An
interregnum (plural
interregna or
interregnums) is a period of discontinuity of a government, organization, or social order. Archetypally, it was the period of time between the reign of one monarch and the next (coming from Latin
inter-, "between" +
regnum, "reign" [from
rex, regis, "king"]), and the concepts of interregnum and
regency therefore overlap. An interregnum can simplistically be thought of as a "gap", although the idea of an interregnum emphasizes the relationship to what comes before and to what comes after in a sequence. This contrasts with a near synonym like
gap, which may be random, encompassing neither connotation of interjacency in a sequence nor formal interrelation.
Examples of interregna are periods between monarchs, between popes, between emperors of the Holy Roman Empire, between kings in an elective monarchy, or between consuls of the Roman Republic. The term can also refer to the period between the pastorates of ministers in some Protestant churches.
In Roman law, interregnum was usually accompanied by the proclamation of justitium (or state of exception, as Giorgio Agamben demonstrated in his 2005 book of this name). This is not surprising, as when a sovereign died - or when the Pope died - tumultus (upheavals) usually followed upon the news being made public. Progressively, justitium came to signify the public mourning of the sovereign, and not anymore justitium, auctoritas being (mythically) attached to the physical body of the sovereign.
The term is also applied to the period of time between the election of a new President of the United States and his or her inauguration, during which the outgoing president remains in power, but as a lame duck.[1]
