two powerful subjects. Henry the Lion received Bavaria, and, in order to appease Henry Jasomirgott, a new duchy was carved out for him. As will be seen from the charter it was enriched with almost unheard of privileges. But great as these were they did not satisfy one of the later dukes of Austria; and some of the most successful of mediæval forgeries distorted in the 14th century the original terms of Frederick's grant.
No. VIII. is the charter issued by Frederick Barbarossa at Gelnhausen in 1180. It commemorates a most important event in German constitutional history. The partition of Saxony was a death blow to the old ducal influence in Germany. There was, henceforth to be a new nobility, basing its claims on its services to the crown and not on its hereditary territorial power.
No. IX. is an interesting decision of a Nuremburg diet rendered in the year 1274. The election of Rudolf of Hapsburg after the long interregnum signified a renewal of the empire even though Rudolf never bore any title but king of the Romans. But how curtailed were his prerogatives compared to those of his predecessors! Future candidates were to be bound more and more by engagements and promises, to submit more and more to the arrogant assumptions of the electoral college. And in certain questions the Count Palatine of the Rhine, and not the King of the Romans was to speak the decisive word.
No. X., the Golden Bull of 1356, was issued for the purpose of determining the form for the election and coronation of the emperor, and also of regulating the duties, rights and privileges of the elector princes. It distinctly defines to whom the electoral rights belong. There had been no doubt about the three archbishoprics or about Bohemia, but disputes had arisen between rival lines both in Saxony and Brandenburg, and the seventh vote was claimed alike by Bavaria and by the Palatinate.
