turn is derived from the Proto-Germanic
- kuningaz. The original meaning is contested. One theory is that the element
- kun relates to the word kindred or that it originally meant descendant of a ruler. Another theory is that it is originally meant belonging to the woman, i.e. belonging to the mother goddess and referring to the king's role as a priest. Modern forms of
- kuningaz:
- Dutch: koning
- English: king
- German: König
- Icelandic: konungur
- Norwegian/Danish: kong or konge
- Swedish: kung or konung The word
- kuningaz was very early borrowed by non-Germanic languages (note that the slavic król and korol are not derived from this word, but from karl):
- Finnish/Estonian: kuningas
- Lithuanian: kunigaik-
- Russian: knyaz
- Saami: gonagas or konagas Interestingly, the word differs from other Indo-European words for "king", most of which are clearly related (Latin rex, Sanskrit rājan and Irish rí, for example).

Other names

In Germanic traditions there are many kennings for king, such as Giver of Rings used in Beowulf: a king was expected to give golden rings to reward his warriors.

Pelayo

Pelayo (in Spanish) or Pelágio (in Portuguese) (690–737) was the first King of Asturias, ruling from 718 until his death. He is credited with beginning the Christian Reconquista or reconquest of the Iberian peninsula (modern Portugal and Spain) from the Moors. Moors

Life

Pelayo was a nobleman of high birth in the Visigothic kingdom that held power in Iberia from the early fifth century until its defeat by the Moors at the Battle of Guadalete in 711. He escaped capture at the Guadalete River, where he might have been one of the bodyguards of Roderic, the Visigothic king. Pelayo returned to his native Asturias (in the northern part of modern day Spain) and became the leader of a rebellion against Munuza, the Moorish governor of the area. He was captured in 717 and imprisoned by the Moors but soon escaped and returned to Asturias, where he defeated Munuza and established the Kingdom of Asturias in 718, with its capital at Cangas de Onis. In accordance with Visigothic custom, he was elected as his nation's first king by a vote of his countrymen. For a few years after that, Pelayo's "kingdom" was more illusory than actual, as he was facing forces much stronger than his own. It wasn't until 722 that his kingdom was secured, when a powerful Muslim force sent to conquer Asturias once and for all was defeated by Pelayo at the Battle of Covadonga. Today, this is regarded as the first Christian victory of the Reconquista. The Muslims, ungracious in their defeat, described Pelayo and his men in their chronicles as "thirty wild donkeys." But it didn't matter. Pelayo had won independence for his country. Pelayo died in 737. His son Favila succeeded him as king but could not enjoy the throne for a long time: legends claim that he was killed by a bear. After Pelayo the subsequent kings of Asturias, León, Castile, Portugal and Spain could trace their lineage back to him and before. However, attempts to link him to the royal house of the Visigoths (some sources claim he is the grandson of the Visigothic King Chindasuinth, 563–653) are disputed. Category:Asturian monarchs Category:Goths

Asturias

:For the municipality in the Philippines, see Asturias, Cebu. The Principality of Asturias (Asturian: Principau d'Asturies or Asturies) has over 3500 years of recorded history and is an autonomous community within the country of Spain. It is situated on the north coast facing the Cantabrian Sea (Mar Cantábrico, the Spanish name for the Bay of Biscay). The capital is Oviedo, and other noteworthy cities are the major seaport Gijón, the largest city in Asturias, and the industrial town of Avilés. Other towns include Mieres, Langreo, Pola de Siero, Cangas de Onís, Cangas del Narcea, Grado, Pola de Lena, Pola de Laviana, El Entrego, Villaviciosa, and Llanes. See also List of municipalities in Asturias, Comarcas of Asturias. Asturias is bordered to the east by Cantabria, to the south by Castilla y León, to the west by Galicia, and to the north by the Cantabrian Sea.

