Imperial Kingdom of Urcea

The Imperial Kingdom of Urcea is a term developed by 19th century historians to describe the legal entity of Urcea and the Apostolic King of Urcea with regards to its relationship to the Holy Levantine Empire. It was created to distinguish the legal boundaries and obligations of a Kingdom within the Holy Levantine Empire from the geopolitical entity of Urcea, which at that time was understood to be those lands directly held by the Julian dynasty.

Background
Upon the terms of the Golden Bull of 1098, the Southern Kingdom of the Levantines became the Kingdom of Urcea within the Empire, with its borders somewhat resembling the modern day border of Urcea subtracting those ruled by the Kingdom of Gassavelia. Not unlike the Kingdom of Dericania, however, the extent of this so-called "Imperial Kingdom" should not be understood to mean a cohesive political unit; the political authority of the Apostolic King was still almost entirely limited to those domains he held directly in his own name. The vassals of the "Imperial Kingdom" owed the King their vassalage and he owed them protection from outside incursion, but beyond the prestige effects and political authority that the Kingship granted, it incurred more responsibility for the former Prince-Archduke of Urceopolis than territorial benefit.

The distinction between the legal entity of Urcea within the Holy Levantine Empire and the Urcean Crown is typically applicable only to the period prior to the Great Confessional War. During the rule of the Protestant House of Ronan, all vassals within the Imperial Kingdom of Urcea were given Imperial immediacy in order to bypass the Urcean crown. This action maintained the existence of the Imperial Kingdom de jure, but had the effect of restricting its effective control to be coterminous with Urcea as a political entity, thus depreciating the need to create a distinction between the two.

Development of the Term
With the development of a stronger sense of Urcean nationalism in the 19th century during the Recess of the Julii, the history of Urcea became an important and popular subject of scholarly writing. During that time, distinctions between the legal Kingdom within the Empire and the actual entity of Urcea under the Apostolic King were not generally understood by the public and even by many historians. Consequently, the term "Imperial Kingdom" was developed to create the distinction, and subsequently entered wide use. In the 1940s, a period of historical revisionism and reflection began after the Holy Levantine Empire ended, and historians debated the continued value of the term given that the distinction between the direct domains of the Urcean King and the picture of the non-compliant vassal was not as clear during the early years of the Kingdom, but the term continues to be used by historians until the present.