Editing Head of state (section)

==Historical European perspectives==
* The [[polis]] in Greek Antiquity and the equivalent city states in the feudal era and later, (many in Italy, the [[Holy Roman Empire]], the Moorish ''taifa'' in [[Iberian Peninsula|Iberia]], essentially tribal-type but urbanised regions throughout the world in the [[Maya civilisation]], etc.) offer a wide spectrum of styles, either monarchic (mostly identical to homonyms in larger states) or republican, see [[Chief magistrate]].
* [[Doge (title)|Doge]]s were elected by their Italian aristocratic republics from a patrician nobility, but "reigned" as sovereign dukes.
* The paradoxical term [[crowned republic]] refers to various state arrangements that combine "republican" and "monarchic" characteristics.
* The [[Netherlands]] historically had officials called [[stadholder]]s and [[stadholder-general|stadholders-general]], titles meaning "lieutenant" or "governor", originally for the [[Habsburg]] monarchs.

In medieval Catholic Europe, it was universally accepted that the [[Pope]] ranked first among all rulers and was followed by the [[Holy Roman Emperor]].<ref name=Roberts:39>[[#Roberts|Roberts]]: p. 39.</ref> The Pope also had the sole right to determine the precedence of all others.<ref name=Roberts:39/><ref name=Roberts:37-38>[[#Roberts|Roberts]]: pp. 37-38.</ref> This principle was first challenged by a Protestant ruler, [[Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden]] and was later maintained by his country at the [[Congress of Westphalia]].<ref name=Roberts:39/> Great Britain would later claim a break of the old principle for the [[War of the Quadruple Alliance|Quadruple Alliance]] in 1718.<ref name=Roberts:39/>{{refn|group=note|On the occasion of a royal marriage in 1760, the [[premier of Portugal]], the [[Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, 1st Marquis of Pombal|Marquis of Pombal]], tried to maintain that the host, the [[King of Portugal]], should as a crowned head have the sovereign right to determine the precedence of how ambassadors (apart from the papal nuncio and the imperial ambassador) would rank, based on the date of their credentials. The pragmatic suggestions of Pombal was not successful, and as the pretensions among the great powers were so deep-rooted, it would take the [[Napoleonic Wars]] for the great powers to have a fresh look at the issue.<ref name=Roberts:41-42>[[#Roberts|Roberts]]: pp. 41-42.</ref>}} However, it was not until the [[1815 Congress of Vienna]], when it was decided (due to the abolition of the [[Holy Roman Empire]] in 1806 and the weak position of France and other catholic states to assert themselves) and remains so to this day, that all sovereign states are treated as equals, whether monarchies or republics.<ref name=Roberts:42-43>[[#Roberts|Roberts]]: pp. 42-43.</ref> On occasions when multiple heads of state or their representatives meet, precedence is by the host usually determined in alphabetical order (in whatever language the host determines, although [[French language|French]] has for much of the 19th and 20th centuries been the ''[[lingua franca]]'' of diplomacy) or by date of accession.<ref name=Roberts:42-43/> Contemporary international law on precedence, built upon the universally admitted principles since 1815, derives from the [[Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations]] (in particular, articles 13, 16.1 and Appendix iii).<ref name=Roberts:43>[[#Roberts|Roberts]]: p. 43.</ref>
<gallery class="center" widths="210" heights="200" caption="European writers of 16th and 17th centuries">
File:Machiavelli Principe Cover Page.jpg|Title page of 1550 Italian edition of Machiavelli's ''The Prince''
File:Albergati Discorsi politici.jpg|Bodin named on title page of ''Discorsi politici'' (1602) by [[Fabio Albergati]] who compared Bodin's political theories unfavourably with those of Aristotle
File:Leviathan frontispiece cropped British Library.jpg|Frontispiece of [[Thomas Hobbes]]' ''[[Leviathan (Hobbes book)|Leviathan]] (1651)''
</gallery>
[[Niccolò Machiavelli]] used ''[[Prince]]'' ({{langx|it|Principe}}) as a generic term for the ruler, similar to contemporary usage of ''head of state'', in his classical [[treatise]] ''[[The Prince]]'', originally published in 1532: in fact that particular literary [[genre]] it belongs to is known as [[Mirrors for princes]]. [[Thomas Hobbes]] in his ''[[Leviathan (Hobbes book)|Leviathan]]'' (1651) used the term ''Sovereign''. In [[Europe]] the role of a monarchs has gradually transitioned from that of a sovereign ruler{{Em dash}}in the sense of [[Divine Right of Kings]] as articulated by [[Jean Bodin]], [[Absolute monarchy|Absolutism]] and the "[[L'etat c'est moi]]"{{Em dash}}to that of a constitutional monarch; parallel with the conceptual evolution of [[sovereignty]] from merely the personal rule of a single person, to [[Westphalian sovereignty]] ([[Peace of Westphalia]] ending both the [[Thirty Years' War]] & [[Eighty Years' War]]) and [[popular sovereignty]] as in [[consent of the governed]]; as shown in the [[Glorious Revolution]] of 1688 in [[England]] & [[Scotland]], the [[French Revolution]] in 1789, and the [[German Revolution of 1918–1919]]. The monarchies who survived through this era were the ones who were willing to subject themselves to constitutional limitations.