History UsefulNotes / HolyRomanEmpire

The last footnote in the Holy Roman Empire's history is UsefulNotes/{{Liechtenstein}}, a country that has its origins within the Empire's political boundaries after the wealthy von Liechtenstein family purchased titles in the states of Schellenberg and Vaduz to buy their way into the Imperial Diet. The tiny principality declared its neutrality after the UsefulNotes/AustroPrussianWar and has remained an independent nation since, making it arguably the final remnant of the Holy Roman Empire.

** There is a dual embodiement of both Austria and the Habsburg family, one of its important ruling dynasties. Said character is the embodiment of Austria, and the [[UsefulNotes/TheSoundOfMartialMusic Austrian Habsburgs]] are his bosses. Specifically, he's shown interacting with the recently crowned Empress UsefulNotes/MariaTheresa. It's further hinted that ''he's'' the real power behind the HRE. Which more or less mirrors what Austria's role was in real life.
* ''{{VideoGame/Rosenkreuzstilette}}'' plays with the setting by having magic, fairies and demons exist alongside bombs, early prosthetics, and robots. Other than that, it's straight up Holy Roman Empire.

Germany as a realm separate from the Frankish empire emerged with the Treaties of Verdun (843) and Mersen (870). Modern historians tend to distinguish between Charlemagne's Empire (usually referred to as the Frankish Kingdoms or the Carolingian Empire), and the proper Holy Roman Empire, which itself is exclusively descended from the Eastern Frankish realm when the Carolingian Frankish Kingdom fractured. Thus, while Charlemagne was officially crowned "Roman Emperor" by the Pope, it is more common to refer to Otto I as the first Holy Roman Emperor. The title of "Roman Emperor" bounced around between various descendants of Louis the Pious, but the lands of the title holder varied, at first holding the entire Caroligian Empire (Charlemagne and Louis the Pious), then the Middle Frankish Kingdom (area of modern day Low Countries, Burgundy, and Northern Italy), then to just Northern Italy, and so on. The title fell out of use for 38 years, until Otto I was crowned Roman Emperor, where the title was once again in continuous use, and it became associated with the German lands. After the last of Charlemagne's line died in 911, the German nobles elected Henry the Fowler, Duke of Saxony, as King of the Germans. The coronation of his son Otto in 962 may be taken as the actual foundation of the Holy Roman Empire. The actual term "Holy Roman Empire" began to be used only during the reign of Friedrich Barbarossa two centuries and two dynasties later, reflecting Frederick Barbarossa's belief of the Emperor's supremacy over the Papacy. Prior to that, it had variously (and highly inconsistently) been referred to as "Imperium Romanum" ("Roman Empire"), "Imperium Teutonicorum" ("German Empire" or "Empire of the Germans"), and "Regnum Teutonicorum" ("Kingdom of Germany" or "Kingdom of the Germans"). Once again, readers should keep in mind that there was a ''still existing'' Roman Empire in the form of the UsefulNotes/ByzantineEmpire, and the Byzantines were deeply insulted when the Pope crowned "Roman Emperors," which massively contributed to the East-West schism in Christianity. Keep in mind that at the time, the Byzantines were still calling themselves the Roman Empire and Romans (the term Byzantine didn't even appear until the 16th century, well ''after'' their empire had fallen in 1453) so the Pope was giving just about the biggest snub possible to their rulers. That said, considering that the Pope was the only one of these people who actually lived in ''Rome'' itself, usually, it could be argued he was the most entitled to decide who was Emperor of the ''Romans'', tho that idea might or might not have caused many a war.