History

Cantabrian Sea Due to its situation and difficult terrain, the territories along the north coast of Spain were never part of Islamic Spain; the north served as the nucleus of a small Christian enclave, the Kingdom of Asturias, which was linked to Spain's visigoth kingdom. For this reason since the 14th century the heir to the Spanish throne automatically takes the title Prince of Asturias, much as the heir to the British throne is the Prince of Wales and Duke of Cornwall. After the fading of the 'Regnum Astorum' (Kingdom of Asturias), this historic land survived as a marginal territory in the north of Spain, although it provided the Spanish court with high-ranking aristocrats and played an important role in the colonisation of the Americas. During the 18th Century, Asturias was one of the centres of the Spanish Enlightenment. The renowned thinker Benito de Feijoo settled in the Benedictine Monastery of San Vicente, Oviedo. Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos, a polimath and prominent reformer and politician of the late 18th century, was born in the seaside town of Gijón (Xixón in the Asturian language). The Industrial Revolution came to Asturias with the discovery and systematic exploitation of coal and iron resources. At the same time there was significant migration to the Americas; those who succeeded overseas often returned to their native land much the wealthier. These entrepreneurs were known collectively as 'Indianos', for having visited and made their fortunes in the West Indies and beyond. The heritage of these wealthy families can still be seen in Asturias today: many large 'modernista' villas are dotted across the region, as well as cultural institutions such as free schools and public libraries. Like all Spain, Asturias played its part in the events that led up to and include the Spanish Civil War. In 1934, the left-wing workers' movement fought the right-wing government of the Second Spanish Republic in the so-called 'Revolution of Asturias'. Troops under the command of Francisco Franco were brought from the North African colonies to put down the rebellion and a ferocious oppression followed. As a result, Asturias remained loyal to the democratic republican government during the war, and was the scene of an extraordinary defence in extreme terrain, the Battle of El Mazuco. With Franco eventually gaining control of all Spain, Asturias - traditionally linked to the Spanish crown - was known merely as the 'Province of Oviedo' from 1936 until Franco's death in 1975. The province's name was restored fully after the return of democracy to Spain, in 1977. In 1982 Asturias became an Autonomous Community within Spain's federal constitution. The Asturian regional government holds comprehensive competencies in important areas such as health, education and protection of the environment. Since 1999 the President of the Government of Asturias has been Vicente Álvarez Areces, of the Spanish Socialist Worker's Party (PSOE).

Geography & Climate

PSOE PSOE The key features of Asturian geography are its rugged cliffy coast and its mountainous interior. The Cantabrian mountain range (Cordillera Cantábrica) is Asturias' natural border with León province to the south. The Picos de Europa National Park forms the eastern range and contains the highest and arguably most spectacular mountains, rising to 2648 metres at the Torrecerredo peak. Other notable features of this predominantly-limestone range are the Parque Natural de Redes in the central east, the central Ubiñas south of Oviedo, and the Parque Natural de Somiedo in the west. The Cantabrian mountains offer opportunities for activities such as climbing, walking, skiing and caving, and extend some 200 kilometres in total, as far as Galicia province to the west of Asturias, and Cantabria province to the east. Asturias has two impressive ski stations, San Isidro and Pajares, both of which are easily accessed by road from the capital, Oviedo. In this era of climate change snow fall is unpredictable, but the skiing season generally runs from December to April inclusive. Perhaps surprisingly, climate change appears to have benefited the ski stations in recent times: relatively heavy snowfalls sustained the stations in the winters of 2003/2004 and 2004/2005. The Asturian coastline is extensive, with hundreds of beaches, coves and natural sea caves. Notable examples include the Playa del Silencio (Beach of Silence) near the fishing village of Cudillero (west of Gijón), as well as the many beaches surrounding the summer resort of Llanes, such as the Barro, Ballota and Torimbia (the latter a predominantly nudist beach). Most of Asturias' beaches are sandy, clean and bordered by steep cliffs, on top of which it is not unusual to see grazing livestock. The climate of Asturias, as with the rest of northwest Spain, is more varied than that of southern parts of the country. Summers are generally humid and warm, with considerable sunshine, but also some rain. Winters are fairly mild but with some very cold snaps. The cold is especially felt in the mountains, where snow is present from November till May. Both rain and sunshine are regular weather features of Asturian winters.

Tourist Attractions

nudist Major attractions include... Oviedo, the capital city of Asturias: Nowadays is a cosmopolite city where art, culture and tradition are found in the town center. Santa María del Naranco and San Miguel de Lillo, a prerromanic church and a prerromanic castle build by the first Asturian kings are held in the Naranco mountain. The Picos de Europa National park, and other parts of the Asturian mountain range: The most famous peak in the park is the Picu Urriellu, also known as Naranjo de Bulnes (2519 m), a molar-shaped mountain which glows orange in the evening sun, hence its name. Weather permitting, it can be viewed clearly from Camarmeña village, near Las Arenas de Cabrales. The shrine to the Virgin Mary of Covadonga and the mountain lakes (los lagos), near Cangas de Onís: Legend has it that in the 8th century, the Virgin blessed Asturian Christian forces with a well-timed signal to attack Spain's Moorish conquerors, thereby taking the invaders by surprise. The Reconquista and eventual unification of all Spain is therefore said to have started in this very location. The Asturian coast: especially the beaches in and around the summer resort of Llanes, and the Playa del Silencio near Cudillero fishing village. Other places of interest are... Ceceda village: east of Oviedo along the N634 road. Of particular interest in this exemplary settlement are the traditional horreo grain silos, raised on stilts so as to keep field mice from getting at the grain. The Dobra River: south of Cangas de Onís, famous for its unusual colour and natural beauty. La Mesa (The Table): an unusually-shaped peak above the village of Tuiza de Arriba, high in the Ubiñas mountain range south of Oviedo. The coastal way (senda costera) between Pendueles and Llanes: This partly-paved nature route takes in some of Asturias' most spectacular coastal scenery, such as the noisy bufones (large water spouts created naturally by the erosion of the sea) and the Playa de Ballota. The unusual rock formation on the beach at Buelna village: east of Llanes. Best viewed at low tide.

