Die Sessionsordnung und die Verfassungsstruktur in den frühneuzeitlichen deutschen Reichstagen: Die Stellung des Reichserbmarschalls

Abstract

SUMMARY In this essay Akira Shibutani makes a study of how the order of precedence was legislated or institutionalized in the early-modern German imperial diet. For this purpose he intends to establish the position of the Reichserbmarschall (the master of ceremonies), who supervised the order of precedence. The count of Pappenheim, who held the office of the Reichserbmarschall, led all the ceremonies of the imperial diet; nonetheless, he had neither seat nor vote in the imperial diet. However, he put the question according to the the order of precedence in the princely section to compensate for it. When we consider the order of precedence as the political procedure in the imperial diet, it becomes clear in the princely section, where there were about hundred seats, how the order of precedence was used. As the Reichserbmarschall had neither seat nor vote in the imperial diet, unlike the general estates of the Holy Roman Empire, he could, remain neutral among the estates. Because of his neutrality the Reichserbmarschall could advise the estates to observe the order of precedence, which both fixed the ranks of estates and made the unanimity of estates the principle of the diet. The office of the Reichserbmarschall legislated or institutionalized the order of precedence, so to speak, as the parliamentary law of the imperial diet.