Germany as a realm separate from the Frankish empire emerged with the Treaties of Verdun (843) and Mersen (870). Modern historians tend to distinguish between Charlemagne's Empire (usually referred to as the Frankish Kingdoms or the Carolingian Empire), and the proper Holy Roman Empire, which itself is exclusively descended from the Eastern Frankish realm when the Carolingian Frankish Kingdom fractured. Thus, while Charlemagne was officially crowned "Roman Emperor" by the Pope, it is more common to refer to Otto I as the first Holy Roman Emperor. The title of "Roman Emperor" bounced around between various descendants of Louis the Pious, but the lands of the title holder varied, at first holding the entire Caroligian Empire (Charlemagne and Louis the Pious), then the Middle Frankish Kingdom (area of modern day Low Countries, Burgundy, and Northern Italy), then to just Northern Italy, and so on. The title fell out of use for 38 years, until Otto I was crowned Roman Emperor, where the title was once again in continuous use, and it became associated with the German lands. After the last of Charlemagne's line died in 911, the German nobles elected Henry the Fowler, Duke of Saxony, as King of the Germans. The coronation of his son Otto in 962 may be taken as the actual foundation of the Holy Roman Empire. The actual term "Holy Roman Empire" began to be used only during the reign of Friedrich Barbarossa two centuries and two dynasties later, reflecting Frederick Barbarossa's belief of the Emperor's supremacy over the Papacy. Prior to that, it had variously (and highly inconsistently) been referred to as "Imperium Romanum" ("Roman Empire"), "Imperium Teutonicorum" ("German Empire" or "Empire of the Germans"), and "Regnum Teutonicorum" ("Kingdom of Germany" or "Kingdom of the Germans"). Once again, readers should keep in mind that there was a ''still existing'' Roman Empire in the form of the UsefulNotes/ByzantineEmpire, and the Byzantines were deeply insulted when the Pope crowned "Roman Emperors," which massively contributed to the East-West schism in Christianity. Keep in mind that at the time, the Byzantines were still calling themselves the Roman Empire and Romans (the term Byzantine didn't even appear until the 16th century, well ''after'' their empire had fallen in 1453) so the Pope was giving just about the biggest snub possible to their rulers.

Early on in UsefulNotes/TheRenaissance, the Empire flourished briefly under UsefulNotes/CharlesV, the last ruler actually crowned Holy Roman Emperor by the [[UsefulNotes/ThePope Pope]], and the Emperor with the most extensive empire: not only did he have a firmer grasp on power within the Empire than any other Emperor for generations, he also ruled Spain and its vast New World empire directly (ruling the first "empire on which the Sun never sets"), and held substantial influence in the Italian states, Portugal, and the British Isles (all of which either consisted of Imperial client states or were so firmly opposed to France that they may as well have been client states). However, the Reformation and the subsequent Wars of Religion and UsefulNotes/ThirtyYearsWar effectively broke the Empire as a single political unit. Thereafter, the German states ruled themselves and were able to conclude international treaties as sovereign principalities, and the Habsburg emperors, though retaining the Imperial title, concentrated more and more to their Austrian dominions (which included Hungary, parts of Northern Italy and Southwest Germany, and, since the War of Spanish Succession, the Austrian Netherlands (most of what is now Belgium plus Luxembourg)). After the War of Austrian Succession, despite the flourishing of culture under rulers such as UsefulNotes/MariaTheresa of Austria, UsefulNotes/FrederickTheGreat of Prussia, and Augustus the Strong of Saxony, the empire was finished. When Emperor Francis II assumed the title of Emperor Francis I of Austria in 1804 and was forced by [[UsefulNotes/NapoleonBonaparte Napoleon]] to abdicate as Holy Roman Emperor in 1806, the changed reality was recognized and the Empire came to an end. Although some German nationalists dreamed of recreating it following Napoleon's defeat, all they got was the loose German Confederation (''Deutscher Bund'', 1815-1866).

