Prince-elector in the context of Holy Roman Emperor

The House of Wittelsbach (German: Haus Wittelsbach) is a former Bavarian dynasty, with branches that have ruled over territories including the Electorate of Bavaria, the Electoral Palatinate, the Electorate of Cologne, Holland, Zeeland, Sweden (with Swedish-ruled Finland), Denmark, Norway, Hungary, Bohemia, and Greece. Their ancestral lands of Bavaria and the Palatinate were prince-electorates, and the family had three of its members elected emperors and kings of the Holy Roman Empire. They ruled over the Kingdom of Bavaria which was created in 1805 and continued to exist until 1918.

The House of Windsor, the reigning royal house of the British monarchy, are descendants of Sophia of Hanover (1630–1714), a Wittelsbach Princess of the Palatinate by birth and Electress of Hanover by marriage, who had inherited the succession rights of the House of Stuart and passed them on to the House of Hanover.

A sacerdotal state is a state whose head is also an ecclesiastical leader designated by a religious body. An example of this kind of state is the Vatican City: its heads of state, the popes of the Catholic Church, have governed papal lands distinct from secular authority since the establishment of the Papal States in the 8th century AD. Andorra operates under a semi-sacerdotal system, as one of its co-heads of state is the bishop of Urgell, while the other is the head of state of France. However unlike the Vatican, the co-princes of Andorra are ceremonial and not closely involved in the government.

In the past, bishops commonly assumed temporal as well as spiritual authority and ruled as prince-bishops. This occurred, for example, in the Holy Roman Empire, where three of the seven imperial electors were prince-archbishops (those of Trier, Mainz and Cologne). After the 1648 Peace of Westphalia certain prince-bishoprics became bi-confessional and alternated between governance by Catholic bishops and by Protestant administrators.

The Electorate of Bavaria (German: Kurfürstentum Bayern) was a quasi-independent hereditary electorate of the Holy Roman Empire from 1623 to 1806, when it was succeeded by the Kingdom of Bavaria.

The Wittelsbach dynasty which ruled the Duchy of Bavaria was the younger branch of the family which also ruled the Electoral Palatinate. The head of the elder branch was one of the seven prince-electors of the Holy Roman Empire according to the Golden Bull of 1356, but Bavaria was excluded from the electoral dignity. In 1621, Frederick V, Elector Palatine was put under the imperial ban for his role in the Bohemian Revolt against Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor, and the electoral dignity and territory of the Upper Palatinate was conferred upon his loyal cousin, Duke Maximilian I of Bavaria. Although the Peace of Westphalia would create a new electoral title for Frederick V's son, with the exception of a brief period during the War of the Spanish Succession, Maximilian's descendants would continue to hold the original electoral dignity until the extinction of his line in 1777. At that point the two lines were joined in personal union until the end of the Holy Roman Empire. In 1805, after the Peace of Pressburg, the then-elector, Maximilian Joseph, raised himself to the dignity of King of Bavaria, and the Holy Roman Empire was abolished the following year.

The Electoral Palatinate was a constituent state of the Holy Roman Empire until it was annexed by the Electorate of Baden in 1803. From the end of the 13th century, its ruler was one of the Prince-electors who elected the Holy Roman Emperor, ranking them among the most significant secular Princes of the Holy Roman Empire.

The Palatinate consisted of a number of widely dispersed territories, ranging from the left bank of the Upper Rhine in the modern state of Rhineland-Palatinate, adjacent parts of the French regions of Alsace and Lorraine to the opposite territory on the east bank of the Rhine in present-day Hesse and Baden-Württemberg up to the Odenwald range and the southern Kraichgau region, containing the capital cities of Heidelberg and Mannheim.

The Electorate of Cologne (German: Kurfürstentum Köln), sometimes referred to as Electoral Cologne (German: Kurköln), was an ecclesiastical principality of the Holy Roman Empire that existed from the 10th to the early 19th century. It consisted of the Hochstift—the temporal possessions—of the archbishop of Cologne, and was ruled by him in his capacity as prince-elector. There were only two other ecclesiastical prince-electors in the Empire: the Electorate of Mainz and the Electorate of Trier. The archbishop-elector of Cologne was also arch-chancellor of Italy (one of the three component titular kingdoms of the Holy Roman Empire, the other two being Germany and Burgundy) and, as such, ranked second among all ecclesiastical and secular princes of the Empire, after the archbishop-elector of Mainz, and before that of Trier.

The capital of the electorate was Cologne. Conflicts with the citizens of Cologne caused the elector to move to Bonn. The Free Imperial City of Cologne was recognized after 1475, thus removing it from even the nominal secular authority of the elector. Cologne and Bonn were occupied by France in 1794. The right bank territories of the electorate were secularized in 1803 during the German mediatization.