Food and Drink

Asturias is especially known for its seafood, such as fresh squid, crab, shrimp and sea bass. Salmon are caught in Asturian rivers, notably the Sella; the first fish of the season is called campanu (from campana, a bell tolled to signal the first catch). The most famous regional dish is Fabada Asturiana, a rich stew made with large white beans (fabes), shoulder of pork (lacón), black sausage (morcilla), spicy sausage (chorizo) and saffron (azafrán). Apple groves foster the production of the traditional alcoholic drink, a natural cider (sidra). This refreshing tipple is traditionally poured in small servings by an expert server: the bottle is raised high above his or her head, so as to oxygenate the brew as it splashes and sizzles into the glass below. Asturian cheeses, especially Cabrales, are also famous throughout Spain and beyond; Cabrales is known for its pungent odour and strong flavour. Asturias is often called "the land of cheeses" (el pais de los quesos) due to the product's diversity and quality in this region.

Economy

For many centuries the backbone of the Asturian economy was coal mining, steel production and fishing. Production of milk and its derivatives has also been traditionally strong, with products from the Central Lechera Asturiana being exported all over Spain. The main regional industry, though, is steel: in the times of Francisco Franco´s dictatorship, it was one of the most powerful in the world. The then state-owned ENSIDESA company is now part of the privatised ARCELOR Group. The industry created many jobs which resulted in significant migration from other provinces in Spain, mainly Extremadura, Andalucía and Castilla y León. The steel industry is now in decline, as is mining, as a result of competition from Eastern Europe, high costs of production, and declines in global steel demand. Regional economic growth is below the broader Spanish rate, though in recent years growth in service industries has helped reduce Asturias's high rate of unemployment. Large out-of-town retail parks have opened near the region's largest cities (Gijón and Oviedo), whilst the ever-present Spanish construction industry appears to continue to thrive. Asturias has benefited extensively since 1986 from European Union investment in roads and other essential infrastructure, though there has also been some controversy regarding how these funds are spent, for example, on miners' pensions. These subsidies are lately in doubt, given the expansion of the Union in 2004 to include the poorer states of the former Communist bloc.

Transportation

Asturias is served by Ranon Airport (OVD), which is about an hour's road journey from Oviedo, near the northwest coast and the industrial town of Avilés. A UK-based international carrier, Easyjet, began daily flights to the airport in March 2005. Internal Spanish carriers such as Iberia and Spanair also serve Asturias, direct from Madrid and Barcelona, Brussels, London, Paris, Seville and others. Eastern Asturias is now quite easily reached from Santander. Spain's national RENFE rail network also serves Asturias well; trains regularly depart to and from the Spanish interior. Major stops are the regional capital, Oviedo, and the main coastal city, Gijón. FEVE rail company links also the center of the region with Eastern and Western Asturias. There is also a bus service within and without the region, run by the ALSA company. It links Avilés, Gijón, Oviedo and Mieres with Madrid, several times a day. There are also services to Barcelona, Salamanca, León, Valladolid, La Coruña, Bilbao, Seville, San Sebastián, Paris, Brussels or Nice, to name just a few.

Famous citizens

Leopoldo Alas, 19th century author of La Regenta, a seminal work in the Spanish literary canon Fernando Alonso, Formula 1 racing driver, 2005 World Champion Letizia, Princess of Asturias, a native of Oviedo and wife of Felipe, Prince of Asturias Severo Ochoa, 1959 Nobel Prize winner for Medicine Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos, philosopher, politician, Enlightenment thinker.