The Holy Roman Empire was traditionally founded on Christmas Day of the year 800 A.D., when [[UsefulNotes/ThePope Pope]] Leo III placed the crown on the head of UsefulNotes/{{Charlemagne}} in St. Peter's, and the assembled multitudes shouted "''Carolo Augusto, a Deo coronato magno et pacifico imperatori, vita et victoria!''" -- "To Charles the Magnificent, crowned the great and peace-giving emperor by God, life and victory!" Strictly speaking, however, Charles's empire was neither Roman nor German, but Frankish -- or as we might say, a sort of French-German mix (for that matter, there was a perfectly valid [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irene_of_Athens Roman Emperor]] at [[UsefulNotes/ByzantineEmpire the time]] in any case[[note]]Or to be precise, ''empress'', Irene of Athens. Charlemagne's supporters [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlemagne#Imperial_diplomacy claimed that a woman couldn't rule the Roman Empire]]. The Byzantines promptly deposed Irene and installed Nikephoros I, who was certainly a man; they were possibly disappointed that Charlemagne saw no reason to abdicate.[[/note]]). The Empire was not officially described as "Holy" until the twelfth century, nor officially "German" before the sixteenth. Charlemagne's empire quickly fell to pieces among his squabbling successors, and the Holy Roman Emperors themselves tended to ignore any discontinuity between [[UsefulNotes/TheRomanEmpire pagan]] and Christian Rome -- Frederick I Barbarossa (1123-1190) going so far as to assert that one of his reasons for going on [[UsefulNotes/TheCrusades Crusade]] was to avenge the defeat of [[Film/{{Spartacus}} Crassus]] by the Parthians ([[UsefulNotes/TheRomanRepublic 53 B.C.]]).[[note]]Never mind that the Parthians were Zoroastrian Persians and the rulers of the Middle East of the time were primarily Turkish and to a lesser extent Arab Muslims--and that the main Muslim leader at the time, Saladin, was a Kurd...[[/note]]

One of the effects of the fracturing of the Holy Roman Empire into dozens and then hundreds of sovereign states was that many princes and princesses from these states became eligible to marry into the ruling families of non-German nations, which in some cases led to branches of German dynasties to becoming the ruling houses elsewhere. One classic example is the House of Oldenburg, which split into several lines including the royal houses of Denmark (until today), Norway (until today), Sweden (1751-1818) and Greece (1863-1974), the ducal house of Oldenburg (until 1918), and the imperial house of Russia (from Peter III and Paul I to Nicholas II). Another is the House of Sachsen-Coburg and Gotha (a branch of the Ernestinian line of the House of Wettin), which since the 19th century supplied monarchs to Belgium (until today), the United Kingdom (until today, albeit under [[UsefulNotes/TheHouseOfWindsor a different name]], and technically about to be replaced by a junior branch of the Greek line of Oldenburgs after UsefulNotes/HMTheQueen passes), Portugal (1853-1910) and Bulgaria (1887-1946[[note]]Interestingly, the last one, Tsar Simeon II, eventually retook power as the elected Prime Minister of republican Bulgaria 2001-2005, under the name "Simeon Sakskoburggotski" (the only monarch in history ever to be later become head of the elected government of the same country over which he had once reigned as king--well, tsar).[[/note]]).

* ''VideoGame/EuropaUniversalis'' features a HRE mechanic, allowing the player to control any of the states within it, take or defend territory for the Empire, become the emperor and eventually, through a series of difficult diplomatic actions, unite the HRE into a single nation, often the most powerful nation in the world. Alternatively, the empire usually just collapses in its own internal politics and power struggles.

