The Holy Roman Empire Essay Example

he was. He did not need to be a German. 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. [1] The first Emperor was Charlemagne, also called Charles the Great (747-814), King of the Franks from 768 to his death.He expanded the Frankish kingdoms into a Frankish Empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe.

During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned Imperator Augustus by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800, in an attempted revival of the Roman Empire in the West. Through his foreign conquests and internal reforms, Charlemagne helped define Western Europe and the Middle Ages. His rule is also associated with the Carolingian Renaissance, a revival of art, religion, and culture. He also campaigned against the peoples to his east, especially the Saxons, and after a protracted war subjected them to his rule.By converting them to Christianity, he integrated them into his realm and thus paved the way for the later Ottonian dynasty. Louis the Pious also known as Louis I, Louis the Fair, and Louis the Debonaire, was Emperor and King of the Franks from 814 to his death in 840.

Louis was born at the Carolingian villa of Cassinogilum, according to Einhard and the anonymous chronicler -The Holy Roman Empire, Bryce, James, St. Martins Press, Inc. , New York P133 - Wikipedia.

com Page 03 called Astronomus. He was the third son of Charlemagne by Charlemagne's second wife, Hildegard.His birth took place while his father Charlemagne was on campaign in Spain, probably at Chasseneuil, near Poitiers.

Louis was crowned king of Aquitaine as a child in 781 and sent there with regents and a court. Charlemagne constituted the sub-kingdom in order to secure the border of his kingdom after his devastating defeat at the hands of Basques in Roncesvalles in 778. Otto I succeeded his father as king of the Germans in 936. He arranged for his coronation to be held in Charlemagne's former capital, Aachen, where he was anointed by the archbishop of Mainz, primate of the German church.According to the Saxon historian Widukind of Corvey, at his coronation banquet he had the four other dukes of the empire, those of Franconia, Swabia, Bavaria and Lorraine.

Otto intended to dominate the church and use that sole unifying institution in the German lands in order to establish an institution of theocratic imperial power. The Church offered wealth, military manpower and its monopoly on literacy. For his part the Emperor offered protection against the nobles, the promise of endowments, and an avenue to power as his ministeriales.Charles V (24 February 1500 – 21 September 1558) was Holy Roman Emperor from 1519 to his abdication in 1556. He also ruled as Charles I of Spain from 1516 to 1556.

[1] As the heir of four of Europe's leading royal houses, he united in personal union extensive realms including the Holy Roman Empire, Aragon, Castile, Naples, Sicily, the Burgundian Netherlands, and Spanish colonies in America. Upon his retirement, he -The Holy Roman Empire,

Bryce, James, St. Martins Press, Inc. , New York Page 04 divided his realms between his son Philip and his brother Ferdinand.

He was the son of Philip of Burgundy and Joanna the Mad of Castile. His paternal grandparents were Emperor Maximilian I and Mary of Burgundy, whose daughter Margarete of Austria raised him. His maternal grandparents were Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile, whose marriage had first united their territories into what is now modern Spain, and whose daughter Catherine of Aragon was Queen of England and first wife of Henry VIII. His cousin was Mary I of England who married his son Philip.

After the death of his paternal grandfather, Maximilian, in 1519, he inherited the Habsburg lands in Austria.He was also the natural candidate to succeed of the electors, but with the help of the wealthy Fugger family Charles could oust Francis and was elected on June 28, 1519. In 1530, he was crowned Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Clement VII in Bologna, the last Emperor to receive a papal coronation. Charles was Holy Roman Emperor over the German states, but his real power was limited by the princes. Protestantism gained a lot of support in Germany, and Charles was determined not to let this happen in the Netherlands. An inquisition was established as early as 1522.

In 1550, the death penalty was introduced for all heresy.Political dissent was also firmly controlled, most notably in his place of birth, where Charles personally suppressed the Revolt of Ghent in 1539. [1] Francis II (1768 – 1835) a son of Emperor Leopold II (1747 – 1792) and his wife Maria Luisa of Spain (1745

– 1792, daughter of Charles III of Spain. [2] He also was the last Holy Roman Emperor, ruling from 1792 until 6 August 1806, when he dissolved the [1] Norbert Conrads: Die Abdankung Kaiser Karls V. Abschiedsvorlesung, Universitat Stuttgart, 2003 [2] Wikipedia.org, Francis II,

Holy Roman Emperor 

The Holy Roman Empire, Bryce, James, St.Martins Press, Inc. , New York Page 05 Empire after the disastrous defeat of the Third Coalition by Napoleon at the Battle of Austerlitz. In 1804 he founded the Austrian Empire and became Francis I of Austria (Franz I. ), the first Emperor of Austria, ruling from 1804 to 1835, so later he was named the one and only Doppelkaiser (double emperor) in history.

For the two years between 1804 and 1806 Francis used the title and style by the grace of God elected Roman Emperor, always August, hereditary Emperor of Austria and he was called the Emperor of both Germany and Austria.Francis I continued his leading role as an opponent of Napoleonic France in the Napoleonic Wars, and suffered several more defeats after Austerlitz, the most severe of which led to his delivering his daughter, Marie Louise of Austria, as a bride in a reluctant marriage of state. From the time of Otto’s reign the imperial office was based on the German kingship. The German king, elected by the German princes, automatically sought imperial coronation by the pope. After 1045 a king who was not yet crowned emperor was known as king of the Romans, a title that asserted his right to the imperial throne and implied that he was emperor-designate.