External links

- [http://www.infoasturias.com/ InfoAsturias]
- [http://www.princast.es/ Government of Asturias]
- [http://www.fpa.es/ The Prince of Asturias Annual Awards]
- [http://www.uniovi.es/ University of Oviedo]
- [http://www.asturianus.org/ Asturian-American Migration Forum] Category:Asturias Category:Provinces of Spain Category:Autonomous communities of Spain Category:NUTS 2 Statistical Regions of Europe ja:アストゥリアス州

Carolingian

The Carolingians (also known as the "Carlovingians") were a dynasty of rulers that eventually controlled the Frankish realm and its successors from the 8th to the 10th century, officially taking over the kingdoms from the Merovingian dynasty in 751. The name Carolingian itself comes from Charles Martel, who defeated the Moors at Poitiers in 732. The dynasty's most prominent member is Charlemagne (in Latin: Carolus Magnus). The dynasty is usually considered to have been founded by Arnulf of Metz, Bishop of Metz in the late 7th century, who wielded a great deal of power and influence in the Merovingian kingdoms. Pippin of Herstal, Mayor of the Palace of the Kingdom of Austrasia, was succeeded by his son Charles Martel as Mayor, who in turn was the father of Pippin III, called "the Short". Pippin had become king after having used his position as Mayor to garner support among many of the leading Franks, as well as Pope Zacharias, in order to depose the last Merovingian king, Childeric in 751. Charlemagne, Pippin's son, became King of the Franks in 768 and was crowned Emperor by Pope Leo III in 800. After the division of the empire among Charlemagne's three grandsons with the Treaty of Verdun in 843, the Carolingians initially continued to hold the throne in all three sections that were created.
- In the West, which was the nucleus of later France, they continued to be the ruling dynasty until a minor branch of the family, the Capetians, ascended the (by that time) French throne in 987.
- In the Middle, with the empty title of "Emperor" and the kingdom of Lotharingia which included Northern Italy, the major branch of the family ruled till 887, but further division was based on the Treaty of Mersen in 870.
- In the East, the kernel of the later Holy Roman Empire, the Carolingians ruled only until 911, the death of Louis the Child. Here, the dukes of the stem duchies eventually acclaimed a Saxon dynasty, commonly referred to as the Ottonians, who consciously modelled themselves as Carolingian successors.

Hereditary

Heredity (the adjective is hereditary) is the transfer of characteristics from parent to offspring, either through their genes or through the social institution called inheritance (for example, a title of nobility is passed from individual to individual according to relevant customs and/or laws).

Biology

In biology, heredity refers to the transference of biological characteristics from a parent organism to offspring, and is practically a synonym for genetics, as genes are now recognized as the carriers of biological information. In humans, defining which characteristics of a final person are due to heredity and which are due to environmental influences is often a site of controversy (the nature versus nurture debate), especially regarding intelligence and race.

History of heredity in biology

It was apparent to ancient humans that offspring resembled their parents. For example, Genesis 30-46 tells how Jacob and Laban split their sheep into white and speckled varieties so they could distinguish the two to ensure none was later stolen. Although it was clear that traits were hereditary, the precise mechanism of heredity was however not clear. Various hereditary mechanisms were envisaged without being properly tested or quantified. These included blending inheritance and the inheritance of acquired characters. Nevertheless, people were able to develop domestic breeds animals through artificial selection. The inheritance of acquired characters formed part of early Lamarckian ideas on evolution. Charles Darwin proposed a theory of evolution in 1859 and one of its major problems was a lack of coherent hereditary mechanism. Darwin believed in a mix of blending inheritance and the inheritance of acquired characteristics (pangenesis). Blending inheritance would lead to uniformity across populations in only a few generations and thus would remove variation from a population on which natural selection could act. This led to Darwin adopting some Lamarckian ideas in later editions of The Origin and his later biological works. Darwin's primary approach to heredity was to outline how it appeared to work (noticing that characteristics could be inherited which were not expressed explicitly in the parent at the time of reproduction, that certain characteristics could be sex-linked, etc.) rather than suggesting mechanisms. Darwin's initial model of hereditary was adopted by, and then heavily modified by, his cousin Francis Galton, who laid the framework for the biometric school of heredity. Galton rejected the aspects of Darwin's pangenesis model which relied on acquired characteristics. The inheritance of acquired characteristics was shown to have little basis in the 1880s when August Weismann cut the tails off mice to find that their offspring did develop tails. The idea of particulate inheritance of genes can be attributed to the Austrian monk Gregor Mendel who published on pea plants in 1865. However, his work was not widely known and was only rediscovered in 1901. On rediscovery of Mendel's work it was initially assumed the Mendelian inheritance only accounted for large differences, such as those seen by Mendel in his pea plants — and the additive effect of genes was not realised until Ronald Fisher's (1918) paper on The Correlation Between Relatives on the Supposition of Mendelian Inheritance. For the subsequent history of genetics, see history of genetics. In the 1930s, work by Fisher and others resulted in a combination of Mendelian and biometric schools into the modern synthesis of evolution. Lysenkoism in the Soviet Union emphasised incorrectly the inheritance of acquired characters. The inheritance of acquired characters appealed to the communist leaders, Lysenkoist movement being led by Trofim Lysenko. This led to food shortages into the 1960s and seriously affected the USSR.