The Holy Roman Empire was traditionally founded on Christmas Day of the year 800 A.D., when [[UsefulNotes/ThePope Pope]] Leo III placed the crown on the head of UsefulNotes/{{Charlemagne}} in St. Peter's, and the assembled multitudes shouted "''Carolo Augusto, a Deo coronato magno et pacifico imperatori, vita et victoria!''" -- "To Charles the Magnificent, crowned the great and peace-giving emperor by God, life and victory!" Strictly speaking, however, Charles's empire was neither Roman nor German, but Frankish -- or as we might say, a sort of French-German mix (for that matter, there was a perfectly valid [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irene_of_Athens Roman Emperor]] at the time in any case[[note]]Or to be precise, ''empress'', Irene of Athens. Charlemagne's supporters [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlemagne#Imperial_diplomacy claimed that a woman couldn't rule the Roman Empire]]. The Byzantines promptly deposed Irene and installed Nikephoros I, who was certainly a man; they were possibly disappointed that Charlemagne saw no reason to abdicate.[[/note]]). The Empire was not officially described as "Holy" until the twelfth century, nor officially "German" before the sixteenth. Charlemagne's empire quickly fell to pieces among his squabbling successors, and the Holy Roman Emperors themselves tended to ignore any discontinuity between [[UsefulNotes/TheRomanEmpire pagan]] and Christian Rome -- Frederick I Barbarossa (1123-1190) going so far as to assert that one of his reasons for going on [[UsefulNotes/TheCrusades Crusade]] was to avenge the defeat of [[Film/{{Spartacus}} Crassus]] by the Parthians ([[UsefulNotes/TheRomanRepublic 53 B.C.]]).[[note]]Never mind that the Parthians were Zoroastrian Persians and the rulers of the Middle East of the time were primarily Turkish and to a lesser extent Arab Muslims--and that the main Muslim leader at the time, Saladin, was a Kurd...[[/note]]

->''This agglomeration which was called and which still calls itself the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor UsefulNotes/{{Roman|Empire}}, nor an empire.''

* The manga ''Manga/{{Wolfsmund}}'' mentions that Frederick (the Fair) was contesting the crown of the Holy Roman Emperor with Ludwig, Duke of Bavaria. His brother and co-duke Leopold was sent to pacify the Swiss forest cantons, and the battle of Morgarten is the grand finale of the series.

The climax was reached with the reign of Friedrich II (1215-1250), Barbarossa's grandson, who while being an individual of singular gifts nonetheless attempted to run an Italian-German Empire from Sicily, but had come to the throne against his rival Otto IV largely as a consequence of the victory of King Philip II of France against the armies of King John of England and Otto at Bouvines. His reign had some impressive successes (he managed to get excommunicated for leading a crusade which restored the "holy places" to Christian pilgrims without anyone getting killed), but failed to establish a secure power base and got his line targeted by both the French and the Papacy, insofar as the difference mattered at that point. After his death and those of his sons, the Imperial throne itself stood empty, while the German crown was sought and won by adventurers. After this period, the Interregnum, or in the words of a German poet, ''"die kaiserlose, die schreckliche Zeit"'' ("the emperor-less, terrible time"), the Empire recovered somewhat and for a time its greats allotted the crown to the Houses of Habsburg, Luxemburg and Wittelsbach by rota.

** By the reign of Emperor Charles IV, the composition of the electoral college had become a point of contention, largely because of the rising ambitions and problems of three houses: the Wittelsbachs, the Luxembourgs, and the Habsburgs. Charles, a Luxembourg, had snagged Bohemia himself and was scheming more broadly to enhance his territory. Meanwhile, the Wittelsbachs had split the County Palatine from Bavaria under separate branches, and still a third Wittelsbach line had taken over in Brandenburg. On top of that, the Dukes of Austria under the House of Habsburg were gaining prominence, having been elected King but not crowned Emperor twice between the election of 1257 and Charles IV's day.\\

