Encyclopedia
The
Holy Roman Empire was a mainly
Central European conglomeration of lands in the
Middle Ages and the early modern period, also known as the
Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, with the 16th-century reforms in the Reich. Originating in
Eastern Francia it lasted for 963 years until its dissolution in 1806 during the
Napoleonic Wars.
At its peak the Holy Roman Empire consisted of present-day
Germany,
Switzerland,
Liechtenstein,
Luxembourg,
Czech Republic,
Slovenia,
Austria,
Croatia,
Belgium, and the
Netherlands as well as large parts of modern
Poland,
France and
Italy. At the time of its dissolution it consisted of its core territories and smaller parts of France, Italy, Poland, Croatia, Belgium, and the Netherlands. With the
empire in decline,
Voltaire made the famous comment that the Holy Roman Empire was "neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire."
Character
The constituent principles of the
Reich as a political entity derived from
medieval Christian thought rather than modern conceptions of the
nation-state. Furthermore, both the territory and internal cohesion of the Reich varied over the course of its existence. One way in which the Reich can be described is as a cross between a state and a religious confederation.
Most of the Holy Roman Empire's rulers and subjects were
Germans. All of the Holy Roman Emperors were
Catholic. However, many of its most important noble families and appointed officials came from outside the German-speaking communities. Its languages thus comprised not only
German and its many dialects and derivatives, but many
Slavic languages and the precursors to modern
French,
Dutch, and
Italian. Significant numbers of religious minorities, including
Jews and
Eastern Orthodox Christians lived within the Empire's borders at various times, and the Empire was also the birthplace of the
Protestant Reformation.
The Holy Roman Empire's division into territories ruled by numerous princes , prelates, counts, imperial knights, and free cities made it, in the early modern period at least, far less cohesive than the emerging modern states around it.
For most of its existence, the Holy Roman Empire was more akin to a confederation of sovereign states than a state in and of itself. The concept of the
Reich not only included the government of a specific territory, but had strong Christian religious connotations . Until 1508, German kings were not considered Emperors of the
Reich until the
Pope had formally crowned them as such. The Emperors thought of themselves as continuing the function of the
Roman Emperors in defending, governing and supporting the Church. This viewpoint led to much strife between the Empire and the
papacy.
Nomenclature
The Holy Roman Empire was a conscious attempt to resurrect the
Western Roman Empire, considered to have ended with the abdication of Romulus Augustulus in 476. Although
Pope Leo III crowned
Charlemagne as
Imperator Augustus on 25 December 800, and his son,
Louis the Pious was also crowned as Emperor by the Pope, the Empire and the imperial office did not become formalized for some decades, due largely to the Frankish tendency to divide realms between heirs after their death. It is notable that Louis first crowned himself in 814, upon his father's death, but in 816,
Pope Stephen V , who had succeeded Leo III, visited Rheims and again crowned Louis. By that act, the Emperor strengthened the papacy by recognising the importance of the pope in imperial coronations.
The name of the Empire, in various languages that historically were spoken within its confines:
- Czech: Svatá ríe rímská, later: Svatá ríe rímská národa nemeckého
- Dutch: Heilige Roomse Rijk, later Heilige Roomse Rijk der Duitse Natie/Volkeren
- French: Saint Empire Romain Germanique
- German: Heiliges Römisches Reich [] listen , later Heiliges Römisches Reich deutscher Nation []
- Italian: Sacro Romano Impero
- Latin: Sacrum Romanum Imperium, later Sacrum Romanum Imperium Nationis Germanicae []
- Slovene: Sveto rimsko cesarstvo, later Sveto rimsko cesarstvo nemke narodnosti
Contemporary terminology for the Empire varied greatly over the centuries. The term
Roman Empire was used in 1034 to denote the lands under
Conrad II, and
Holy Empire in 1157. The use of the term
Roman Emperor to refer to
Northern European rulers started earlier with
Otto II . Emperors from
Charlemagne to
Otto I the Great had simply used the phrase
Imperator Augustus . The precise term
Holy Roman Empire dates from 1254; the final version
Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation appears in 1512, after several variations in the late
15th century.
Contemporaries did not quite know how to describe this entity either. In his famous 1667 description
De statu imperii Germanici, published under the alias Severinus de Monzambano,
Samuel Pufendorf wrote:
"Nihil ergo aliud restat, quam ut dicamus Germaniam esse irregulare aliquod corpus et monstro simile ..." .
In
Faust is a tragic [i] play [i] and the best known version ...
I, in a scene written in 1775, the German author
Goethe has one of the drinkers in
Auerbach's Cellar in
Leipzig ask "Our Holy Roman Empire, lads, what still holds it together?" Goethe also has a longer, not very favourable essay about his personal experiences as a trainee at the
Reichskammergericht in his autobiographical work
Dichtung und Wahrheit.