Sociology

The social institution called inheritance. One's bloodline is one's familial ancestry. See also meme.

External links

- [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/heredity/ Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on Heredity and Heritability]

Holy Roman Empire

:This page is about the Germanic empire. For the ancient empire centred on Rome, see Roman Empire. The Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation (German: Heiliges Römisches Reich Deutscher Nation , Latin Sacrum Romanum Imperium Nationis Germanicae, see names and designations of the empire) was a political conglomeration of lands in Central Europe in the Middle Ages and the early modern period. Emerging from the eastern part of the Frankish realm after its division in the Treaty of Verdun (843), it lasted almost a millennium until its dissolution in 1806. By the 18th century, it consisted of the larger part of modern Germany, the Czech Republic, Austria, Liechtenstein, Slovenia, Belgium, and Luxembourg, as well as large parts of modern Poland and small parts of the Netherlands. Previously, it had included all of the Netherlands and Switzerland, and parts of modern France and Italy. In the 18th century, Voltaire ridiculed its nomenclature by saying that the Holy Roman Empire was "neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire".

Character of the empire

Empire The Holy Roman Empire was an institution that is unique in world history and therefore difficult to grasp. To understand what it was, it might be helpful to assess first what it was not.
- It was never a nation state. Despite the German ethnicity of most of its rulers and subjects, from the very beginning many ethnicities constituted the Holy Roman Empire. Many of its most important noble families and appointed officials came from outside the German-speaking communities. At the height of the empire it contained most of the territory of today's Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Czech Republic and Slovenia, as well as eastern France, northern Italy and western Poland. Its languages thus comprised not only German and its many dialects and derivatives, but many Slavic languages and the languages which became modern French and Italian. Furthermore, its division into territories ruled by numerous secular and ecclesiastical princes, prelates, counts, imperial knights, and free cities made it, in the early modern period at least, far less cohesive than the emerging modern states around it.
- However, during most of its time it was more than a mere confederation. The concept of the Reich not only included the government of a specific territory, but had strong Christian religious connotations (hence the holy prefix). Until 1508, German Kings were not considered Emperors of the Reich until the Pope had formally crowned them as such. The Reich can thus best be described as a cross between a state and a religious confederation.

Names and designations of the empire

The Holy Roman Empire was an attempt to resurrect the Western Roman Empire in western Europe, which was established in 800 when Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne as Roman Emperor on Christmas Day, though the empire and the imperial office did not become formalized for some decades. Charlemagne went on to adopt the title 'Augustus' from earlier Roman times. The name of the Empire in different languages:
- German: Heiliges Römisches Reich (later: Heiliges Römisches Reich deutscher Nation)
- Italian: Sacro Romano Impero
- Latin: Sacrum Romanum Imperium
- Czech: Svatá říše římská (later: Svatá říše římská národa německého)
- French: Saint Empire Romain Germanique
- Spanish: Sacro Imperio Romano Germánico
- Portuguese: Sacro Império Romano-Germânico
- Polish: Święte Cesarstwo Rzymskie Narodu Niemieckiego
- Dutch: Heilige Roomse Rijk
- Slovene: Sveto rimsko cesarstvo
- Serbian: Sveto rimsko carstvo nemačke narodnosti
- Hungarian: Német-Római Császárság
- Russian: Священная Римская Империя (later: Священная Римская Империя немецкой нации) Contemporary terminology for the Empire varied greatly over the centuries. The term Roman Empire was used in 1034 to denote the lands under Conrad II, and Holy Empire in 1157. The use of the term Roman Emperor to refer to Northern European rulers started earlier with Otto II (Emperor 973–983). Emperors from Charlemagne (c. 742 or 747 – 814) to Otto I the Great (Emperor 962–973) had simply used the phrase Imperator Augustus ("August Emperor"). The precise term Holy Roman Empire dates from 1254; the final version Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation (German Heiliges Römisches Reich Deutscher Nation) appears in 1512, after several variations in the late 15th century. Contemporaries did not quite know how to describe this entity either. In his famous 1667 description De statu imperii Germanici, published under the alias Severinus de Monzambano, Samuel Pufendorf wrote: "Nihil ergo aliud restat, quam ut dicamus Germaniam esse irregulare aliquod corpus et monstro simile ..." ("We are therefore left with calling Germany a body that conforms to no rule and resembles a monster"). Voltaire later described it as "neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire". In Faust I, in a scene written in 1775, the German author Goethe has one of the drinkers in Auerbach's Cellar in Leipzig ask "Our Holy Roman Empire, lads, what still holds it together?" Goethe also has a longer, not very favourable essay about his personal experiences as a trainee at the Reichskammergericht in his autobiographical work Dichtung und Wahrheit.

