Germanic Roman Holy roman Empire

The Germanic Roman Holy roman Empire or Roman Holy roman Empire of the Germanic nation (in German Heiliges Römisches Reich Deutscher Nation , in Latin Sacrum Romanorum Imperium Nationis Germanicæ ) (also called 1st Reich sometimes) was a political regrouping of the grounds of Western Europe and central with the Moyen-âge. The holy adjective appears only under the reign of Frederic Barberousse - attested in 1157.

The Emperor was usually called in Europe " Emperor of Allemagne" and nationals of the Holy roman Empire, strictly speaking Austrians of today, " Allemands".

The surface of the Holy roman Empire varied much in the time around the Germany and of the current Austria, including/understanding a long time the Francie Orientale and the Italy of North.

He is the heir to the Western Empire of the Carolingiens which had disappeared in 924. This last claimed itself to restore the Roman Empire, which justifies the Roman term in its heading. However Henri II will make engrave in its Sceau: “ Renovatio Regni Francorum ” (“Restoration of the Kingdom of the Francs”). And the Empire, in its unit, is sometimes called Imperium Teutonicorum , empire (or reigns) of Teutons, “Teut~on” being for this time a alternative-deformation of what will become the current German term “Deut~sch”.

Voltaire will pleasantly point out that this federation is “neither Holy, neither Romain, nor Empire”.

This empire appears with the imperial crowning of Othon I {{er}} the February 2nd 962. In 982, Othon II, his/her son takes the title of Imperator Romanorum (“emperor of the Romans”). Henri II is crowned Rex Romanorum (“King of the Romans”) in 1014. At the 12th century one speaks already about the Holy roman Empire (term attested starting from 1157) which becomes in 1254 Roman Holy roman Empire to lead to its final form at the end of the 15th century (term attested in an unquestionable way starting from 1512).

After the Recès d' Empire of 1803, the formation of the Confederation of the Rhine in 1806, the emperor François II deposits the imperial title under the pressure of a Ultimatum of Napoleon I {{er}}, and the Empire is dissolved.

Geographical components

Stages of Germanic construction

The Germanic Roman Holy roman Empire has as a territorial base the Eastern Francie of the Traité of Verdun (named soon Germanie or Regnum Teutonicorum ). Into 843, the Carolingian Empire is divided indeed into three territories of equal size: the Western Francie (bases future Royaume of France) of Charles the Bald person, the Francie median of Lothaire 1 {{er}} and the Eastern Francie, directed by Louis Germanic the. In 870, by the Treated of Meerssen, then in 880 by the Treated of Ribemont, the latter increases by part of the kingdom of Lotharingie. At the beginning of the 10th century, the Germanic one includes/understands five principal duchies: the Souabe, the Franconie, the Bavaria, the Lotharingie and especially powerful the Saxony. In 962, the Germanie king Otton I {{er}} is crowned emperor with Rome. In 1014, it obtains the kingdom of Italy (makes the north of the peninsula of it) and in 1033 - 1034 the Royaume of Burgundy, after the death of Rodolphe III. Thus, in the middle of the 11th century, the sovereign cumulates four crowns: those of Germanic, of Burgundy, of Italy and the Empire. Its prestige is immense in Western Europe.

The suzerainty of king de Germanie is recognized on several occasions by the princes and sovereigns of the Denmark, Hungary and Poland. The Empire reaches a first apogee with Henri VI: Richard Heart-of-Lion recognizes the vassalage of the England, Tunis and Tripoli pours a tribute, Leon d' Arménie transfers in 1194 its homage from Byzance to the Germanic empire, Amaury II of Lusignan, king de Chypre recognizes vassal in 1195 and finally the Basileus Alexis III pours a tribute to him.

However, the Empire will undergo the capacity of erosion of the kingdom of France in its slow advanced towards the the Rhone and the the Alps, the defection of the Swiss Cantons and the independence, in fact if not right of the Italian principalities. The Netherlands were detached from the Empire in 1648 and titrates it of emperor becomes hollow. Its borders remained stable then until its dissolution in 1806, even if their significance were rather theoretical when the two principal elements of the Empire (Prussia and Austria) included/understood more grounds out than in the Empire.