The Kingdom of Bohemia (Czech: České království), sometimes referenced in English literature as the Czech Kingdom, was a medieval and early modern monarchy in Central Europe. It was the predecessor state of the modern Czech Republic.

The Kingdom of Bohemia was an Imperial State in the Holy Roman Empire. The Bohemian king was a prince-elector of the empire. The kings of Bohemia, besides the region of Bohemia itself, also ruled other lands belonging to the Bohemian Crown, which at various times included Moravia, Silesia, Lusatia, and parts of Saxony, Brandenburg, and Bavaria.

The Holy Roman Empire, also known as the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation after 1512, was a polity in Central and Western Europe, usually headed by the Holy Roman Emperor. It developed in the Early Middle Ages (beginning in either 800 or 924), and lasted for a millennium until its dissolution in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars. Initially, it comprised three constituent kingdoms—Germany, Italy, and, from 1032, Burgundy—held together by the emperor's overlordship. By the 15th century, imperial governance became concentrated in the Kingdom of Germany, as the empire's effective control over Italy and Burgundy had largely disappeared.

On 25 December 800, Pope Leo III crowned the Frankish king Charlemagne Roman emperor, reviving the title more than three centuries after the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476. The title lapsed in 924, but was revived in 962 when Otto I was crowned emperor by Pope John XII, as Charlemagne's and the Carolingian Empire's successor. From 962 until the 12th century, the empire was one of the most powerful monarchies in Europe. It depended on cooperation between emperors and vassals; this was disturbed during the Salian period. The empire reached the apex of territorial expansion and power under the House of Hohenstaufen in the mid-13th century, but overextension led to a partial collapse. The imperial office was traditionally elective by the mostly German prince-electors. In theory and diplomacy, the emperors were considered the first among equals of all of Europe's Catholic monarchs.

The House of Hanover (German: Haus Hannover German pronunciation: [haʊ̯s haˈnoːfɐ]) is a German royal house with roots tracing back to the 17th century. Its members, known as Hanoverians, ruled Hanover, Great Britain, Ireland, and the British Empire at various times during the 17th to 20th centuries. Originating as a cadet branch of the House of Welf (also "Guelf" or "Guelph") in 1635, also known then as the House of Brunswick-Lüneburg, the Hanoverians ascended to prominence with Hanover's elevation to an Electorate of the Holy Roman Empire in 1692. In 1714 George I, prince-elector of Hanover and a descendant of King James VI and I, assumed the throne of Great Britain and Ireland, marking the beginning of Hanoverian rule over the British Empire. At the end of this line, Queen Victoria's death in 1901, the throne of the United Kingdom passed to her eldest son Edward VII, a member of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, through his father Albert, Prince Consort. The last reigning members of the House of Hanover lost the Duchy of Brunswick in 1918 when Germany became a republic and abolished royalty and nobility.

The formal name of the house was the "House of Brunswick-Lüneburg, Hanover line". The senior line of Brunswick-Lüneburg, which ruled Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, became extinct in 1884. The House of Hanover is now the only surviving branch of the House of Welf, which is the senior branch of the House of Este. The current head of the House of Hanover is Ernst August, Prince of Hanover.

The Lands of the Bohemian Crown were the states in Central Europe during the medieval and early modern periods with feudal obligations to the Bohemian kings. The crown lands primarily consisted of the Kingdom of Bohemia, an electorate of the Holy Roman Empire according to the Golden Bull of 1356, the Margraviate of Moravia, the duchies of Silesia, and the two Lusatias, known as the Margraviate of Upper Lusatia and the Margraviate of Lower Lusatia, as well as other territories throughout its history. This agglomeration of states nominally under the rule of the Bohemian kings was referred to simply as Bohemia.

The joint rule of Corona regni Bohemiae was legally established by decree of King Charles IV issued on 7 April 1348, on the foundation of the original Czech lands ruled by the Přemyslid dynasty until 1306. By linking the territories, the interconnection of crown lands thus no more belonged to a king or a dynasty but to the Bohemian monarchy itself, symbolized by the Crown of Saint Wenceslas. During the reign of King Ferdinand I from 1526, the lands of the Bohemian Crown became a constituent part of the Habsburg monarchy. A large part of Silesia was lost in the mid-18th century, but the rest of the Lands passed to the Austrian Empire and the Cisleithanian half of Austria-Hungary. By the Czechoslovak declaration of independence in 1918, the remaining Czech lands became part of the First Czechoslovak Republic.