Structure and institutions

From the High Middle Ages onwards, the Reich was stamped by a most peculiar coexistence of the Empire with the struggle of the dukes of the local territories to take power away from it. As opposed to the rulers of the West Frankish lands, which later became France, the Emperor never managed to gain much control over the lands that he formally owned. Instead, the Emperor was forced to grant more and more powers to the individual dukes in their respective territories. This process began in the 12th century and was more or less concluded with the 1648 Peace of Westphalia. Several attempts were made to reverse this degradation of the Reich's former glory, but failed. Formally, the Reich comprised the King, to be crowned Emperor by the pope (until 1508), on one side, and the Reichsstände (imperial estates) on the other.

King of the Romans (German king)

Peace of Westphalia.]] The pope's crowning of Charlemagne as Augustus in 800 formed the example that later kings would follow: it was the result of Charlemagne having defended the pope against the rebellious inhabitants of Rome, which initiated the notion of the Reich being the protector of the church. Becoming Emperor required becoming King of the Romans (Rex romanorum/römischer König) first. German kings had been elected since time immemorial: in the 9th century by the leaders of the five most important tribes (the Franks, Saxons, Bavarians, Swabians and Thuringians), later by the main lay and clerical dukes of the kingdom, finally only by the so-called Kurfürsten (electing dukes, electors). This college was formally established by a 1356 decree known as the Golden Bull. Initially, there were seven electors: the Count Palatine of the Rhine, the King of Bohemia, the Count Palatine of Saxony, the Margrave of Brandenburg, and the Archbishops of Köln, Mainz, and Trier. During the Thirty Years War, the Duke of Bavaria was given the right to vote as the eighth elector. In order to be elected king, a candidate had to first win over the electors, usually with bribes or promises of land. Until 1508, the newly-elected king then travelled to Rome to be crowned Emperor by the Pope. In many cases, this took several years while the King was held up by other tasks: frequently he first had to resolve conflicts in rebellious northern Italy or was in quarrel with the Pope himself. At no time could the Emperor simply issue decrees and govern autonomously over the Empire. His power was severely restricted by the various local leaders: after the late 15th century, the Reichstag established itself as the legislative body of the Empire, a complicated assembly that convened irregularly at the request of the Emperor at varying locations. Only after 1663 would the Reichstag become a permanent assembly.

Imperial estates

An entity was considered Reichsstand (imperial estate) if, according to feudal law, it had no authority above it except the Holy Roman Emperor himself. They included:
- Territories governed by a prince or duke, and in some cases kings. (Rulers of the Holy Roman Empire, with the exception of the King of Bohemia, were not allowed to become a king within the Empire, but some had kingdoms outside the Empire, as was, for instance, the case in the Kingdom of Great Britain, where the ruler was also the Prince-elector of Hanover.)
- Clerical territories led by a Bishop or Prince-Bishop. In the latter case, the territory was frequently the same as a bishopric, giving the Bishop both worldly and clerical powers. An example, among many others, was Osnabrück. A noteworthy Prince-Bishop (Fürstbischof) within the Holy Roman Empire was the Bishop of Mainz with his see at Mainz Cathedral.
- Imperial Free Cities The number of territories was amazingly large, rising to several hundred at the time of the Peace of Westphalia. Many of these comprised no more than a few square miles. The Empire is thus aptly described as a "patchwork carpet" (Flickenteppich) by many. For a list as in 1792, see List of Reichstag participants (1792).

