Droit de régale, a medieval legal term, originally denoted those rights that belonged exclusively to the king, either as essential to his sovereignty (jura majora, jura essentialia), such as royal authority; or accidental (jura minora, jura accidentalia), such as the right of the chase, of fishing, mining, etc. By abuse, many sovereigns in the Middle Ages and in later times claimed the right to seize the revenues of vacant episcopal sees or imperial abbeys, and gradually jus regaliae came to be applied almost exclusively to this assumed right.