The dynasty of the Saliens

Free principalities, cities and successors of the first dukes

See also the List of the States of the Germanic Roman Holy roman Empire

When, with the death of Frederic II in 1250, the imperial policy crumbled, Germany was at the same time private of a central capacity; the cities and the princes could exploit the situation in their favor and thus arrived at autonomy, so that Germany of the Bas the Middle Ages émietta downtown a multitude of small independent principalities and free. The movement had started besides under the reign of Frederic II to which the large vassal ones had torn off wide rights. The feudal system remained, in theory, but it was undermined by the new institutions. The design of the prince ( Fürst ) had developed during the previous centuries. While formerly, this title designated indifferently all the lords, it was reserved little by little for these only, laymen or ecclesiastics, who were in the immediate dependence of the king and were considered, more or less, like small sovereigns. They constituted from now on the caste of princes d' Empire who was distinguished with her advantage from the remainder from the nobility.

The princes could establish, little by little, a right of jurisdiction increasingly extended, so that the Tribunal of Empire lost any importance. Gradually, they seized the old regalities. And while the vassal ones of the crown were freed thus from the royal capacity, they could, at the same time, increase their power by stripping their clean vassal their legal and official competences and by transferring them to flexible and revocable civils servant to which they entrusted the exercise of justice, the responsibility for the establishment and perception for the taxes, and the military functions and police force. The ministerial nobility was isolated with the profit of the lawyer-middle-class men, versed in the knowledge of the Roman law and endowed with the talents which make the good civils servant of State.

The princes organized their court. They had a chancellery, them Sceau. Thus several territories became, in fact if not in right, of small Sovereign states. Such were the independent duchies, some counties and even a small number of évêchés and abbeys. They had their autonomous administration, their own legislation, exerted at the same time the legislative power and the executive power. They had military forces and were based on a carefully organized financial system.

Prince-voters

Since the middle of the 13th century, the prince-voters ( Kurfürsten ) occupy a privileged place. The right of election had belonged a long time to all the laic and ecclesiastical princes, but later, it was reserved with seven characters, who were:

the archbishop of Cologne,
the archbishop of Trier,
the archbishop of Mainz,
the duke of Saxony,
the king of Bohemia,
the Margrave of Brandebourg,
the Count Palatine of the the Rhine.

These voters trained a caste with share. They could take an increasing influence in the government of the Empire and use their situation favorable to the profit of their principalities. The Bulle of Gold of 1356 granted privileges to them which ensured to them a situation definitely higher than that of the other princes. But the ambition of the latter awoke and, with time, they obtained advantages and became, in addition to one field, almost the equal ones of the voters. Thus, in the low Middle Ages, the Empire was transformed into a kind of confederation of princely States which had between them only one very loose bond. Consequently, they were not any more the interests of the kingdom, but those of their own State, which dominated the princes. The chief of the kingdom, itself, reigning as a prince on the inheritance which he had inherited his family, was king only incidentally.

Free cities

Beside the princely States, this confederation included/understood also a great number of free cities. The political evolution of the cities to the Middle Ages is already known. At the 13th century and during the low Middle Ages, in Germany, of great progress were realized in the direction of autonomy. The cities, enriched by the trade, could claim with a political role. As of the fall of the Hohenstaufen, they found average to be freed from their Masters and to make sure of the sovereign rights: right of jurisdiction, right to raise taxes, to hold of the markets, to strike currency, to require the granting, others still.

They organized themselves, gave each other a council and a mayor ( Schultheiss or Bürgermeister ). This last was initially an aristocrat, but, since the 14th century, it was more and more frequently selected among the members of the corporation S and these cities became, much more quickly than the principalities, of small modern States, perfectly organized, holding in hands all the capacities. In each one of them, the taxes and the military service were obligations which also fell on all. The city, finally, took care of the public assistance. It opened old people's homes, hospitals, schools. It took even in hands the monitoring of the public morality and circulation.

Certain cities managed to constitute a confederation which played a political role, with equal of certain States: the Hanse.

All the cities did not arrive at complete autonomy. The greatest number, in spite of important privileges, was to still recognize the authority of a lord, in certain fields at least. But in last times of the Middle Ages, Germany counted from seventy to eighty perfectly autonomous cities. They were called towns of Empire, because they only depended on the Emperor. Much of them could insert in their sphere of influence the surrounding countryside and became thus tiny republican States. It was the case, for example, of Nuremberg, Ulm, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Rothenbourg and Strasbourg. No however took as much authority and prestige that Bremen which dominated over a large territory and developed its interior forces so much so that she dared to measure herself with the largest princes. Germany thus knew, at the end of the Middle Ages, of the centralized States, managed by civils servant. While in Sicily initially, then in the Italian republics and in France, the feudal system was replaced by officialism and disappeared in front of centralized States which joined together in only one hand old competences, formerly distributed between a very great number. Germany knew the system only partially. It did not have a general policy. Whereas France became a whole, the German Empire was parcelled out ad infinitum to have wasted its forces in the vain continuation of the universal domination.