In the early UsefulNotes/TheRenaissance, the Empire flourished briefly under UsefulNotes/CharlesV, the last ruler actually crowned Holy Roman Emperor by the [[UsefulNotes/ThePope Pope]], and the Emperor with the most extensive empire: not only did he have a firmer grasp on power within the Empire than any other Emperor for generations, he also ruled Spain and its vast New World empire directly (ruling the first "empire on which the Sun never sets"), and held substantial influence in the Italian states, Portugal, and the British Isles (all of which either consisted of Imperial client states or were so firmly opposed to France that they may as well have been client states). However, the Reformation and the subsequent Wars of Religion and UsefulNotes/ThirtyYearsWar effectively broke the Empire as a single political unit. Thereafter, the German states ruled themselves and were able to conclude international treaties as sovereign principalities, and the Habsburg emperors, though retaining the Imperial title, concentrated more and more to their Austrian dominions (which included Hungary, parts of Northern Italy and Southwest Germany, and, since the War of Spanish Succession, the Austrian Netherlands (most of what is now Belgium plus Luxembourg)). After the War of Austrian Succession, despite the flourishing of culture under rulers such as UsefulNotes/MariaTheresa of Austria, UsefulNotes/FrederickTheGreat of Prussia, and Augustus the Strong of Saxony, the empire was finished. When Emperor Francis II assumed the title of Emperor Francis I of Austria in 1804 and was forced by [[UsefulNotes/NapoleonBonaparte Napoleon]] to abdicate as Holy Roman Emperor in 1806, the changed reality was recognized and the Empire came to an end. Although some German nationalists dreamed of recreating it following Napoleon's defeat, all they got was the loose German Confederation (''Deutscher Bund'', 1815-1866).

* The manga ''Manga/{{Wolfsmund}} mentions that Frederick (the Fair) was contesting the crown of the Holy Roman Emperor with Ludwig, Duke of Bavaria. His brother and co-duke Leopold was sent to pacify the Swiss forest cantons, and the battle of Morgarten is the grand finale of the series.

One of the effects of the fracturing of the Holy Roman Empire into dozens and then hundreds of sovereign states was that many princes and princesses from these states became eligible to marry into the ruling families of non-German nations, which in some cases led to branches of German dynasties to becoming the ruling houses elsewhere. One classic example is the House of Oldenburg, which split into several lines including the royal houses of Denmark (until today), Norway (until today), Sweden (1751-1818) and Greece (1863-1974), the ducal house of Oldenburg (until 1918), and the imperial house of Russia (from Peter III and Paul I to Nicholas II). Another is the House of Sachsen-Coburg and Gotha (a branch of the Ernestinian line of the House of Wettin), which since the 19th century supplied monarchs to Belgium (until today), the United Kingdom (until today, albeit under [[UsefulNotes/TheHouseOfWindsor a different name]], and technically about to be replaced by a junior branch of the Greek line of Oldenburgs after UsefulNotes/HMTheQueen passes), Portugal (1853-1910) and Bulgaria (1887-1946[[note]]Interestingly, the last one, Tsar Simeon II, eventually retook power as the elected Prime Minister of republican Bulgaria 2001-2005, under the name "Simeon Sakskoburggotski."[[/note]]).

Each of these developments caused issues. The Wittelsbach rulers of Bavaria complained that they should have gotten an elctorate on the grounds that Bavaria (a major part of the Empire) was now unrepresented in the college, when before it had been. They were also annoyed that Bohemia got to vote, even though Bohemia wasn't German. Also, neither of the last two members of the Brandenburg Wittelsbach line had any heirs, so there was a risk that one of the other two Wittelsbach lines might get it--and if it was inherited by the Palatinate branch or if Bavaria was granted an electorate in its own right, would that mean the Wittelsbach heir would now get two votes? Meanwhile, Austria was campaigning to be added to the college on what amounts to a straight-up AppealToForce (or at least appeal to power), although they might've dressed it up a bit as a "need to reflect the realities of today" or something like that.\\

The climax was reached with the reign of Friedrich II (1215-1250), Barbarossa's grandson, who while being an individual of singular gifts nonetheless attempted to run an Italian-German Empire from Sicily, but had come to the throne against his rival Otto IV largely as a consequence of the victory of King Philip II of France against the armies of King John of England and Otto at Bouvines. His reign had some impressive successes (he managed to get excommunicated for leading a crusade which restored the "holy places" to Christian pilgrims without anyone getting killed), but failed to establish a secure power base and got his line targeted by both the French and the Papacy, insofar as the difference mattered at that point. After his death and those of his sons, the Imperial throne itself stood empty, while the German crown was sough and won by adventurers. After this period, the Interregnum, or in the words of a German poet, ''"die kaiserlose, die schreckliche Zeit"'' ("the emperor-less, terrible time"), the Empire recovered somewhat and for a time its greats allotted the crown to the Houses of Habsburg, Luxemburg and Wittelsbach by rota.

