AULIC COUNCIL was instituted by the Emperor Maximilian I., in 1500. Towards the close of the 15th century, the progress of the Turks alarmed the princes of Germany, and led them to feel more strongly than ever the necessity of sacrificing their petty quarrels, and of uniting in order to resist the common enemy. Accordingly, when the emperor assembled the Diet of Worms in 1495, and proposed a levy against the Turks, he was answered, that it was first requisite to restore internal concord, and that the establishment of a high coma of justice for the settlement of all differences was the first step towards such union. The Imperial Chamber was accordingly insti tuted in 1496, as the high court of justice of the empire, the right of private war being at the same time abolished. It was to consist of one judge of princely rank, and of sixteen assessors, their office independent of any power. This tribunal was first fixed at Frankfort, then at Worms, at Nurnberg, and lastly at Spires : it was modified after thepeace of Westphalia, bnd the number of judges was greatly increased, one half being Protestants.
Not contented with thus organizing a federal judicature, the German princes, who then aimed at establishing constitu tional rights, demanded of Maximilian a permanent council or senate, composed partly of members of the diet, who should govern the empire during the frequent absence of the emperor. Maximilian answered indirectly, that he bad no objec tion to appoint a Hofrath, or court council, consisting of such noble and prudent men as he should select, who should perform the duties alluded to by the diet. The latter assembly, nevertheless, persisted, and succeeded for the time in their plan, carrying the point of having a federal senate, called the Regiment, or Reichs Regiment. Maximilian, on his part, founded what he had promised— a hof rath, at Vienna in 1500. By degrees this purely Austrian institution rose on the rains both of the Imperial Chamber and the Regiment, till it almost superseded the former, and altogether the latter. The Hofrath is the Aulic Council. Its
rise at the time that the federal institu tion declined or perished, marks the simultaneous elevation of the house of Austria over the old and independent spirit of the German confederation.
The judicial functions reserved for the Anlic Council were :-1. All feudal causes ; 2. All cases of privilege or reserve in which the emperor was per sonally concerned ; 3. All Italian causes. The merely civil and German eases were referred to the Imperial Chamber. But the Austrian princes made use of the Aulic Council in other than judicial func tions. It was with them not only a court of appeal, but a politics I council, which was called upon to give the monarch advice in weighty matters, more espe cially of legislation. It thus corresponded with the French Grand Conseil, or Con seil d'Etat. Charles V. modified consi derably the Aulic Council, extended its jurisdiction to Italy and the Netherlands, filled it with foreign members, and altered its forms of procedure. But Ferdinand, his successor, hearkening to the com plaints of his subjects against these inno vations, rendered the court once more purely German, expelled foreign judges, and restored the ancient forms. It was finally regulated by Ferdinand III. in an edict, issued in 1654, subsequent to the treaty of Westphalia and the 'Onus sion of Protestants to share in all the privileges and functions of the empire.
At the extinction of the German em pire by the renunciation of Francis H. in 1806, and the establishment of the Con federation of the Rhine under the protee. tion of the Emperor Napoleon, the Aulic Council ceased to exist. There is, how ever, an Aulic Council at Vienna for the affairs of the war department of the Austrian empire ; it is cellecUretriegsrath, and consists of twenty-five councillors. The members also of the various boards or chancellories of state for the affairs of Bohemia, Hungary, and Transylvania, Italy, and Gallicia, are styled Auk Councillors, but are inferior in rank to the councillors of state, of which latter two sit at the head of each board. (Aus tria as it is, London, 1827.)