The Jagiellonian (US: /ˌjɑːɡjəˈloʊniən/ YAH-gyə-LOH-nee-ən) or Jagellonian dynasty (US: /ˌjɑːɡəˈ-/ YAH-gə-; Lithuanian: Jogailaičių dinastija; Polish: dynastia jagiellońska), otherwise the Jagiellon dynasty (Polish: dynastia Jagiellonów), the House of Jagiellon (Polish: Dom Jagiellonów), or simply the Jagiellons (Lithuanian: Jogailaičiai; Polish: Jagiellonowie; Latin: Iagellonidae), was the name assumed by a cadet branch of the Lithuanian ducal dynasty of Gediminids upon reception by Jogaila, the Grand Duke of Lithuania, of baptism as Ladislaus in 1386, which paved the way to his ensuing marriage to the Queen Regnant Hedwig of Poland, resulting in his ascension to the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland as Ladislaus II Jagiełło (initially ruling jure uxoris jointly with Jadwiga until her death), and the effective promotion of his branch to a royal dynasty. The Jagiellons were polyglots and per historical evidence Casimir IV Jagiellon and his son Saint Casimir possibly were the last Jagiellons who spoke in their patrilineal ancestors' Lithuanian language; however, even the last patrilineal Jagiellonian monarch Sigismund II Augustus maintained two separate and equally lavish Lithuanian-speaking and Polish-speaking royal courts in Lithuania's capital Vilnius. The Jagiellons reigned in several European countries between the 14th and 16th centuries. Members of the dynasty were Kings of Poland (1386–1572), Grand Dukes of Lithuania (1377–1392 and 1440–1572), Kings of Hungary (1440–1444 and 1490–1526), and Kings of Bohemia and imperial electors (1471–1526).

The personal union between the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (converted in 1569 with the Treaty of Lublin into the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth) is the reason for the common appellation "Poland–Lithuania" in discussions about the area from the Late Middle Ages onward. One Jagiellon, Ladislaus III of Poland, briefly ruled both Poland and Hungary (1440–1444), and two others ruled both Bohemia and Hungary (1490–1526) and then continued in the distaff line as a branch of the House of Habsburg.

Trier (/trɪər/ TREER, German: [tʁiːɐ̯] ; Luxembourgish: Tréier [ˈtʀɜɪ̯ɐ] ), formerly and traditionally known in English as Trèves (/trɛv/ TREV, French: [tʁɛv] ) and Triers (see also names in other languages), is a city on the banks of the Moselle in Germany. It lies in a valley between low vine-covered hills of red sandstone in the west of the state of Rhineland-Palatinate, near the border with Luxembourg and within the important Moselle wine region.

Founded by the Romans in the late 1st century BC as Augusta Treverorum ("The City of Augustus among the Treveri"), Trier is considered Germany's oldest city. It is also the oldest seat of a bishop north of the Alps. Trier was one of the four capitals of the Roman Empire during the Tetrarchy period in the late 3rd and early 4th centuries. In the Middle Ages, the archbishop-elector of Trier was an important prince of the Church who controlled land from the French border to the Rhine. The archbishop-elector of Trier also had great significance as one of the seven electors of the Holy Roman Empire. Because of its significance during the Roman and Holy Roman empires, several monuments and cathedrals within Trier are listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Frederick Barbarossa (December 1122 – 10 June 1190), also known as Frederick I (German: Friedrich I; Italian: Federico I), was the Holy Roman Emperor from 1155 until his death in 1190. He was elected King of Germany in Frankfurt on 4 March 1152 and crowned in Aachen on 9 March 1152. He was crowned King of Italy on 24 April 1155 in Pavia and emperor by Pope Adrian IV on 18 June 1155 in Rome. Two years later, the term sacrum ("holy") first appeared in a document in connection with his empire. He was later formally crowned King of Burgundy, at Arles on 30 June 1178. His nickname of Barbarossa (meaning "Red Beard" in Italian) "was first used by the Florentines only in 1298 to differentiate the emperor from his grandson, Frederick II ... and was never employed in medieval Germany" (the colour red was "also associated in the Middle Ages with malice and a hot temper"; in reality, Frederick's hair was "blond", although his beard was described by a contemporary as "reddish"). In German, he was known as Kaiser Rotbart, which in English means "Emperor Redbeard". The prevalence of the Italian nickname, even in later German usage, reflects the centrality of the Italian campaigns under his reign, and "remains to this day one of the [most] powerful historical monikers."

Frederick was by inheritance Duke of Swabia (1147–1152, as Frederick III) before his imperial election in 1152. He was the son of Duke Frederick II of the Hohenstaufen dynasty and Judith, daughter of Henry IX, Duke of Bavaria, from the rival House of Welf. Frederick, therefore, descended from the two leading families in Germany, making him an acceptable choice for the Empire's prince-electors. Frederick joined the Third Crusade and opted to travel overland to the Holy Land. In 1190, Frederick drowned attempting to cross the Saleph River, leading to most of his army abandoning the Crusade before reaching Acre.