Germany as a realm separate from the Frankish empire emerged with the Treaties of Verdun (843) and Mersen (870). Modern historians tend to distinguish between Charlemagne's Empire (usually referred to as the Frankish Kingdoms or the Carolingian Empire), and the proper Holy Roman Empire, which itself is exclusively descended from the Eastern Frankish realm when the Carolingian Frankish Kingdom fractured. Thus, while Charlemagne was officially crowned "Roman Emperor" by the Pope, it is more common to refer to Otto I as the first Holy Roman Emperor. The title of "Roman Emperor" bounced around between various descendants of Louis the Pious, but the lands of the title holder varied, at first holding the entire Caroligian Empire (Charlemagne and Louis the Pious), then the Middle Frankish Kingdom (area of modern day Low Countries, Burgundy, and Northern Italy), then to just Northern Italy, and so on. The title fell out of use for 38 years, until Otto I was crowned Roman Emperor, where the title was once again in continuous use, and it became associated with the German lands. After the last of Charlemagne's line died in 911, the German nobles elected Henry the Fowler, Duke of Saxony, as King of the Germans. The coronation of his son Otto in 962 may be taken as the actual foundation of the Holy Roman Empire. The actual term "Holy Roman Empire" began to be used only during the reign of Friedrich Barbarossa two centuries and two dynasties later, reflecting Frederick Barbarossa's ambition to rule Italy and the Papacy. Prior to that, it had variously (and highly inconsistently) been referred to as "Imperium Romanum" ("Roman Empire"), "Imperium Teutonicorum" ("German Empire" or "Empire of the Germans"), and "Regnum Teutonicorum" ("Kingdom of Germany" or "Kingdom of the Germans"). Once again, readers should keep in mind that there was a ''still existing'' Roman Empire in the form of the UsefulNotes/ByzantineEmpire, and the Byzantines were deeply insulted when the Pope crowned "Roman Emperors," which massively contributed to the East-West schism in Christianity. Keep in mind that at the time, the Byzantines were still calling themselves the Roman Empire and Romans (the term Byzantine didn't even appear until the 16th century, well ''after'' their empire had fallen in 1453) so the Pope was giving just about the biggest snub possible to their rulers.

The mediæval period of the Empire was dominated by a series of internal struggles with the powerful German nobility, by struggles with the Italian communes, and (above all) by the great struggle with [[UsefulNotes/ThePope the Papacy]]. Notable figures in that contest include Henry IV, whose famous submission to [[UsefulNotes/ThePope Pope]] Gregory VII (Hildebrand) at Canossa was subsequently reversed by Gregory's exile, and the aforementioned Frederick I, whose defeat at Legnano led to his submission to Alexander III. The important point here is that the Empire and the Papacy, both competing for secular and religious power over all Christiandom without the means to enforce it, essentially destroyed each other's credibility. This was not helped by a fairly consistent policy of Emperors to neglect the basis of their power in Germany to grasp at its shadow in Italy - because in order for a German king to become an Emperor, he had to go to Italy and be crowned by the pope. This worked much to the advantage of the nationalistic monarchies of France (especially), England and Spain.