Structure and institutions
From the
High Middle Ages onwards, the
Reich was stamped by a most peculiar coexistence of the Empire with the struggle of the dukes of the local territories to take power away from it. As opposed to the rulers of the
West Frankish lands, which later became
France, the Emperors never managed to gain much control over the lands that they formally owned. Instead, Emperors were forced to grant more and more powers to the individual dukes in their respective territories. This process began in the
12th century and was more or less concluded with the 1648
Peace of Westphalia. Several attempts were made to reverse this degradation of the
Reich's former glory, but failed.
Formally, the
Reich comprised the King, to be crowned Emperor by the pope , on one side, and the
Reichsstände on the other.
King of the Romans
The pope's crowning of
Charlemagne as
Imperator Augustus in 800 formed the example that later kings would follow: it was the result of Charlemagne having defended the pope against the rebellious inhabitants of
Rome, which initiated the notion of the
Reich being the protector of the western church.
Becoming Emperor required becoming King of the Romans first. Kings had been elected since time immemorial: in the 9th century by the leaders of the five most important tribes: the Salian Franks of Lorraine, the Riparian Franks of Franconia, and the
Saxons,
Bavarians, and
Swabians, later by the main lay and clerical dukes of the kingdom, finally only by the so-called
Kurfürsten . This college was formally established by a 1356 decree known as the
Golden Bull. Initially, there were seven electors: the
Count Palatine of the Rhine, the King of Bohemia, the Duke of Saxony, the
Margrave of Brandenburg, and the Archbishops of Köln,
Mainz, and
Trier. During the
Thirty Years' War, the Duke of Bavaria was given the right to vote as the eighth elector. In order to be elected king, a candidate had to first win over the electors, usually with bribes or promises of land.
Until 1508, the newly-elected king then travelled to Rome to be crowned Emperor by the Pope. In many cases, this took several years while the King was held up by other tasks: frequently he first had to resolve conflicts in rebellious northern Italy or was in quarrel with the Pope himself.
At no time could the Emperor simply issue decrees and govern autonomously over the Empire. His power was severely restricted by the various local leaders: after the late
15th century, the
Reichstag established itself as the legislative body of the Empire, a complicated assembly that convened irregularly at the request of the Emperor at varying locations. Only after 1663 would the
Reichstag become a permanent assembly.
Imperial estates
An entity was considered
Reichsstand if, according to
feudal law, it had no authority above it except the Holy Roman Emperor himself. They included:
- Territories governed by a prince or duke, and in some cases kings.
- Feudal territories led by a clerical dignitary, who was then considered a prince of the church. In the common case of a Prince-Bishop, this temporal territory frequently overlapped his -often larger- ecclesiastical diocese , giving the Bishop both worldly and clerical powers. An example, among many others, was the Bishopric of Osnabrück. The most prominent Prince-Bishop within the Holy Roman Empire were the three Archbishops who were generally styled after the worldy rank of Prince-elector, and their prince-archbishoprics rather electorates: Cologne , Trier and the Archbishop of Mainz with his see at Mainz Cathedral.
- Imperial Free Cities
The number of territories was amazingly large, rising to several hundred at the time of the
Peace of Westphalia. Many of these comprised no more than a few square miles, so the Empire is aptly described as a "patchwork carpet" by many- see Kleinstaaterei. For a list as in 1792, see List of Reichstag participants .
Reichstag
The Reichstag was the legislative body of the Holy Roman Empire. It was divided into three distinct classes:
- The Council of Electors, which included the Electors of the Holy Roman Empire.
- The Council of Princes, which included both laypersons and clerics.
- The Secular Bench: Princes held individual votes; some held more than one vote on the basis of ruling several territories. Also, the Council included Counts or Grafs, who were grouped into four Colleges: Wetterau, Swabia, Franconia, and Westphalia. Each College could cast one vote as a whole.
- The Ecclesiastical Bench: Bishops, certain Abbots, and the two Grand Masters of the Teutonic Order and the Order of St John had individual votes. Certain other Abbots were grouped into two Colleges: Swabia and the Rhine. Each College held one collective vote.
- The Council of Imperial Cities, which included representatives from Imperial Cities grouped into two Colleges: Swabia and the Rhine. Each College had one collective vote. The Council of Imperial Cities was not fully equal to the others; it could not vote on several matters such as the admission of new territories. The representation of the Free Cities at the Reichstag had become common since the late Middle Ages. Nevertheless, their participation was formally acknowledged only as late as in 1648 with the peace treaty of Westfalia ending the Thirty Years War.