Reichstag

The Reichstag was the legislative body of the Holy Roman Empire. It was divided into three distinct classes:
- The Council of Electors, which included the Electors of the Holy Roman Empire.
- The Council of Princes, which included both laypersons and clerics.
- The Secular Bench: Princes (those with the title of Prince, Grand Duke, Duke, Count Palatine, Margrave, or Landgrave) held individual votes; some held more than one vote on the basis of ruling several territories. Also, the Council included Counts or Grafs, who were grouped into four Colleges: Wetterau, Swabia, Franconia, and Westphalia. Each College could cast one vote as a whole.
- The Ecclesiastical Bench: Bishops, certain Abbots, and the two Grand Masters of the Teutonic Order and the Order of St John had individual votes. Certain other Abbots were grouped into two Colleges: Swabia and the Rhine. Each College held one collective vote.
- The Council of Imperial Cities, which included representatives from Imperial Cities grouped into two Colleges: Swabia and the Rhine. Each College had one collective vote. The Council of Imperial Cities was not fully equal to the others; it could not vote on several matters such as the admission of new territories.

Imperial courts

The Reich also had two courts: the Reichshofrat (also known in English as the Aulic Council) at the court of the King/Emperor (that is, later in Vienna), and the Reichskammergericht (Imperial Chamber Court), established with the Imperial Reform of 1495.

Imperial circles

As part of the Reichsreform, ten Imperial Circles were established in 1512. These were regional groupings of most (though not all) of the various states of the Empire for the purposes of defence and imperial taxation. Each circle had its own Kreisrat ("Circle Diet").

Chronology

From the East Franks to the Investiture Controversy

1512. From the 'Atlas to Freeman's Historical Geography', edited by J.B. Bury, Longmans Green and Co. Third Edition 1903.]] The Holy Roman Empire is usually considered to have been founded at the latest in 962 by Otto I the Great. Although some date the beginning of the Holy Roman Empire from the coronation of Charlemagne as Emperor of the Romans in 800, Charlemagne himself more typically used the title king of the Franks. This title also makes clearer that the Frankish Kingdom covered an area that included modern-day France and Germany and was thus the kernel of both countries. Most historians therefore consider the establishment of the Empire to be a process that started with the split of the Frankish realm in the Treaty of Verdun in 843, continuing the Carolingian dynasty independently in all three sections. The eastern part fell to Louis the German, who was followed by several leaders until the death of Louis the Child, the last Carolingian in the eastern part. The leaders of Alamannia, Bavaria, Frankia and Saxonia elected Conrad I of the Franks, not a Carolingian, as their leader in 911. His successor, Henry (Heinrich) I the Fowler (r. 919–936), a Saxon elected at the Reichstag of Fritzlar in 919, achieved the acceptance of a separate Eastern Empire by the West Frankish (still ruled by the Carolingians) in 921, calling himself rex Francorum orientalum (King of the East Franks). Heinrich designated his son Otto to be his successor, who was elected King in Aachen in 936. His later crowning as Emperor Otto I (later called "the Great") in 962 would mark an important step, since from then on the Empire – and not the West-Frankish kingdom that was the other remainder of the Frankish kingdoms – would have the blessing of the Pope. Otto had gained much of his power earlier, when, in 955, the Magyars were defeated in the Battle of Lechfeld. In contemporary and later writings, the crowning would be referred to as translatio imperii, the transfer of the Empire from the Romans to a new Empire. The German Emperors thus thought of themselves as being in direct succession of those of the Roman Empire; this is why they initially called themselves Augustus. Still, they did not call themselves "Roman" Emperors at first, probably in order not to provoke conflict with the Roman Emperor who still existed in Constantinople. The term imperator Romanorum only became common under Conrad II later. At this time, the eastern kingdom was not so much "German" as rather a "confederation" of the old Germanic tribes of the Bavarians, Alamanns, Franks and Saxons. The Empire as a political union probably only survived because of the strong personal influence of King Henry the Saxon and his son, Otto. Although formally elected by the leaders of the Germanic tribes, they were actually able to designate their successors. This changed after Henry II died in 1024 without any children. Conrad II, first of the Salian Dynasty, was then elected king in 1024 only after some debate. How exactly the king was chosen thus seems to be a complicated conglomeration of personal influence, tribal quarrels, inheritance, and acclamation by those leaders that would eventually become the collegiate of Electors. Already at this time the dualism between the "territories", then those of the old tribes rooted in the Frankish lands, and the King/Emperor, became apparent. Each king preferred to spend most time in his own homelands; the Saxons, for example, spent much time in palatinates around the Harz mountains, among them Goslar. This practice had only changed under Otto III (king 983, Emperor 996–1002), who began to utilize bishopries all over the Empire as temporary seats of government. Also, his successors, Henry II, Conrad II, and Henry III, apparently managed to appoint the dukes of the territories. It is thus no coincidence that at this time, the terminology changes and the first occurrences of a regnum Teutonicum are found. The glory of the Empire almost collapsed in the Investiture Controversy, in which Pope Gregory VII declared a ban on King Henry IV (king 1056, Emperor 1084–1106). Although this was taken back after the 1077 Walk to Canossa, the ban had wide-reaching consequences. Meanwhile, the German dukes had elected a second king, Rudolf of Swabia, whom Henry IV could only defeat after a three-year war in 1080. The mythical roots of the Empire were permanently damaged; the German king was humiliated. Most importantly though, the church became an independent player in the political system of the Empire.