The climax was reached with the reign of Friedrich II (1215-1250), Barbarossa's grandson, who while being an individual of singular gifts nonetheless attempted to run an Italian-German Empire from Sicily, but had come to the throne against his rival Otto IV largely as a consequence of the victory of King Philip II of France against the armies of King John of England and Otto at Bouvines. His reign had some impressive successes (he managed to get excommunicated for leading a crusade which restored the "holy places" to Christian pilgrims without anyone getting killed), but failed to establish a secure power base and got his line targeted by both the French and the Papacy, insofar as the difference mattered at that point. After his death and those of his sons, the name of Holy Roman Emperor was an empty title sought and won by adventurers. After this period, the Interregnum, or in the words of a German poet, ''"die kaiserlose, die schreckliche Zeit"'' ("the emperor-less, terrible time"), the Empire recovered somewhat and for a time its greats allotted the crown to the Houses of Habsburg, Luxemburg and Wittelsbach by rota.

** The first document laying out a list of imperial electors is a 1265 letter by Pope Urban IV. The Pope, commenting on the election of 1257, said that, following "immemorial custom", the college had been composed of seven princes of the Empire. Four were secular rulers: the King of Bohemia, the Margrave of Brandenburg, the Count Palantine of the Rhine (who at the time was also the Duke of Bavaria) and the Duke of Saxony. The remaining three were the Archbishop-Electors of Mainz, Cologne, and Trier. This also maintained balance among the most major noble houses of the empire, as it gave two (Brandenburg and Saxony) electorates to the relatively neutral and pliant House of Ascania, and one (Bohemia) to the House of Přemysl, which didn't really consider itself a player in imperial politics. It also gave only one electorate to a house in contention for the imperial throne (the House of Wittelsbach, as Count Palatine); the remaining three major houses (Hohenstaufen, Welf, and Habsburg) got no electorates at all (unless one of their junior members joined the clergy and became a prince-archbishop). As the Hohenstaufens, Welfs, and Habsburgs had been trading off being Emperor for the previous century, this arrangement forced them to rely more heavily on the lesser houses to win the crown (and made marrying into a house that did have an electorate a critical goal of High and Late Medieval strategy for these houses).

* The AlternateHistory of ''Literature/TheBartimaeusSequence'' includes a surviving Holy Roman Empire with its capital in Prague as the primary European power until Britain eclipsed it in the 19th century. It's still around as a VestigialEmpire more than a century later, though it's never mentioned if there's still an emperor.

*** The War of the Austrian Succession is an instructive example of how this worked in practice. The war came about because the male-line Habsburgs were dying out, and the last two agnatic Habsburgs, Joseph I and his brother Charles VI, had expended a lot of political capital getting the other electors to secure a Habsburg succession through their daughters should both of them die without male issue. The problem was that the deals they secured were contradictory: Joseph's deal put his daughters ahead of any Charles might have, but in 1713 Charles (by that point Emperor) flipped that and got the electors to agree. This ''should'' have secured the succession for [[UsefulNotes/MariaTheresa his daughter]]--well, her husband, since the Emperor had to be a man--but when Charles VI died, the Duke of Bavaria successfully nobbled all the other electors[[note]]This included Hanover; as the election happened two years into the war and Britain--in personal union with Hanover--was ''fighting on Austria's side'', this seems to have come as a bit of a shock to the Austrians. The Archbishop-Elector of Cologne, who happened to be the Duke of Bavaria's younger brother, also voted for him, even though the Archbishop had allied Cologne to Austria for ''{{Realpolitik}}'' reasons and was stated to have personally favored the Habsburg succession.[[/note]] and they backed him on the grounds that Charles VI's deal was improper and preference should have been given to the claims of his wife--one of Joseph I's daughters.