Imperial courts
The
Reich also had two courts: the
Reichshofrat at the court of the King/Emperor , and the
Reichskammergericht , established with the Imperial Reform of 1495.
Imperial circles
As part of the
Reichsreform, six
Imperial Circles were established in 1500 and extended to ten in 1512. These were regional groupings of most of the various states of the Empire for the purposes of defence, imperial taxation, supervising of coining, peace keeping functions and public security. Each circle had its own
Kreistag .
History
From the East Franks to the Investiture Controversy
The Holy Roman Empire is usually considered to have been founded at the latest in 962 by
Otto I the Great.
Although some date the beginning of the Holy Roman Empire from the coronation of
Charlemagne as Emperor of the Romans in 800, Charlemagne himself more typically used the title king of the
Franks. This title also makes clearer that the Frankish Kingdom covered an area that included modern-day
France and
Germany and was thus the kernel of both countries.
Most historians therefore consider the establishment of the Empire to be a process that started with the split of the Frankish realm in the
Treaty of Verdun in 843, continuing the Carolingian dynasty independently in all three sections. The eastern part fell to
Louis the German, who was followed by several leaders until the death of Louis the Child, the last Carolingian in the eastern part.
The leaders of Alamannia, Bavaria, Frankia and Saxonia elected Conrad I of the Franks, not a Carolingian, as their leader in 911. His successor,
Henry I the Fowler , a Saxon elected at the Reichstag of
Fritzlar in 919, achieved the acceptance of a separate Eastern Empire by the
West Frankish in 921, calling himself
rex Francorum orientalum . He founded the
Ottonian dynasty.
Heinrich designated his son Otto to be his successor, who was elected King in
Aachen in 936. A marriage alliance with the widowed queen of
Italy gave Otto control over that nation as well. His later crowning as Emperor
Otto I in 962 would mark an important step, since from then on the Empire – and not the West-Frankish kingdom that was the other remainder of the Frankish kingdoms – would have the blessing of the Pope. Otto had gained much of his power earlier, when, in 955, the
Magyars were defeated in the Battle of Lechfeld.
In contemporary and later writings, the crowning would be referred to as
translatio imperii, the transfer of the Empire from the Romans to a new Empire. The German Emperors thus thought of themselves as being in direct succession of those of the Roman Empire; this is why they initially called themselves
Augustus. Still, they did not call themselves "Roman" Emperors at first, probably in order not to provoke conflict with the Roman Emperor who still existed in
Constantinople. The term
imperator Romanorum only became common under
Conrad II later.
At this time, the eastern kingdom was not "German" but a "confederation" of the old Germanic tribes of the Bavarians, Alamanns, Franks and Saxons. The Empire as a political union probably only survived because of the strong personal influence of King Henry the Saxon and his son, Otto. Although formally elected by the leaders of the Germanic tribes, they were actually able to designate their successors.
This changed after
Henry II died in 1024 without any children.
Conrad II, first of the
Salian Dynasty, was then elected king in 1024 only after some debate. How exactly the king was chosen thus seems to be a complicated conglomeration of personal influence, tribal quarrels, inheritance, and acclamation by those leaders that would eventually become the collegiate of
Electors.
Already at this time the dualism between the "territories", then those of the old tribes rooted in the Frankish lands, and the King/Emperor, became apparent. Each king preferred to spend most time in his own homelands; the Saxons, for example, spent much time in palatinates around the Harz mountains, among them
Goslar. This practice had only changed under
Otto III , who began to utilize bishopries all over the Empire as temporary seats of government. Also, his successors,
Henry II,
Conrad II, and
Henry III, apparently managed to appoint the dukes of the territories. It is thus no coincidence that at this time, the terminology changes and the first occurrences of a
regnum Teutonicum are found.
The glory of the Empire almost collapsed in the Investiture Controversy, in which
Pope Gregory VII declared a ban on King
Henry IV . Although this was taken back after the 1077
Walk to Canossa, the ban had wide-reaching consequences. Meanwhile, the German dukes had elected a second king, Rudolf of Swabia, whom Henry IV could only defeat after a three-year war in 1080. The mythical roots of the Empire were permanently damaged; the German king was humiliated. Most importantly though, the church became an independent player in the political system of the Empire.
Under the Hohenstaufen
Conrad III came to the throne in 1138, being the first of the
Hohenstaufen dynasty, which was about to restore the glory of the Empire even under the new conditions of the 1122 Concordat of Worms. It was
Frederick I "Barbarossa" who first called the Empire "holy", with which he intended to address mainly law and legislation.
