Person who declares himself king in opposition to a reigning monarch
An anti-king, anti king or antiking (
German: Gegenkönig;
French: antiroi;
Czech: protikrál) is a would-be
king who, due to succession disputes or simple political opposition, declares himself king in opposition to a reigning monarch.[1] The term is usually used in a European historical context where it relates to
elective monarchies rather than hereditary ones. In hereditary monarchies such figures are more frequently referred to as
pretenders or claimants.
Anti-kings are most commonly referred to in the politics of the
Holy Roman Empire, before the
Golden Bull of 1356 issued by Emperor
Charles IV defined the provisions of the
Imperial election. Other nations with elective monarchies that produced anti-kings included
Bohemia and
Hungary. The term is comparable to
antipope, a rival would-be
Pope, and indeed the two phenomena are related; just as
German kings (
Kings of the Romans) and
Holy Roman Emperors from time to time raised up antipopes to politically weaken Popes with whom they were in conflict, so too Popes sometimes sponsored anti-kings as political rivals to emperors with whom they disagreed.
Several anti-kings succeeded in vindicating their claims to power, and were recognized as rightful kings: for example, King
Conrad III of Germany, Emperor
Frederick II, and Emperor Charles IV (see table below). The status of others as anti-kings is still disputed: e.g. in the case of Duke
Henry II of Bavaria and Margrave
Egbert II of Meissen.
^OED "Anti-, 2" The OED does not give "anti-king" its own entry, unlike "antipope", but includes it in a list of political "anti-" formations, such as "anti-emperor" and "anti-caesar". The earliest example of anti-king cited is from 1619 (and the next by
Dr Pusey). Only the hyphenated form is cited or mentioned.
Sources
Heinrich Mitteis: Die deutsche Königswahl. Ihre Rechtsgrundlagen bis zur goldenen Bulle, 2nd expanded edition, Rohrer, Brünn, Munich, Vienna, 1944, pp. 113 ff.
Dietmar Willoweit: Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte. Vom Frankenreich bis zur Wiedervereinigung Deutschlands, 5th revised edition, expanded with a table of chronology and an attached map, Beck, Munich, 2005, pp. 71 f., 94 ff.,
ISBN3-406-52637-3
Gerhard Theuerkauf: Gegenkönig. In: Handwörterbuch zur deutschen Rechtsgeschichte, 2nd, fully revised and expanded edition. Published by Albrecht Cordes, Heiner Lück, Dieter Werkmüller and Ruth Schmidt-Wiegand as philological advisor. Edited by: Falk Hess and Andreas Karg, Vol. I: Aachen-Geistliche Bank, Erich Schmidt Verlag, Berlin. 2008, Sp. 1995–1996,
ISBN978-3-503-07912-4