*** The War of the Austrian Succession is an instructive example of how this worked in practice. The war came about because the male-line Habsburgs were dying out, and the last two agnatic Habsburgs, Joseph I and his brother Charles VI, had expended a lot of political capital getting the other electors to secure a Habsburg succession through their daughters should both of them die without male issue. The problem was that the deals they secured were contradictory: Joseph's deal put his daughters ahead of any Charles might have, but in 1713 Charles (by that point Emperor) flipped that and got the electors to agree. This ''should'' have secured the succession for [[UsefulNotes/MariaTheresa his daughter]]--well, her husband, since the Emperor had to be a man--but when Charles VI died, the Duke of Bavaria successfully nobbled all the other electors[[note]]This included Hanover; as the election happened two years into the war and Britain--in personal union with Hanover--was ''fighting on Austria's side'', this seems to have come as a bit of a shock to the Austrians. The Archbishop-Elector of Cologne, who happened to be the Duke of Bavaria's younger brother, also voted for him, even though he had allied Cologne with Austria and was stated to have favored the Habsburg succession.[[/note]] and they backed him on the grounds that Charles VI's deal was improper and preference should have been given to the claims of his wife--one of Joseph I's daughters.

*** The War of the Austrian Succession is an instructive example of how this worked in practice. The war came about because the male-line Habsburgs were dying out, and the last two agnatic Habsburgs, Joseph I and his brother Charles VI, had expended a lot of political capital getting the other electors to secure a Habsburg succession through their daughters should both of them die without male issue. The problem was that the deals they secured were contradictory: Joseph's deal put his daughters ahead of any Charles might have, but in 1713 Charles (by that point Emperor) flipped that and got the electors to agree. This ''should'' have secured the succession for [[UsefulNotes/MariaTheresa his daughter]]--well, her husband, since the Emperor had to be a man--but when Charles VI died, the Duke of Bavaria successfully nobbled all the other electors[[note]]This included Hanover; as the election happened two years into the war and Britain--in personal union with Hanover--was ''fighting on Austria's side'', this seems to have come as a bit of a shock to the Austrians. The Duke of Bavaria's brother, the Archbishop-Elector of Cologne, also voted for him, even though he had allied Cologne with Austria and favored the Habsburg succession.[[/note]] and they backed him on the grounds that Charles VI's deal was improper and preference should have been given to the claims of his wife--one of Joseph I's daughters.

The Holy Roman Empire was traditionally founded on Christmas Day of the year 800 A.D., when [[UsefulNotes/ThePope Pope]] Leo III placed the crown on the head of UsefulNotes/{{Charlemagne}} in St. Peter's, and the assembled multitudes shouted "''Carolo Augusto, a Deo coronato magno et pacifico imperatori, vita et victoria!''" -- "To Charles the Magnificent, crowned the great and peace-giving emperor by God, life and victory!" Strictly speaking, however, Charles's empire was neither Roman nor German, but Frankish -- or as we might say, a sort of French-German mix (for that matter, there was a perfectly valid [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irene_of_Athens Roman Emperor]] at the time in any case[[note]]Or to be precise, ''empress''. Charlemagne's supporters [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlemagne#Imperial_diplomacy claimed that a woman couldn't rule the Roman Empire]]. The Byzantines promptly deposed Irene and installed Nikephoros I, who was certainly a man; they were possibly disappointed that Charlemagne saw no reason to abdicate.[[/note]]). The Empire was not officially described as "Holy" until the twelfth century, nor officially "German" before the sixteenth. Charlemagne's empire quickly fell to pieces among his squabbling successors, and the Holy Roman Emperors themselves tended to ignore any discontinuity between [[UsefulNotes/TheRomanEmpire pagan]] and Christian Rome -- Frederick I Barbarossa (1123-1190) going so far as to assert that one of his reasons for going on [[UsefulNotes/TheCrusades Crusade]] was to avenge the defeat of [[Film/{{Spartacus}} Crassus]] by the Parthians ([[UsefulNotes/TheRomanRepublic 53 B.C.]]).[[note]]Never mind that the Parthians were Zoroastrian Persians and the rulers of the Middle East of the time were primarily Turkish and to a lesser extent Arab Muslims--and that the main Muslim leader at the time, Saladin, was a Kurd...[[/note]]