Holy Roman Empire

Holy Roman Empire
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{{Infobox Former Country|native_name = (Latin language)
(German language)
(Italian language)
(Croatian language)
(Czech language)|conventional_long_name = Holy Roman Empire|common_name = Holy Roman Empire||continent = Europe|region = Central Europe|country = Germany|era = Middle Ages|status = Empire|government_type = Monarchy||year_start = 800|year_end = 1806||event_start = Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor crowned Emperor of Italy|date_start = February 2 962 formed|date_end = [12 July 1806 assumes crown of [Burgundy|event3 = [Peace of Augsburg [1555|date_event4 = [24 October 1648, superimposed over modern European state borders||capital = None||national_motto =|national_anthem =|common_languages = [Latin, German language, Italian language, Czech language, Dutch language, French language, and many others|religion = Roman Catholic Church|currency =||leader1 = Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor|leader2 = Otto II, Holy Roman Emperor|leader3 = Otto III, Holy Roman Emperor|leader4 = Henry II, Holy Roman Emperor|leader5 = Conrad II, Holy Roman Emperor|leader6 = Henry III, Holy Roman Emperor|leader7 = Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor|leader8 = Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor|leader9 = Lothair III, Holy Roman Emperor|leader10 = Frederick I Barbarossa|leader12 = [Otto IV, Holy Roman Emperor|leader13 = Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor|leader14 = Henry VII, Holy Roman Emperor|leader15 = Louis IV, Holy Roman Emperor|leader16 = Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor|leader17 = Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor|leader18 = Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor|leader19 = Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor|leader20 = Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor|leader21 = Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor|leader22 = Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor|leader23 = Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor|leader24 = Matthias, Holy Roman Emperor|leader25 = Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor|leader26 = Ferdinand III, Holy Roman Emperor|leader27 = Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor|leader28 = Joseph I, Holy Roman Emperor|leader29 = Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor|leader30 = Charles VII Albert, Holy Roman Emperor|leader31 = Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor|leader32 = Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor|leader33 = Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor|leader34 = Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor|year_leader1 = 962–967–[983–[1002–[1024–[1039–[1056–[1105–[1125–[1137–[1190–[1197–[1215–[1250–[1313–[1347–[1378–[1437–[1493–[1519–[1556–[1564–[1576–[1612–[1619–[1637–[1657–[1705–[1711–[1740–[1745–[1765–[1790–[1792–[1806||legislature = [Reichstag (institution)-->The Holy Roman Empire (, , , ) was a groupment of medieval states in Central Europe during the Middle Ages and the Early modern Europe. Although the first Holy Roman Emperor was considered to be Charlemagne, crowned on 25 December 800, the continuous line of emperors began only with Otto the Great. The last was Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor, who abdicated and dissolved the Empire in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars.

The Empire's territorial extent varied over its history, but at its peak it encompassed the territories of present-day Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Belgium, and the Netherlands as well as large parts of modern Poland, France and Italy. For much of its history the Empire consisted of hundreds of smaller kingdoms, principalities, duchies, counties, Free Imperial Cities, and other domains.

From the late 15th century onwards, the Holy Roman Empire was also known as the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation ().

Nomenclature The Holy Roman Empire invoked the legacy of 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 (title) 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 a ruler's 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 instituting the essential role of the pope in imperial coronations.

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 of the Holy Roman Empire, and Holy Empire in 1157. The use of the term Roman Emperor to refer to Northern European rulers started earlier with Otto II (Emperor 973–983). Emperors from Charlemagne (Emperor 800–814) to Otto I the Great (Emperor 962–973) had simply used the phrase Imperator Augustus (both of which, without "Roman", were the preferred titles of Roman Emperors). The precise term Holy Roman Empire (German language: Heiliges Römisches Reich ; Latin: Sacrum Romanum Imperium) dates from 1254; the final version Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation (German language Heiliges Römisches Reich deutscher Nation) appears in 1512, after several variations in the late 15th century.The term for the Empire, in other languages that historically were spoken within its confines are: Czech language: Svatá říše římská, later Svatá říše římská národa německého; Dutch language: Heilige Roomse Rijk, later; Heilige Roomse Rijk der Duitse Naties/Volkeren; French language: Saint Empire Romain Germanique; Italian language: Sacro Romano Impero; Slovene language: Sveto rimsko cesarstvo, later Sveto rimsko cesarstvo nemške narodnosti

Contemporaries did not quite know how to describe this entity. 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 ..." ("We are therefore left with calling Germany a body that conforms to no rule and resembles a monster").

