Royalty in Germany

Introduction

These pages are devoted to royalty in Germany from the historical and legal viewpoint, with particular focus on house laws and succession rules.

General

• the Holy Roman Empire

A general presentation of the Holy Roman Empire in the modern era (up to 1806)

• German states from 1806 to 1918
• Succession laws in Germany

general overview
• reading notes on Zoepfl's Staatsrecht (1863)

Special Topics

• Marriages
• morganatic and unequal marriages
  morganatic and unequal marriages (work in progress)
• legitimation by subsequent marriage
• head-of-house consent to marriages
• Forms of primogeniture
• Power to change laws

Succession Laws

The Golden Bull (1356)
It governed the succession to the Electorates of the Empire.

English text

original Latin, critical edition

Constitutions and House Laws of the Nineteenth Century
(original texts in German, introductions in English)

most of the texts come from Schulze's Hausgesetze. The introduction provide a historical summary of the dynasties.

Anhalt

Baden

Bavaria

Hesse (grand-ducal and electoral)

Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen

Brunswick (Brunswick-Luneburg and Hannover)

Lippe (Lippe-Detmold and Schaumburg-Lippe)

Mecklenburg (both branches)

Oldenburg

Prussia

Reuß

Saxony (all branches)

Schwarzburg (both branches)

Waldeck-Pyrmont

Württemberg

French Empire: house law of 1806 and constitution (in French)
(included here because it provided an influential model for the German house laws of the 19th c.)

House laws in modern German law

• The Hohenzollern case:
• The Federal High Court ruling in 1999 and the Constitutional Court ruling in 2004 (summary in English)
• The Leiningen case:
• House laws of Leiningen (1897)
• The Bavarian High Court ruling, 1996
• The Federal Constitutional Court ruling, 2000 (German text)

Other Resources

• Verfassungen in Deutschland, a collection of constitutional documents from German and European history, in German
• Deutsches Rechts-Wörterbuch with many documents on German law
• Document Archiv, a useful source of primary texts for German history post-1800
• Tradition und Leben e.V., German monarchist web site
• Digitale Sammlungen, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek (includes the Regesta Imperii, Zedler's Lexicon, protocols of the Reichstag (1867-95) and much more)
• ADB/NDB German biographical dictionary
• Meyers Konversations-Lexicon, a useful 19th c. encyclopedia
• Primary documents: Germany, a collection of links
• Digital Bibliothek of the Max-Planck-Institut für europäische Rechtsgeschichte
• Regesta Imperii, documents from the Carolingians to Maximilian I
• Bavarian History Virtual Library

Maps

• IEG Maps from the Institute of European History, Mainz
• Historical maps - Germany at the end of the 18th century
• Oddens' Bookmarks, thousands of map-related links

References

Other than the references listed on the main Royalty page, here are some specific references for Germany.

From 1907 to 1914 a series of volumes on the public law of countries was published in Tübingen by the publisher J. C. B. Mohr (Das öffentliche recht der gegenwart). They are very good references for laws of succession and constitutional questions in general. The fact that they were published just before World War I makes them a good source for the state of public law in German states right before the monarchies disappeared. Here is a list of the volumes:

1. German Empire by Paul Laband and Otto Mayer (1907)
2. Württemberg by Karl Göz (1908)
3. International law by Emanuel Ullmann (1908)
4. Braunschweig by Albert Rhamm (1908)
5. Baden by Ernst Walz (1909)
6. France (constitutional) by André Lebon (1909)
7. ...
8. Greece by Nikolaus Saripolos (1909)
9. Saxony by Otto Mayer (1909)
10. Austria by Josef Ulbrich (1909)
11. Luxemburg by Paul Eyschen (1910)
12. USA by Ernst Freund (1911)
13. Norway by Bredo Henrik Munthe af Morgenstierne (1911)
14. Oldenburg by Walther Schücking (1911)
15. Hungary (constitutional) by Heinrich Marczali (1911)
16. Hungary (administrative) by Desider Márkus (1912)
17. Russia by Wiatscheslaw Gribowski (1912)
18. Finland by Rafael Erich (1912)
19. Hesse-Darmstadt by Wilhelm van Calker (1913)
20. Denmark by C. Goos and Henrik Hansen (1913)
21. Bavaria (constitutional) by Max von Seydel (1913)
22. Bavaria (administrative) by Max von Seydel (1913)
23. France (administrative) by Gaston Jèze (1913)
24. Spain by Adolfo Posada (1914)
25. United Kingdom by Julius Hatschek (1914)
26. Alsace-Lorraine by Oscar Fischbach (1914)
27. Bremen and Lübeck by Johannes Bollmann (1914)

For the German states there are several sources, beyond those listed above:

• Stoerk, Felix: Handbuch der deutschen Verfassungen : die Verfassungsgesetze des Deutschen Reiches und seiner Bundesstaaten nach dem gegenwärtigen Gesetzesstande . Leipzig : Duncker & Humblot, 1884. 2nd edition: 1913.
• Binding, Karl: Deutsche staatsgrundgesetze in diplomatisch genauem abdrucke. Leipzig, W. Engelmann, 1897-1906.
  Contains: Bund of 1867, Empire of 1871, confederation of the Rhine of 1806, German confederation of 1815; Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, Wurttemberg, Baden, Hesse-Darmstadt, Lübeck, Bremen and Hamburg.