of Bavaria.

At first, the emperor was chosen by the people at large; the right of
election was afterwards confined to the nobility and the principal
officers of state: insensibly, it was engrossed by the five great
officers,--the chancellor, the great marshal, the great chamberlain, the
great butler, and the great master of the palace. But their exclusive
pretensions were much questioned. At length, their right of election was
settled; first, by the Electoral Union, in 1337; and finally, in the
reign of the emperor Charles IV. by the celebrated constitution, called,
from the seal of gold appended to it, _the Golden Bull_. By this, the
right of election was vested in three spiritual and four temporal
electors: two temporal electors have since been added to their numbers.







IV. 2.

_State of German literature during this period_.

[Sidenote: 1438-1519]


While the empire was possessed by the princes of the house of Saxony, a
copy of the Pandects of Justinian was discovered at Amalfi. "The
discovery of them," says Sir William Blackstone, in his Introductory