Lyceum & Book Club - Week 12 - Lecture Notes on the Holy Roman Empire

Holy Roman Empire

The Dark Ages aka the Migration Period or Early Middle Ages is said to be from 476 - 800, from the last Emperor in Western Roman Empire and Dec. 25, 800 when Pope Leo III crowned the Frankish king Charlemagne as Emperor.

From wiki:

In 768, Charlemagne became King of the Franks and began an extensive expansion of the realm. He eventually incorporated the territories of present-day France, Germany, northern Italy, the Low Countries and beyond, linking the Frankish kingdom with Papal lands.

Charlemagne's good service to the Church in his defense of Papal possessions against the Lombards made him the ideal candidate. On Christmas Day of 800, Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne emperor, restoring the title in the West for the first time in over three centuries.This can be seen as symbolic of the papacy turning away from the declining Byzantine Empire towards the new power of Carolingian Francia. Charlemagne adopted the formula Renovatio imperii Romanorum ("renewal of the Roman Empire").

In theory, the title and position was regarded as “first among equals” between the Catholic monarchs across Europe. Throughout the Middle Ages and early modern period, the Catholic Church considered the new Roman Empire as the only legal successor to the ancient Roman Empire. You can see this co-dependency between church and state where each gave the other its legitimacy of power. And where the struggles came from over exactly which entity was the bestower of privilege to the other and who owed who allegiance and should bend the knee.

The title was used off and on and contested between French and Italian Catholic monarchs until 924 when it died out.

And then in 962, Otto I, King of Germany, was crowned emperor. He instituted the narrative that, as Emperor, he was the successor to Charlemagne. The title continued in an unbroken line from that point on for over eight centuries. It’s legitimacy rested on the narrative that the Emperor “held supreme power inherited from the ancient emperors of Rome”.

From wiki:

In 951, Otto came to the aid of Adelaide, the widowed queen of Italy, defeating her enemies, marrying her, and taking control over Italy. In 955, Otto won a decisive victory over the Magyars in the Battle of Lechfeld. In 962, Otto was crowned emperor by Pope John XII, thus intertwining the affairs of the German kingdom with those of Italy and the Papacy. Otto's coronation as Emperor marked the German kings as successors to the Empire of Charlemagne, which through the concept of translatio imperii, also made them consider themselves as successors to Ancient Rome.

From Charlemagne’s time, the realm was simply referred to as the “Roman Empire”. It was a political entity that covered western, central and southern Europe; developed its own institutions within that realm, both legal courts, estates, military and churches, but the realm consisted of independent, often competing states. It gradually evolved into it’s imperial title and role.

Above is the double-headed eagle with coats of arms of individual states, the symbol of the Holy Roman Empire (painting fro 1510).

The election of an Emperor was a two step process. The King of he Romans was elected by a small body of the top princes in the Empire, called the prince-electors.

Bribery and intimidation was often used to influence the electors to make the choice that the strongest among them preferred.

At some point after being elected King of the Romans, he would be crowned as Emperor by the Pope. It was the act of having the crown set upon the person’s head by the Pope that bestowed the title Emperor upon the person. That gave the popes a lot of power.

The Prince- Electors included both secular princes and ecclesiastical princes (prince-bishops / prince-abbots). From the 13th century on, the number of prince-electors was limited to 7.

Prince-Archbishop of Mainz

Prince-Archbishop of Cologne

Prince-Archbishop of Trier

The King of Bohemia (which in time meant the House of Habsburg)

The count Palatine of the Rhine (which meant the House of Wittlelbach)

The Duke of Saxony (which went from the House of Ascania to the House of Wettin)

The Margrave of Brandenburg (which went from the House of Wittelsbach to the House of Luxembourg to the House of Hohenzollern

All of these electors are from German territory (except Bohemia) who naturally were prone to elect someone from among themselves to rule over them rather than an outsider (though there was a point in time during power struggles between the German regional rulers and the too powerful Habsburgs that outsiders were specifically chosen because they were viewed as weak)

The term “Holy Roman Empire” was not used until the 13th century, but the underlying concept of a continuation from the Roman Empire line was forged under Otto I.

The “Holy”, meaning “consecrated” was added under the reign of Frederick I Barbarossa (1157) to reflect his ambition to dominate Italy and the Papacy and indicated that the rulers of the imperial office were over the Papacy.

So you had a power struggle between the Papacy and the Imperial Court, and you had power struggles between the Emperor and the heads of the individual states and territories within the Holy Roman Empire, even within the German core territories. Each trying to gain greater power prerogatives from the other. Often, the Emperor was forced more into a negotiating position with rulers of individual kingdoms than dictating terms.

Historically, (at least in theory), the empire consisted of three major blocks - Italy, Germany, and Burgundy. Eventually only the Kingdom of Germany and Bohemia remained after Italy broke up into de facto independent territorial entities and Burgundy territories were lost to France.

Even as the power of the position of emperor shrunk to meaningless, the status of the title remained all encompassing as ever.

In a famous assessment of the name, the political philosopher Voltaire remarked sardonically: "This body which was called and which still calls itself the Holy Roman Empire was in no way holy, nor Roman, nor an empire."