In his Essai sur l'histoire generale et sur les moeurs et l'esprit des nations (1756), the French essayist and philosopher Voltaire described the Holy Roman Empire as an "agglomeration" which was "neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire".

In Goethe's Faust I, in a scene written in 1775, the German author Johann Wolfgang von Goethe has one of the drinkers in Auerbachs Keller 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.

Institutions From the High Middle Ages onwards, the Empire was stamped by an uneasy coexistence of the Empire with the struggle of the dukes of the local territories to take power (sociology) away from it. To a greater extent than in other medieval kingdoms such as Kingdom of France and Kingdom of England, the Emperors were unable to gain much control over the lands that they formally owned. Instead, to secure their own position from the threat of deposition, Emperors were forced to grant more and more autonomy to local rulers, both nobles and bishops. This process began in the 11th century with the Investiture Controversy and was more or less concluded with the 1648 Peace of Westphalia. Several Emperors attempted to reverse this steady dissemination of their authority, but were thwarted both by the papacy and by the princes of the Empire.

King of the Romans (2nd half of the 10th century), now held in the Vienna Schatzkammer

A prospective Emperor had first to be elected King of the Romans (Rex romanorum/römischer König). 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 Saxon people, Bavarians, and Swabians); later by the main dukes and bishops of the kingdom; finally only by the so-called Prince-elector (electing dukes, electors). This electoral college was formally established by a 1356 decree known as the Golden Bull of 1356. 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 Cologne, Mainz, and Trier. During the Thirty Years' War, the Duke of Bavaria was given the right to vote as the eighth elector. A candidate for election would be expected to offer concessions of land or money to the electors in order to secure their vote.

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. Later Emperors dispensed with the papal coronation altogether, being content with the styling Emperor-Elect: the last Emperor to be crowned by the Pope was Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor in 1530.

The Emperor had to be a man of good character over 18 years. All four of his grandparents were expected to be of noble blood. No law required him to be a Catholic, though imperial law assumed that he was. He did not need to be a German (Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and Alfonso of Castille were not, and Henry VIII of England was a candidate in the election of 1519). By the 17th century candidates generally possessed estates within the Empire. Louis XIV, King of France, considered allowing Alsace-Lorraine, a recently acquired French territory, to remain within the Empire in order to allow him to be a candidate for the throne.

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 (institution) 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 (imperial estate) if, according to feudal law, it had no authority above it except the Holy Roman Emperor himself. They included:



The number of territories was amazingly large, rising to approximately 300 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" (Flickenteppich) by many (see Kleinstaaterei). For a list of Reichsstands in 1792, see List of Reichstag participants (1792).

Reichstag The Reichstag (institution) was the legislative body of the Holy Roman Empire. It was divided into three distinct classes:

Imperial courts The Empire also had two courts: the Reichshofrat (also known in English as the Aulic Council) at the court of the King/Emperor (that is, later in Vienna), and the Imperial Chamber Court, 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 (though not all) 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 ("Circle Diet").

History From the East Franks to the Investiture Controversy Following the Frankish custom, Charlemagne had intended to divide his territories between his sons. As it happens he was survived by only one son, Louis the Pious. Louis accordingly inherited all his father's dominions and the imperial title. Louis's resolution to break with tradition and pass on his lands inviolate to only one of his sons led to the series of civil wars which were ended by the partition of 843. It is important to distinguish (in theory if not always in fact) between the Eastern Frankish Kingdom created by the partition of Charlemagne’s territories in 843 and the Empire itself. This distinction is not aided by the fact that the German word Reich is so lacking in specificity. The imperial title was initially conceded to Lothar I the eldest son of Louis the Pious and thereafter passed around various branches of the Carolingian dynasty, often being held by no more than minor northern Italian potentates. The Eastern Frankish Kingdom developed as a separate entity until a non-Carolingian was elected as its king at the beginning of the 10th century. The subsequent coronation of his son and successor Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor as Emperor marks the beginning of the association of the Eastern Frankish Kingdom with the Imperial title which then continued unbrokenly down to the abdication of Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor in 1806.

