Elective monarchies

I have been reading that King Frederik III was the first hereditary monarch
of Denmark, and before him the kingdom was officially elective. Could

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l to

someone explain what the latter term means? I thought it was fundamental to
most monarchies that they are hereditary.

Don Aitken...

Not at all. There was a strong elective element right at the beginning
of European monarchy, among the Germanic peoples. It survived longest
in Scandinavia; the Swedish monarchy was elective until 1772.

Francois R. Velde...

And Germany until 1792, and Poland until almost the same date.

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Not quite, actually. Hereditary monarchy inherited in a Salic manner
was introduced de jure in 1544 in Sweden. However, only five
successions of thirteen up to 1772 were hereditary successions . In the
other eight cases, the monarch was elected never the same, either
because there was no available hereditary Prince, or because the
previous monarch was dethroned. The Danes were the last to abandon the
elective monarchy de jure, around 1660.

What was changed in 1772 wasn't the succession la as such, but that the
last remnant from the old elective monarchy, the "konungaf=F6rskran" -
the declaration of the limitation of his powers that every monarch was
supposed to read befor the Estates at his succession - ceased to have
the status of fundamental law.

Eligibility was originally supposed to be confined to male-line
descendants of the founder (although some of these founders were
mythical, and the descents equally so). Any adult male member of the
family could be elected.

The idea of the one legitimate heir, who succeeds no matter what, was
originally a French thing, formalised in the fourteenth century after
three hundred years of unbroken succession from father to adult son,
during most of which it was customary for the heir to be crowned in
his father's lifetime, so that no question of who was to succeed could
arise when the king died.

I think that the prestige of the French monarchy, resulting from
French military and political dominance in Europe, played a big part
in the adoption of the idea elsewhere, which made most progress in the
17th and 18th centuries.

Francois R. Velde...

Whot? Is that the only reason? What about the supposed superiority of the
(hereditary) monarchical system, bringing predictability and stability, etc,
etc, etc?

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There were other reasons as well. Norway introduced hereditary monarchy
already in the 13th century, in 1260. In this case, the widespread
destrucktion caused by the civil wars between different pretenders -
"kongsemnen" - was a decisive factor. Hereditary monarchy increases the
risk of getting an unsuitable person on the throne. But it regularises
the transfer of power considerably.

Jan B=F6hme

Jan B=F6hme