HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE

German Heiliges Rmisches Reich, Latin Sacrum Romanum Imperium the varying complex of lands in western and central Europe ruled over first by Frankish and then by German kings for 10 centuries, from Charlemagne's coronation in 800 until the renunciation of the imperial title in 1806. (For histories of the territories governed at various times by the empire, see France, history of; Germany, history of;Italy, history of.) German Heiliges Rmisches Reich, Latin Sacrum Romanum Imperium, a complex of lands in western and central Europe that was ruled first by Frankish and then by German kings for 10 centuries, from Charlemagne's coronation in 800 until the renunciation of the imperial title in 1806. The empire and the papacy were the two most important institutions of western Europe during the Middle Ages. The Roman title of emperor, which had lapsed in western Europe in the 5th century, was revived in 800 by Pope Leo III and conferred on Charlemagne, king of the Franks. After another lapse when the Carolingian line died out, the title of emperor, or Holy Roman emperor, was borne by successive dynasties of German kings almost continuously from the mid-10th century until the abolition of the empire. The Latin phrase sacrum Romanum imperium actually dates only from 1254, though the term holy empire reaches back to 1157, and the term Roman empire was used from 1034 to denote the lands under the emperor Conrad II. The term Roman emperor is older, dating from Otto II (d. 983). The term Holy Roman emperor is a convention adopted by modern historians; it was never officially used. The prospective heir to the throne was called king of the Romans. The territory of the empire originally included what is now Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, Switzerland, eastern France, the Low Countries, and parts of northern and central Italy. But its sovereign was usually the German king, and the German lands were always its chief component; after the mid-15th century, it was known as the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. Originally allied with the papacy, the empire became involved in a long struggle with the popes for the leadership of Christian Europe between the mid-11th and the mid-13th century. Weakened by the effects of this struggle, the empire was further shaken by the 16th-century Reformation, during which a split developed between the Catholic emperor and those German princes who adopted Protestantism. A series of conflicts followed, climaxed by the Thirty Years' War, which devastated Germany in the period 161848. After 1648, the empire was simply a loose collection of semi-independent states under the nominal authority of the emperor. In this period the French writer Voltaire described it as neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire. In spite of their bitter quarrels, the empire and the papacy remained closely associated throughout the Middle Ages, and until the beginning of the 16th century the German king, having been elected emperor by the leading German princes, was then crowned by the pope. Maximilian I (reigned 14931519) was the first emperor not to be so crowned; his successor, Charles V, did have a papal coronation in 1530, but the custom was abandoned in the war-torn period that followed, and it was never revived. Beginning in the early 15th century, the imperial title and the German kingship became virtually hereditary in the Austrian House of Habsburg (Habsburg-Lorraine after 1740), although formal elections were still held. On Aug. 10, 1804, after Napoleon Bonaparte had declared himself emperor of the French in a bid to usurp the Holy Roman emperor's traditional primacy among European monarchs, Francis II, last of the imperial line, adopted the title emperor of Austria. Two years later, on Aug. 6, 1806, he resigned the old title of Holy Roman emperor altogether. The German Empire of 18711918 was often called the Second Reich (empire) to indicate its descent from the medieval empire; by the same reasoning, Adolf Hitler referred to Nazi Germany as the Third Reich. Additional reading The classic account in English is that of James Bryce, The Holy Roman Empire, new ed. (1904, reprinted 1978). Further broad studies include Geoffrey Barraclough, The Crucible of Europe: The Ninth and Tenth Centuries in European History (1976), and The Medival Empire: Idea and Reality (1950, reissued 1964), somewhat critical of Bryce; and Robert Folz, The Concept of Empire in Western Europe from the Fifth to the Fourteenth Century (1969, reissued 1980; originally published in French, 1953), with bibliography. The best bibliographic resource is Jonathan W. Zophy (compiler), An Annotated Bibliography of the Holy Roman Empire (1986).The components of the imperial idea are explained in Fedor Schneider, Rom und Romgedanke im Mittelalter (1925, reprinted 1959); H.X. Arquillire, L'Augustinisme politique, 2nd rev. ed. (1955, reissued 1972); Carl Erdmann, Forschungen zur politischen Ideenwelt des Frhmittelalters (1951); and John G. Gagliardo, Reich and Nation: The Holy Roman Empire as Idea and Reality (1980). The intellectual climate of the early period is covered in Heinrich Fichtenau, Living in the Tenth Century: Mentalities and Social Orders (1991; originally published in German, 2 vol., 1984). Relations between the eastern and western empires are chronicled in Werner Ohnsorge, Das Zweikaiserproblem im frheren Mittelalter (1947); Franz Dlger, Byzanz und die europische Staatenwelt (1953, reprinted 1976); and George Ostrogorsky, History of the Byzantine State, rev. ed. (1969, reprinted 1980; originally published in German, 1940). The Carolingian empire is treated in Karl Heldmann, Das Kaisertum Karls des Grossen (1928, reissued 1971); and Louis Halphen, Charlemagne and the Carolingian Empire (1977; originally published in French, 1947). The period of the Investiture is discussed in lie Voosen, Papaut et pouvoir civil l'poque de Grgoire VII (1927); and Gerd Tellenbach, Church, State, and Christian Society at the Time of the Investiture Contest (1940, reissued 1991; originally published in German, 1936). Walther Holtzmann, Das mittelalterliche Imperium und die werdenden Natione (1953); and Hans Joachim Kirfel, Weltherrschaftsidee und Bndnispolitik (1959), treat the Hohenstaufen empire. R. Po-Chia Hsia, Social Discipline in the Reformation: Central Europe, 15501750 (1989, reissued 1992), covers topics ranging from confessionalism to popular culture during the Reformation. The empire after the interregnum is analyzed by Friedrich Bock, Reichsidee und Nationalstaaten (1943); James Allen Vann, The Making of a State: Wrttemberg, 15931793 (1984); and M.j. Rodrguez-Salgado, The Changing Face of Empire: Charles V, Philip II, and Habsburg Authority, 15511559 (1988). The classic account of the imperial constitution after the Thirty Years' War is a contemporary work in modern translation by Samuel Pufendorf, Die Verfassung des deutschen Reiches, trans. from Latin (1976). Geoffrey Barraclough The Editors of the Encyclopdia Britannica