With the split of the Frankish realm in the Treaty of Verdun in 843, the Carolingian dynasty continued 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 Alemannia, Bavaria, Francia and Saxonia elected Conrad of Franconia of the Franks, not a Carolingian, as their leader in 911. His successor, Henry the Fowler (r. 919–936), a Saxon elected at the Reichstag of Fritzlar in 919, achieved the acceptance of a separate Eastern Empire by the West Franks (still ruled by the Carolingians) in 921, calling himself Rex Francorum Orientalum (King of the East Franks). He founded the Ottonian dynasty.

Henry designated his son Otto, who was elected King in Aachen in 936, to be his successor. A marriage alliance with the widowed queen of Italy gave Otto control over that nation as well. His later crowning as Emperor Otto I the Great (later called "the Great") in 962 would mark an important step, since from then on the Eastern-Frankish realm – 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, this crowning would also 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, Holy Roman Emperor later (than his crowning in 1027, thus in the early-middle 11th century).

At this time, the eastern kingdom was not "German" but a "confederation" of the old Germanic tribes of the Bavarians, Alemanns, 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, Holy Roman Emperor died in 1024 without any children. Conrad II, Holy Roman Emperor, first of the Salian, 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 prince-elector.

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 Palatinate (disambiguation)s around the Harz mountains, among them Goslar. This practice had only changed under Otto III, Holy Roman Emperor (king 983, Emperor 996–1002), who began to utilize bishopries all over the Empire as temporary seats of government. Also, his successors, Henry II, Holy Roman Emperor, Conrad II, Holy Roman Emperor, and Henry III, Holy Roman Emperor, 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 (German Kingdom) 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, Holy Roman Emperor (king 1056, Emperor 1084–1106). 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 was clearly an independent player in the political system of the Empire, not subject to imperial authority.

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, Holy Roman Emperor (king 1152, Emperor 1155–1190) 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 (now strengthened) 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 ("the emperor is not bound by law") 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 (Landfrieden) for all of the Empire, an attempt to (on the one hand) 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 (after the Investiture Controversy) 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, Holy Roman Emperor, 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 Sixth Crusade in 1228 while still under the pope's ban.

While Frederick brought the mythical idea of the Empire to a last high point, he was also the one to initiate the major steps that led to its disintegration. On the one hand, he concentrated on establishing an innovative state in Sicily, with public services, finances, and other reforms. On the other hand, Frederick was the emperor who granted major powers to the German dukes in the form of two far-reaching privileges that would never be reclaimed by the central power. In the 1220 Confoederatio cum principibus ecclesiasticis, Frederick gave up a number of regalia in favour of the bishops, among them tariffs, coining, and fortification. The 1232 Statutum in favorem principum mostly extended these privileges to the other (non-clerical) territories (Frederick II was forced to give those privileges by a rebellion of his son, Henry). 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 terræ, 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 Prussian people in 1226.

During the long stays of the Hohenstaufen emperors (1138–1254) 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 Silesia.

Rise 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 (beginning with the election of Heinrich Raspe and Count William II of Holland) 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.

sIn 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 (Electoral Palatinate, Cologne and Mainz) (being mostly of the Guelph persuasion) cast their votes for Richard, 1st Earl 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 voted for Alfonso X of Castile, this being based on Ghibelline party. The realm now had two kings. Was the King of Bohemia entitled to change his vote, or was the election complete when four electors had chosen a king? Were the four electors together entitled to depose Richard a couple of months later, if his election had been valid?