The Empire under the Hohenstaufen

Conrad III came to the throne in 1138, being the first of the Hohenstaufen dynasty, which was about to restore the glory of the Empire even under the new conditions of the 1122 Concordat of Worms. It was Frederick I "Barbarossa" (king 1152, Emperor 1155–1190) who first called the Empire "holy", with which he intended to address mainly law and legislation. Also, under Barbarossa, the idea of the "Romanness" of the Empire culminated again, which seemed to be an attempt to justify the Emperor's power independently of the (now strengthened) Pope. An imperial assembly at the fields of Roncaglia in 1158 explicitly reclaimed imperial rights at the advice of quattuor doctores of the emerging judicial facility of the University of Bologna, citing phrases such as princeps legibus solutus ("the leader is not bound by law") from the Digestae of the Corpus Juris Civilis. That the Roman laws were created for an entirely different system and didn't fit the structure of the Empire was obviously secondary; the point here was that the court of the Emperor made an attempt to establish a legal constitution. Imperial rights had been referred to as regalia since the Investiture Controversy, but were enumerated for the first time at Roncaglia as well. This comprehensive list included public roads, tariffs, coining, collecting punitive fees, and the investiture, the seating and unseating of office holders. These rights were now explicitly rooted in Roman Law, a far-reaching constitutional act; north of the Alps, the system was also now connected to feudal law, a change most visible in the withdrawal of the feuds of Henry the Lion in 1180 which led to his public banning. Barbarossa thus managed for a time to more closely bind the stubborn Germanic dukes to the Empire as a whole. Another important constitutional move at Roncaglia was the establishment of a new peace (Landfrieden) for all of the Empire, an attempt to (on the one hand) abolish private vendettas not only between the many local dukes, but on the other hand a means to tie the Emperor's subordinates to a legal system of jurisdiction and public prosecution of criminal acts – a predecessor concept of "rule of law", in modern terms, that was, at this time, not yet universally accepted. In order to solve the problem that the emperor was (after the Investiture Controversy) no longer as able to use the church as a mechanism to maintain power, the Staufer increasingly lent land to ministerialia, formerly unfree service men, which Frederick hoped would be more reliable than local dukes. Initially used mainly for war services, this new class of people would form the basis for the later knights, another basis of imperial power. Another new concept of the time was the systematic foundation of new cities, both by the emperor and the local dukes. These were partly due to the explosion in population, but also to concentrate economic power at strategic locations, while formerly cities only existed in the shape of either old Roman foundations or older bishoprics. Cities that were founded in the 12th century include Freiburg, possibly the economic model for many later cities, and Munich. The later reign of the last Staufer Emperor, Frederick II, was in many ways different from that of earlier Emperors. Still a child, he first reigned in Sicily, while in Germany, Barbarossa's second son Philip of Swabia and Henry the Lion's son Otto IV competed with him for the title of King of the Germans. After finally having been crowned emperor in 1220, he risked conflict with the pope when he claimed power over Rome; astonishingly to many, he managed to claim Jerusalem in a Crusade in 1228 while still under the pope's ban. While Frederick brought the mythical idea of the Empire to a last highpoint, he was also the one to initiate the major steps that led to its disintegration. On the one hand, he concentrated on establishing a – for the times – extraordinarily modern state in Sicily, with public services, finances, and jurisdiction. On the other hand, Frederick was the emperor who granted major powers to the German dukes in two far-reaching privileges that would never be reclaimed by the central power. In the 1220 Confoederatio cum principibus ecclesiasticis, Frederick basically gave up a number of regalia in favour of the bishops, among them tariffs, coining, jurisdiction and fortification. The 1232 Statutum in favorem principum mostly extended these privileges to the other (non-clerical) territories (Frederick II was forced to give those privileges by a rebellion of his son, Henry). Although many of these privileges had existed earlier, they were now granted globally, and once and for all, to allow the German dukes to maintain order north of the Alps while Frederick wanted to concentrate on his homelands in Italy. The 1232 document marked the first time that the German dukes were called domini terrae, owners of their lands, a remarkable change in terminology as well. The

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