Not every German king became emperor, however, because the popes, especially when elections to

the kingships were disputed, often claimed that the selection of the emperor was their prerogative. Despite the fact that the German kingship and the imperial office were technically elective, they tended to become hereditary. At times the electors, the German princes who approved the succession to the German kingship, exercised real authority in choosing the king, although papal confirmation was - Norbert Conrads: Die Abdankung Kaiser Karls V.Abschiedsvorlesung, Universitat Stuttgart, 2003 - Wikipedia.org, Francis II,

Holy Roman Emperor

The Holy Roman Empire, Bryce, James, St. Martins Press, Inc. , New York Page 06 still necessary for accession to the imperial throne. In 1338 at the diets of Rhense and Frankfurt the German princes proclaimed the electors’ right to choose the emperor without papal intervention.

The Golden Bull of 1356 issued by Charles IV reaffirmed this and regulated the election procedure. Emperors continued to be crowned by the pope until after the coronation (1530) of Charles V.Thereafter, following the precedent (1508) of Maximilian I, they were crowned at Frankfurt. Several early emperors were also crowned king of Italy with the iron crown of the Lombards.

After 1438 the imperial office was held, with one exception, by the house of Hapsburg. The empire was justified by the claim that, just as the pope was the vicar of God on earth in spiritual matters, so the emperor was God’s temporal vicar; hence he claimed to be the supreme temporal ruler of Christendom. Actually, the power of the emperor never equaled his pretensions.Although the emperors were accorded diplomatic precedence over other rulers, their suzerainty early ceased over France, S Italy, Denmark, Poland, and Hungary; and their control over England, Sweden, and Spain

was never more than nominal. The authority of the emperors in Italy and Germany was sometimes nonexistent, sometimes real.

The territorial limits of the empire varied, but it generally included Germany, Austria, Bohemia and Moravia, parts of N Italy, present-day Belgium, and, until 1648, the Netherlands and Switzerland.Some countries (e. g. , Hungary) were ruled by the emperor or imperial prince but were outside the empire, while others (e. g., Flanders, Pomerania, - Norbert Conrads: Die Abdankung Kaiser Karls V. Abschiedsvorlesung, Universitat Stuttgart, 2003 - Wikipedia. org, Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor - The Holy Roman Empire, Bryce, James, St. Martins Press, Inc., New York Page 07 Schleswig, and Holstein) were part of the empire but were ruled by foreign princes who held their lands in fief from the emperor and took part in the imperial diet.

The Holy Roman Empire had been ruled by The Carolingian Empire (800-912), The Ottonian Empire (936-1024), The Salian Emperors and the Investiture Controversy (1024-1125), The Hohenstaufens and the Peak of the Empire (1137-1254), Decline of the Empire and Ascendancy of the Habsburgs (1273-1806), and The End of the Empire. In the 16th cent. , under Charles V and Ferdinand I, imperial and Austrian affairs were practically identical. This identity was furthered by the Reformation, which generally aligned the German Protestant princes against the emperors, who championed Roman Catholicism.In the Thirty Years War (1618–48) the emperor, allied with Spain, opposed the Protestant princes, who were allied chiefly with Sweden and France.

The struggle ended with the virtual dissolution of the empire in the Peace of Westphalia, which recognized the sovereignty of all the states of the empire; the only limitation was that

the princes could not make alliances directed against the empire or the emperor. Although the imperial title became largely honorific, the outward forms of the empire were retained; the emperors, with their hereditary lands, remained powerful monarchs.While the peace generally legalized the situation that had existed in the empire since the Reformation, it also advanced the growth of particularism and absolutism in the German states. The emperors suffered further loss of prestige in their wars against Louis XIV. The death (1740) of Charles VI ended the male Hapsburg line, precipitating further - Norbert Conrads: Die Abdankung Kaiser Karls V.

Abschiedsvorlesung, Universitat Stuttgart, 2003 - Wikipedia. org, Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor - The Holy Roman Empire, Bryce, James, St. Martins Press, Inc. , New York Page 07 conflict.

While the elector of Bavaria was chosen (1742) emperor as Charles VII, Maria Theresa, daughter of Charles VI, defended her Hapsburg inheritance against the claims of Bavaria, Prussia, and Saxony. By the peace of Hubertusburg (1763), Francis I, husband of Maria Theresa, was recognized as emperor; however, Prussia, under King Frederick II, had emerged as the leading German power. Joseph II, successor of Francis I, adhered to the principles of the Enlightenment; he attempted to rationalize the administration of the imperial government but failed in the face of resistance by the particularist princes, especially Frederick II of Prussia.During the French Revolutionary Wars the empire was completely reorganized by the treaty of Luneville (1801) and by action of the diet in 1803.

The number of states was greatly reduced, and the remaining states were aggrandized at the expense of the petty princedoms and ecclesiastical estates. In 1804, Holy Roman Emperor Francis

II took the title Francis I, emperor of Austria, and after the establishment (1806) of the Confederation of the Rhine under Napoleon I, Francis renounced his title as Holy Roman Emperor.After the fall of Napoleon no attempt was made to restore the empire, but a German Confederation was established that lasted until 1866.

1. H.A. L. Fisher, The Medieval Empire (1898, repr. 1969);
2. G.Barraclough, The Origins of Modern Germany (1946, rev. ed. 1947, repr. 1966);
3. J. W. Thompson, Feudal Germany (1928, repr.1962);
4. H. Wolfram, History of the Goths (1988);
5. H. A. L.Fisher, The Medieval Empire (1898, repr. 1969);
6. G. Barraclough, The Origins of Modern Germany (1946, rev. ed.1947, repr. 1966);
7. J. W. Thompson, Feudal Germany (1928, repr.1962);