Crumbling of the duchies

The parcelling out did not disaggregate only the Empire, it was also done with the detriment of the Grand-Duchies of at one time. Those, at the end of the reign of the Hohenstaufen, were, except for the Bavaria, completely disorganized and their territories were distributed between a crowd of small laic or ecclesiastical lords. On the territory of the Franconie were formed, in north, the Landgraviat of Hesse and the county of Nassau. In the east, the bishop of Würzburg cut a great field, in spite of the opposition of several cities which took the weapons against him. Nuremberg became the center of an independent State, while at the edge of the the Rhine, a branch of the family of the Zaehringen made sure the possession of the margraviat of Bade which was the core of a much greater State, little by little made up. In the south of the Hand, on two banks of the Rhine, the electorate of the Palatinat was born from an old field of Hohenstaufen. These owners covered the load of Count Palatines (palate) and took, at the same time, the title of princes of empire. Then the country passed to the hands of a branch junior by the Wittelsbach and, at the beginning of the 14th century, was narrowly connected to Bavaria, but for little time. However, Bavarian Palatinat, in the north of Bavaria, remained attached to Rhenish Palatinat. The Count Palatine of the Rhine appears in the Gold Bubble in the capacity as prince-voter. Robert I {{er}} founded the Université of Heidelberg in 1386. Into 1410, the palatine dynasty was divided into four branches of which two were intended for one long life: that which preserved electoral dignity, and the Simmern-Zweibrücken which, later and until in 1918, controlled Bavaria.

A catastrophe had reached the duchy of Saxony under Henri the Lion; it had been émietté in a crowd of évêchés: Bremen, Munster, Osnabruck, Paderborn, Hildesheim, Halberstadt, Magdeburg and of small laic States whose principal ones were the duchy of Brunswick-Lunebourg and the county (later duchy) of Holstein, which was attached to the Danish duchy of Slesvig. The title of duchy of Saxony did not refer any more but to the territory which surrounds Wittenberg and which returned to a son of Albert the Bear. This State became an electorate and in 1423, passed to the hands Margrave of Meissen-Wettin, which had already the Eastern Thuringe. Thus was born a Saxony news which, besides its name, did not have anything commun run with the old duchy. As of 1485, there was an electorate and a duchy of Saxony, because two brothers, Albert and Ernest, shared the territory. As for the Marche of North, that Albert the Bear extended until the Walk of Brandebourg, it was intended for a great future. The Souabe was still parcelled out than the two preceding States. In the basin of the Neckar, the counts of Wurtemberg cut little by little a large territory which was high with the row of duchy in 1495. The Alsace, which had been a duchy at the time mérovingienne, divided, around 1200, into two landgraviats, the High one and Low-Alsace ( Sundgau and Nordgau ). While Low-Alsace was mainly attached to évêché of Strasbourg, Sundgau returned to the Habsbourg, at the same time as the Brisgau, on Right Bank of the Rhine. At the 13th century, crossing the the Alps, Habsbourg arrived until the the Danube and, linking the old territory of the Walk of the East with that of the Eastern Alps, they created a new State, the Austria ( Österreich , the kingdom of the east ). It had been a vast alpine State, of only one holding, if the Confederation of the Swiss Cantons had not opened a breach shortly after there. Since the end of the 13th century, it developed between the Alps, the Rhine and the the Jura, while, by heroic fights, it resisted the claims of the princes close and was released from suzerainty to the empire.