Also, under Barbarossa, the idea of the "Romanness" of the Empire culminated again, which seemed to be an attempt to justify the Emperor's power independently of the Pope. An imperial assembly at the fields of Roncaglia in 1158 explicitly reclaimed imperial rights at the advice of
quattuor doctores of the emerging judicial facility of the University of
Bologna, citing phrases such as
princeps legibus solutus from the
Digestae of the
Corpus Juris Civilis. That the Roman laws were created for an entirely different system and didn't fit the structure of the Empire was obviously secondary; the point here was that the court of the Emperor made an attempt to establish a
legal constitution.
Imperial rights had been referred to as
regalia since the Investiture Controversy, but were enumerated for the first time at Roncaglia as well. This comprehensive list included public roads, tariffs, coining, collecting punitive fees, and the investiture, the seating and unseating of office holders. These rights were now explicitly rooted in Roman Law, a far-reaching constitutional act; north of the Alps, the system was also now connected to
feudal law, a change most visible in the withdrawal of the feuds of
Henry the Lion in 1180 which led to his public banning. Barbarossa thus managed for a time to more closely bind the stubborn Germanic dukes to the Empire as a whole.
Another important constitutional move at Roncaglia was the establishment of a new peace ' for all of the Empire, an attempt to abolish private vendettas not only between the many local dukes, but on the other hand a means to tie the Emperor's subordinates to a legal system of jurisdiction and public prosecution of criminal acts – a predecessor concept of "rule of law", in modern terms, that was, at this time, not yet universally accepted.
In order to solve the problem that the emperor was no longer as able to use the church as a mechanism to maintain power, the Staufer increasingly lent land to
ministerialia, formerly unfree service men, which Frederick hoped would be more reliable than local dukes. Initially used mainly for war services, this new class of people would form the basis for the later
knights, another basis of imperial power.
Another new concept of the time was the systematic foundation of new cities, both by the emperor and the local dukes. These were partly due to the explosion in population, but also to concentrate economic power at strategic locations, while formerly cities only existed in the shape of either old Roman foundations or older bishoprics. Cities that were founded in the 12th century include
Freiburg, possibly the economic model for many later cities, and
Munich.
The later reign of the last Staufer Emperor,
Frederick II, was in many ways different from that of earlier Emperors. Still a child, he first reigned in
Sicily, while in Germany, Barbarossa's second son
Philip of Swabia and Henry the Lion's son Otto IV competed with him for the title of King of the Germans. After finally having been crowned emperor in 1220, he risked conflict with the pope when he claimed power over Rome; astonishingly to many, he managed to claim Jerusalem in a
Crusade in 1228 while still under the pope's ban.
While Frederick brought the mythical idea of the Empire to a last highpoint, he was also the one to initiate the major steps that led to its disintegration. On the one hand, he concentrated on establishing a – for the times – extraordinarily modern state in Sicily, with public services, finances, and jurisdiction. On the other hand, Frederick was the emperor who granted major powers to the German dukes in two far-reaching privileges that would never be reclaimed by the central power. In the 1220
Confoederatio cum principibus ecclesiasticis, Frederick basically gave up a number of
regalia in favour of the bishops, among them tariffs, coining, jurisdiction and fortification. The 1232
Statutum in favorem principum mostly extended these privileges to the other territories . Although many of these privileges had existed earlier, they were now granted globally, and once and for all, to allow the German dukes to maintain order north of the Alps while Frederick wanted to concentrate on his homelands in Italy. The 1232 document marked the first time that the German dukes were called
domini terrae, owners of their lands, a remarkable change in terminology as well.
The
Teutonic Knights were invited to
Poland by the duke of
Masovia Konrad of Masovia to Christianize the
Prussians in 1226.
During the long stays of the
Hohenstaufen emperors in
Italy, the German princes became stronger and began a successful, mostly peaceful colonisation of West Slavic lands, so that the empire's influence increased to eventually include
Pomerania and
SilesiaRise of the territories after the Staufen
After the death of Frederick II in 1250, none of the dynasties worthy of producing the king proved able to do so, and the leading dukes elected several competing kings. The time from 1246 to 1273, when
Rudolph I of Habsburg was elected king, is commonly referred to as the Interregnum. During the Interregnum, much of what was left of imperial authority was lost, as the princes were given time to consolidate their holdings and become even more independent rulers.
In 1257, there occurred a double election which produced a situation that guaranteed a long interregnum. William of Holland had fallen the previous year, and Conrad of Swabia had died three years earlier. First, three electors cast their votes for Richard of Cornwall who became the successor of William of Holland as king. After a delay, a fourth elector,
Bohemia, joined this choice. However, a couple of months later, Bohemia and the three other electors
Trier,
Brandenburg and
Saxony 