The difficulties in electing the king eventually led to the emergence of a fixed college of electors, the prince-elector, whose composition and procedures were set forth in the Golden Bull of 1356. This development probably best symbolizes the emerging duality between Kaiser und Reich, emperor and realm, which were no longer considered identical. This is also revealed in the way the post-Staufen kings attempted to sustain their power. Earlier, the Empire's strength (and finances) greatly relied on the Empire's own lands, the so-called Reichsgut, which always belonged to the respective king (and included many Imperial Cities). After the 13th century, its relevance faded (even though some parts of it did remain until the Empire's end in 1806). Instead, the Reichsgut was increasingly pawned to local dukes, sometimes to raise money for the Empire but, more frequently, to reward faithful duty or as an attempt to wiktionary:civilize stubborn dukes. The direct governance of the Reichsgut no longer matched the needs of either the king or the dukes.

Instead, the kings, beginning with Rudolph I of Habsburg, increasingly relied on the lands of their respective dynasties to support their power. In contrast with the Reichsgut, which was mostly scattered and difficult to administer, these territories were comparably compact and thus easier to control. In 1282, Rudolph I thus lent Austria and Styria (duchy) to his own sons.

With Henry VII, Holy Roman Emperor, the House of Luxembourg entered the stage. In 1312, he was crowned as the first Holy Roman Emperor since Frederick II. After him all kings and emperors relied on the lands of their own family (Hausmacht): Louis IV, Holy Roman Emperor of Wittelsbach (king 1314, emperor 1328–1347) relied on his lands in Bavaria; Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor of Luxembourg, the grandson of Henry VII, drew strength from his own lands in Bohemia. Interestingly, it was thus increasingly in the king's own interest to strengthen the power of the territories, since the king profited from such a benefit in his own lands as well.

The 13th century also saw a general structural change in how land was administered. Instead of personal duties, money increasingly became the common means to represent economic value in agriculture. Peasants were increasingly required to pay tribute for their lands. The concept of "property" more and more replaced more ancient forms of jurisdiction, although they were still very much tied together. In the territories (not at the level of the Empire), power became increasingly bundled: Whoever owned the land had jurisdiction, from which other powers derived. It is important to note, however, that jurisdiction at this time did not include legislation, which virtually did not exist until well into the 15th century. Court practice heavily relied on traditional customs or rules described as customary.

It is during this time that the territories began to transform themselves into predecessors of modern states. The process varied greatly among the various lands and was most advanced in those territories that were most identical to the lands of the old Germanic tribes, e.g. Bavaria. It was slower in those scattered territories that were founded through imperial privileges.

Imperial Reform The "constitution" of the Empire was still largely unsettled at the beginning of the 15th century. Although some procedures and institutions had been fixed, for example by the Golden Bull of 1356, the rules of how the king, the electors, and the other dukes should cooperate in the Empire much depended on the personality of the respective king. It therefore proved somewhat fatal that Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (king 1410, emperor 1433–1437) and Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor (king 1440, emperor 1452–1493) neglected the old core lands of the empire and mostly resided in their own lands. Without the presence of the king, the old institution of the Hoftag, the assembly of the realm's leading men, deteriorated. The Reichstag (institution) as a legislative organ of the Empire did not exist yet. Even worse, dukes often went into feuds against each other that, more often than not, escalated into local wars.

At the same time, the church was in crisis too. The conflict between several competing popes was only resolved at the Council of Constance (1414–1418); after 1419, much energy was spent on fighting the Christian heresy of the Hussites. The medieval idea of a unified Corpus christianum, of which the papacy and the Empire were the leading institutions, began to decline.

With these drastic changes, much discussion emerged in the 15th century about the Empire itself. Rules from the past no longer adequately described the structure of the time, and a reinforcement of earlier Landfrieden was urgently called for. During this time, the concept of "reform" emerged, in the original sense of the Latin verb re-formare, to regain an earlier shape that had been lost.

When Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor needed the dukes to finance war against Hungary in 1486 and at the same time had his son, later Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor elected king, he was presented with the dukes' united demand to participate in an Imperial Court. For the first time, the assembly of the electors and other dukes was now called Reichstag (to be joined by the Imperial Free City later). While Frederick refused, his more conciliatory son finally convened the Reichstag at Worms, Germany in 1495, after his father's death in 1493. Here, the king and the dukes agreed on four bills, commonly referred to as the Imperial Reform: a set of legal acts to give the disintegrating Empire back some structure. Among others, this act produced the Imperial Circle Estates and the Reichskammergericht (Imperial Chamber Court); structures that would — to a degree — persist until the end of the Empire in 1806.