George III (George William Frederick; 4 June 1738 – 29 January 1820) was King of Great Britain and Ireland from 25 October 1760 until his death in 1820. The Acts of Union 1800 unified Great Britain and Ireland into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, with George as its king. He was concurrently duke and prince-elector of Hanover in the Holy Roman Empire before becoming King of Hanover on 12 October 1814. He was the first monarch of the House of Hanover who was born in Great Britain, spoke English as his first language, and never visited Hanover.

George was born during the reign of his paternal grandfather, King George II, as the first son of Frederick, Prince of Wales, and Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha. Following his father's death in 1751, Prince George became heir apparent and Prince of Wales. He succeeded to the throne on George II's death in 1760. The following year, he married Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, with whom he had 15 children. George III's life and reign were marked by a series of military conflicts involving his kingdoms, much of the rest of Europe, and places farther afield in Africa, the Americas and Asia. Early in his reign, Great Britain defeated France in the Seven Years' War, becoming the dominant European power in North America and India. However, Britain lost 13 of its North American colonies in the American War of Independence. Further wars against revolutionary and Napoleonic France from 1793 concluded in the defeat of Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. In 1807, the transatlantic slave trade was banned from the British Empire.

King of the Romans (Latin: Rex Romanorum; German: König der Römer) was the title used by the king of East Francia following his election by the princes from the reign of Henry II (1002–1024) onward.

The title originally referred to any German king between his election and coronation as Holy Roman Emperor by the Pope. The title was also used to designate the successor to the throne elected during the lifetime of a sitting Emperor. From the 16th century onwards, as German kings adopted the title of Emperor-elect and ceased to be crowned by the Pope, the title continued to be used solely for an elected successor to the throne during his predecessor's lifetime.

The House of Hohenzollern (/ˌhoʊənˈzɒlərn/, US also /-nˈzɔːl-, -ntˈsɔːl-/; German: Haus Hohenzollern, pronounced [ˌhaʊs hoːənˈtsɔlɐn] ; Romanian: Casa de Hohenzollern) is a formerly royal (and from 1871 to 1918, imperial) German dynasty whose members were variously princes, electors, kings and emperors of Hohenzollern, Brandenburg, Prussia, the German Empire, and Romania. The family came from the area around the town of Hechingen in Swabia during the late 11th century and took their name from Hohenzollern Castle. The first ancestors of the Hohenzollerns were mentioned in 1061.

The Hohenzollern family split into two branches, the Catholic Swabian branch and the Protestant Franconian branch, which ruled the Burgraviate of Nuremberg and later became the Brandenburg-Prussian branch. The Swabian branch ruled the principalities of Hohenzollern-Hechingen and Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen until 1849, and also ruled Romania from 1866 to 1947. Members of the Franconian branch became Margrave of Brandenburg in 1415 and Duke of Prussia in 1525.

The elector of Trier was one of the prince-electors of the Holy Roman Empire and, in his capacity as archbishop, administered the archdiocese of Trier. The territories of the electorate and the archdiocese were not, however, equivalent.

The Electorate of Mainz (German: Kurfürstentum Mainz [ˈkuːɐ̯ˌfʏʁstn̩tuːm ˈmaɪnts] or Kurmainz [kuːɐ̯ˈmaɪnts] ; Latin: Electoratus Moguntinus), previously known in English as Mentz and by its French name Mayence, was one of the most prestigious and influential states of the Holy Roman Empire. In the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, the Archbishop-Elector of Mainz was also the Primate of Germany (primas Germaniae), a purely honorary dignity that was unsuccessfully claimed from time to time by other archbishops. There were only two other ecclesiastical Prince-electors in the Empire: the Electorate of Cologne and the Electorate of Trier.

The Archbishop-Elector of Mainz was also archchancellor of Germany (one of the three component titular kingdoms of the Holy Roman Empire, the other two being Italy and Burgundy) and, as such, ranked first among all ecclesiastical and secular princes of the Empire, and was second only to the Emperor. His political role, particularly as an intermediary between the Estates of the Empire and the Emperor, was considerable.

The Archbishop of Cologne governs the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cologne in western North Rhine-Westphalia. Historically, the archbishop was ex officio one of the prince-electors of the Holy Roman Empire and ruled the Electorate of Cologne.

Since the early days of the Catholic Church, there have been 94 bishops and archbishops of Cologne. roue of them resigned n response to impeachment. Eight were coadjutor bishops before they took office. Seven were appointed as coadjutors freely by the pope. One moved to the Curia, where he became a cardinal. Additionally, six were chairmen of the German Bishops' Conference.

This article lists counts palatine of Lotharingia, counts palatine of the Rhine, and electors of the Palatinate (German: Kurfürst von der Pfalz), the titles of three counts palatine who ruled some part of the Rhine region in the Kingdom of Germany and the Holy Roman Empire between 915 and 1803. From 1261 (formally 1356), the title holder was a member of the small group of prince-electors who elected the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. Since then, the title has also been referred to as "Elector Palatine".