The duchy of Bavaria remained. However at the 13th century, he lives himself to remove by Habsbourg of the territories acquired at one time by his princes in the area of the Alps, in particular the old Walk of the East, and the duchies of Styrie, Carinthie and Carniole, in 1282, then later, in 1363, the county of the the Tyrol. In this area, évêché the most important thing was that of Salzburg. As for the territories which extended in extreme cases Western, of the Frise to the Provence, the Empire had never taken foot firmly there. A very artificial border had been marked at the 9th century between the Germanic countries and the kingdom of the Francs, but it included, in the Empire, of the territories whose population was Latin of language and mentality, therefore carried to look towards the west. As the empire did not exert an attraction force, quite to the contrary of France, it was inevitable that it lost several territories with the profit of its neighbor. The Lorraine was divided early into two duchies High and Low-Lorraine. The first, which recovered the higher courses of the Meuse and the the Moselle, was alone to preserve its name. Low-Lorraine parcelled out itself in several States, the duchies of Luxembourg, the Brabant and Gueldre and the counties of Flanders, Zeeland and Holland. At the 14th century, all these territories were joined together with the duchy of Burgundy, but they did not remain about it less grounds of the Empire. They passed to Habsbourg by way of heritage, which does not change anything with the fact that they escaped little by little the Empire to carry out their own life, in the political arena as in the cultural field. The kingdom of Burgundy was detached little by little, without the imperial rights formally being ever denounced. In 1477 the Duché of Lorraine found its independence, but was finally annexed by the Kingdom of France in 1776 which had beforehand annexed the Three bishoprices as of 1648. In 1246, the county of Provence fell to the hands from a branch junior by the Capétiens, the Maison of Anjou. The Dauphiné was attached to France in 1349.

Constitution

The Germanic empire had been, under the Carolingiens, a hereditary monarchy.

When after them the capacity became elective, the election was done initially by the universality of the six nations composing the Germanic body (Francs, Souabes, Bavarois, Saxons, Lotharingiens, Frisons). Later, it belonged to the princes or to large feudatories only (1156); then it concentrated, initially by a simple use, then by a formal law, the Bulle of Gold (1356), between the hands of seven voters.

In the origin the pope crowned and crowned the emperor; but Louis of Bavaria declared in 1338, that this ceremony was not necessary and that the emperor elected in the majority of the voice was emperor legitimate in virtue even of this election. To ensure the heredity of the crown in their house, the emperors made crown their successors of their alive; the heir apparent took then the title of King of the Romans. The first king of the Romans was Henri, wire of the emperor Frederic II, which accepted this title in 1228.

The crowning of the emperors almost always took place with Francfort-sur-le-Main. The emperor elected there signed a capitulation which fixed and limited its rights. He was to convene the general states or the diet, not only to make laws, but for all the general affairs of the empire, to declare the war or to make peace, to send or receive ambassadors; he was to even ask his assent when it was about the collation of benefit or important strongholds, and especially for raising taxes.

The states were composed:

1° ecclesiastical members, knowledge: ecclesiastical princes voters, archbishops and bishops, priors, abbots the large Master of the Order Teutonique and that of the Order of Midsummer's Day;
2° secular members knowledge: the princes secular voters, dukes, princes, landgraves, margraves, burgraves, counts and imperial cities.

The businesses were treated in three colleges:

the college of the princes voters,
that of the princes,
that of the imperial cities.

Each one of them deliberated separately, and the unanimity of their votes was necessary to give legal force to their decisions, which took the name of recès then empire.

The establishment of the Confederation of the Rhine (1806), while putting fine at the old empire, destroyed at the same time its constitution. Each principality of which it was composed became entirely independent for its interior government, and the unit of Germany did not exist any more but in its relationship with the foreigner.

The same spirit governed the formation of the Germanic Confédération (1815), in which the functions of the diet were reduced to these three most important points:

1° maintenance of the independence of the Federal states, or exterior security;
2° maintenance of peace enters the Federal states or internal security;
3° intervention to restore the peace and the interior peace of the Federal states.

The businesses were treated by a diet sitting in Frankfurt. The powers which were represented there had a number of voices proportioned with their importance.

Institutions

Circle : the diet of Augsburg of 1500 fixes at six the number of Circles: Bavaria, Lower Saxony, Souabe, Franconie, Westphalia and the Haut-Rhin, finally the diets of Trier and Cologne increase their number with 10 adding the Circles of Austria, Burgundy, High-Saxony and the Electoral Cercle. The Diet of Nuremberg in 1522 definitively fixes the number of Circles at ten:
Diet of Empire
Diet of the Circles
Roman Month : tax that each immediate State is held to provide for the maintenance of the troops raised for their common defense, either in the form of soldiers equipped, rider or infantryman, or in the form of money

See too

Internal bonds

History of Mainz

List of the kings of the Romans having been crowned in Aachen

External bond

Size and decline of the Holy roman Empire by Valerie Sobotka, historian.

Partial source

Random links: