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Papal States

(Encyclopedia)Papal States, Ital. Lo Stato della Chiesa, from 754 to 1870 an independent territory under the temporal rule of the popes, also called the States of the Church and the Pontifical States. The territory...

papal election

(Encyclopedia)papal election, election of the pope by the college of cardinals meeting in secret conclave in the Sistine Chapel not less than 15 nor more than 18 days after the death of the previous pontiff. In the...

bull, papal letter

(Encyclopedia)bull [Lat. bulla=leaden seal], papal letter. As the diplomatic organization of the papal chancery progressed in the Middle Ages, the papal bull came to be more solemn than the papal brief or encyclica...

States of the Church

(Encyclopedia)States of the Church: see Papal States. ...

states' rights

(Encyclopedia)states' rights, in U.S. history, doctrine based on the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution, which states, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to ...

States-General

(Encyclopedia)States-General or Estates-General, diet or national assembly in which the chief estates (see estate) of a nation—usually clergy, nobles, and towns (or commons)—were represented as separate bodies....

Baltic states

(Encyclopedia)Baltic states, the countries of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, bordering on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea. Formed in 1918, they remained independent republics until their involuntary incorporat...

Malay States

(Encyclopedia)Malay States: see Malaysia.

Trucial States

(Encyclopedia)Trucial States: see United Arab Emirates. ...

Barbary States

(Encyclopedia)Barbary States, term used for the North African states of Tripolitania, Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco. From the 16th cent. Tripolitania, Tunisia, and Algeria were autonomous provinces of the Turkish E...