However, it took a few more decades until the new regulation was universally accepted and the new court began to actually function; only in 1512 would the Imperial Circles be finalized. The King also made sure that his own court, the Reichshofrat, continued to function in parallel to the Reichskammergericht. It is interesting to note that in this year, the Empire also received its new title, the Heiliges Römisches Reich Deutscher Nation ("Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation").

Crisis after Reformation In 1517, Martin Luther initiated what would later be known as the Reformation. At this time, many local dukes saw a chance to oppose the hegemony of Emperor Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor. The empire became then fatally divided along religious lines, with the North, the East, and many of the major cities—Strasbourg, Frankfurt and Nuremberg—becoming Protestant while the southern and western regions largely remained Roman Catholic. Religious conflicts were waged in various parts of Europe for a century, though in German regions there was relative quiet from the Peace of Augsburg in 1555 until the Defenestration of Prague in 1618. When Bohemians rebelled against the emperor, the immediate result was the series of conflicts known as the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648), which devastated the Empire. Foreign powers, including France and Sweden intervened in the conflict and strengthened those fighting Imperial power, but they also seized considerable chunks of territory for themselves. The long conflict bled the Empire to such a degree that it would never recover its former strength.

The long decline , 1648The actual end of the empire came in several steps. The Peace of Westphalia in 1648, which ended the Thirty Years' War, gave the territories almost complete sovereignty. The Swiss Confederation, which had already established quasi-independence in 1499 and the Netherlands left the empire. Although its constituent states still had some restrictions — in particular, they could not form alliances against the Emperor — the Empire from this point was a powerless entity, existing in name only. The Habsburg Emperors instead focused on consolidating their own estates in Austria and elsewhere.

By the rise of Louis XIV of France, the Habsburgs were dependent on the position as Archduke of Austria to counter the rise of Prussia, some of whose territories lay inside the Empire. Throughout the 18th century, the Habsburgs were embroiled in various European conflicts, such as the War of the Spanish Succession, the War of the Polish Succession and the War of the Austrian Succession. The German dualism between Austria and Prussia dominated the empire's history since 1740. From 1792 onwards, French Revolutionary Wars was at war with various parts of the Empire intermittently. The Empire was formally dissolved on August 6, 1806 when the last Holy Roman Emperor Francis II of the Holy Roman Empire (from 1804, Emperor Francis I of Austria) abdicated, following a military defeat by the French under Napoleon I of France (see Treaty of Pressburg). Napoleon reorganized much of the empire into the Confederation of the Rhine, a satellite state. Francis' House of Habsburg-Lorraine survived the demise of the Empire, continuing to reign as Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary until the Habsburg empire's final dissolution in 1918 in the aftermath of World War I. Meanwhile, the Napoleonic Confederation of the Rhine was replaced by the German Confederation and the North German Confederation in succession, until the German-speaking territories outside of Austria were united under Prussian leadership in 1871, as the German Empire, the predecessor-state of modern Germany.

Present-day remnants It is sometimes claimed that the only surviving fragment of the Empire is the tiny, independent Principality of Liechtenstein, located between Switzerland and Austria.

There is still a Habsburg claimant to the Imperial throne, Otto von Habsburg. However, the throne of the Empire was never merely hereditary, and titles of nobility no longer have official standing in Germany and the other central European republics.

Analysis It has been said that modern history of Germany was primarily predetermined by three factors: the Reich, the Reformation, and the later dualism between Austria and Prussia (state). Many attempts have been made to explain why the Reich never managed to gain a strong centralized power over its territories, as opposed to neighbouring France. Some reasons include:













Successive German Empires After the end of the Napoleonic Wars a new German Confederation was established in 1815. It lasted until 1866 when Prussia dissolved the German Confederation to form the North German Confederation which became a nation state in 1871 (see German Empire).

See also Institutions History Component States
 
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