ABSTRACT
According to the German historian Horst Dreitzel, the distinctive political landscape of the Holy Roman Empire gave birth to not only a Fürstengesellschaft, a princely community, but almost a Fürstenstand, a princely estate. It is therefore relevant to construct a typology of the various kinds of German monarchies. Dreitzel divides them into three dominating types. In the monarchia pura, the king was the only legitimate state authority, although his power could be either unrestrained or legally circumscribed. In the monarchia mixta, several bodies of state balanced each other and administered different areas of state authority. In the monarchia limitata, the king was the sole holder of state authority – of sovereignty, or majestas – but in governing he had to cooperate with different political organs. This presupposed that the representative assemblies had surrendered some of their liberties to the prince but still retained certain immunities; that the prince accepted the limitations to his powers that were laid down constitutionally; and that the limitations to the prince’s right to exercise power did not reduce his supreme authority.2
