The Holy Roman Empire

Okay so my question is what was the point? It's purpose baffles me.

As Voltaire put it "this agglomeration which was called and which still calls itself the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire."

My understanding of it is that it appeared by accident, by giving power to the bishops who then became electorates and in fearing a dynasty decided to elect kings. But where did the electorates come from, who decided how much territory they had and what kind of power did the Emperor have?

Surely it would of been better to be seperate states and have alliances, rather than electing a leader and a leader who wasn't even from your state or even Germany but Spain or Austria etc..

The HRE was a collection of petty kings who wanted the protection of the member states without giving up their own sovereignty.

The first Reich of the Holy Roman Empire was sort of like a combination of the EU and NATO centered in medieval Germany. It was a result of the splitting of the Carolingian Empire, and an attempt to govern central Europe with some form of stability. They called it Roman because of the feeling of stability and greatness the word Roman carried, and Holy because the First Emperor was appointed by the Pope himself, and an Empire because the Monarch outranked Kings in the Feudal hierarchy, and Emperor was the next rung up the ladder.

Exactly. Plus it's basically the First Reich, if there is such a thing. And the fact it didn't bow to the Pope as much as its name implies is also good

Well Henry IV begs to differ.

But then again Friedrich I (barbarossa) ended that.



Holy:
All Emperors where crowned by the pope. Later they got elected out of the kings and high clergy but still had to be approved by the pope.
Also the founding of the holy roman empire was inspired by Charlemange and his ideals taken over by Otto I. Also the holy city was part of it, since most of north italy got bullied from everyone at that time.

Roman: Well Rome was allways part of it. Also it reflects the self given credo of the nation protecting the faith and it's true church.

Empire: Empires aree per deffinition different "nations/territories" united under one leader. considering that the hre was the largest territory in europe under one ruler it's not that farfetched.

Then again, that lake ended him


(I think)

Again, i don't know to much about the Holy Roman Empire and it's history, but i always thought they were cool, and a extremely powerful empire. I think the Byzantine empire was much more bad-ass though.

Most of the time the Pope was pretty much in their pocket. Do you know every Holy Roman Emporer besides one was a Hapsburg. And yes everyone more or less fell in line with the collective. To go against the wishes of the HRE was basically a death sentence.

Neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire.

What a nice fucking unoriginal attempt to rebuttle everything said above that completely destroys that arguement.

Its true though

1. Thats not a sentence
2. Can you post some reasoning behind something instead of some half assed post
3. Holy: Appointed by popes. Roman: Ruled Rome. Empire: All the kings were vassals of the Holy Roman Emporer so yes it was an Empire.

Well, it was Holy, and an Empire, but they never ruled Rome, the Pope simply appointed them as the successor to the Roman Emperor.

A person named Voltaire made the quote in 1769 at a time when it's power was non-existent. More accurately it would be correct to say it was all three, but never at the same time.

The Holy Roman Empire was a lesson to us all. United it was a giant hammer and forged a new Empire with Europe as the anvil. But divided it was a bunch of petty kingdoms that spent more time bickering over a few square miles of land than making any progress or difference.

Saxe-Weimar-Leipzig, anyone?

I don't think any of the three so-called successor states to Rome (Russia, Byzantium, and HRE) were really legitimate. At least I think Russia claimed they were with the whole Third Rome business.

Well Byzantium really was a successor to Rome...

In a sense, more Greek than Latin though

That is true. Well, the other two then. I was just thinking that because they were mostly Greek.

The Byzabtine Empire is the legitamite one