Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Was the Holy Roman Empire, Holy, Roman, or an Empire?

Episode Date: May 21, 2022

In the 18th century, the French writer and philosopher Voltaire said, ​​"This body which was called, and which still calls itself, the Holy Roman Empire was in no way holy, nor Roman, nor an empire." Since then, some variation of this quote has found itself into history classes around the world.  So what exactly was the Holy Roman Empire, and was Voltaire right? Learn more about the Holy Roman Empire and find out if it was holy, was Roman, and if it was an empire on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Subscribe to the podcast!  https://podfollow.com/everythingeverywhere/ -------------------------------- Executive Producer: Darcy Adams Associate Producers: Peter Bennett & Thor Thomsen   Become a supporter on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/everythingeverywhere Update your podcast app at newpodcastapps.com Discord Server: https://discord.gg/UkRUJFh Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everythingeverywhere/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/everywheretrip Website: https://everything-everywhere.com/everything-everywhere-daily-podcast/ Everything Everywhere is an Airwave Media podcast." or "Everything Everywhere is part of the Airwave Media podcast network Please contact [e-mail] to advertise on Everything Everywhere. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The 18th century French writer and philosopher Voltaire said, quote, this body which was called, and which still calls itself, the Holy Roman Empire, was in no way holy, nor Roman, nor an empire. Since then, some variation of this quote has found its way into history classes around the world. So, what exactly was the Holy Roman Empire and was Voltaire right? Learn more about the Holy Roman Empire and find out if it was holy, was Roman, and if it was an empire, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. if your perceptions about the past were wrong.

ThruLine is a podcast that takes you back in time to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed. It effectively turned day into night and how it shaped the world now. Time travel with us every week on the ThruLine podcast from NPR. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, there was a period of chaos in Europe for several centuries. Without the empire's stability, Germanic tribes, were running around all over Europe. Many groups and leaders tried to claim the mantle that the Roman Empire had left.

However, no one had really been able to make such a claim seriously. A Germanic group, known as the Franks, began to consolidate a kingdom. One particular noble family, the Carolingians, began to expand and consolidate this Frankish kingdom. The Carolingian dynasty started with Pip and the First in 613. However, the first noteworthy Carolingian, at least as far as the story of this episode is concerned, was Charles Martel. He was the first European leader to stop the Islamic Moorish invasion at the Battle of Tours in 732. His son, Pepin the Short, became the first member of the Carolingian dynasty to become the king of the Franks. And his son is where the story really begins. And he was the greatest Carolingian

king of the mall, Charlemagne. Charlemagne's kingdom was very similar to the borders of modern-day France, with some extra land in modern-day Germany, Italy, Belgium, Belgium, and Switzerland. During this time, Rome and the papacy had been under the thumb of the Byzantine Empire for several centuries. This period was known as the Byzantine papacy. The emperor in Constantinople had to approve anyone who was elected as Pope. An opportunity presented itself to change the situation in the year 797 when the young Byzantine Emperor Constantine IV was deposed by his own mother, Irene, who declared herself Empress.

And she didn't just declare herself Empress. She actually blinded and ended up killing her own son. The West didn't recognize female imperial rulers. so they considered the imperial crown to be vacant and were looking for an alternative. The Pope found this in Charlemagne, who had fought against the Lombards in northern Italy to help save the papacy. So, in the year 800, on Christmas Day, at the old St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, Charlemagne was crowned the new Roman emperor by Pope Leo III. Irene supposedly tried to arrange a marriage between herself and Charlemagne, which never happened.

But if it had, it might have totally changed the course of European history by reuniting East and West once again. When Charlemagne died, his kingdom fractured. The Carolingian tradition was to split the kingdom between all the king's sons. While the political power was fractured, one of the sons kept the title of Emperor. While the crowning of Charlemagne was a theoretical shift in the imperial title, most historians don't consider Charlemagne to be the start of the Holy Roman Empire. His successors kept the imperial title until the death of Berengar I. The first of Italy in 924. Then the imperial title was vacant until 962, when the title was bestowed upon King Otto I of Germany in Italy, also known as Otto the Great. Like Charlemagne, he was crowned

Emperor of the Romans by Pope John the 12th in Rome in Old St. Peter's Basilica. This is usually considered the start of the Holy Roman Empire, but that term was not used at the time. And it also shifted the imperial title from France to Germany. Otto was the king of Germany, among other things, which made up the largest part of his realm. The king of Germany was not a hereditary position. It was an elected position. When selecting a new king, the electors could choose from the heads of several different dynasties who ruled different regions. This system of an elected monarch covering self-ruling regions became the hallmark of the Holy Roman Republic. Several different dynasties ruled the empire, sometimes alternating with different royal houses precisely because of

this election system. In 1440, probably the greatest and best-known dynasty came to control the empire, the Habsburgs. In 1356, a very set system of electing the emperor was now in place. Instead of just having German princes elect the emperor, seven set prince electors were now responsible for the emperor's election. The seven electors consisted of three bishops and four princes, and sometimes the bishops were also princes. They were the highest-ranking officials in the empire after the emperor himself. I've personally visited some of the Prince-elector palaces in Germany, and quite frankly, some of them are as large as any royal or imperial palace.

The Habsburgs had their fingers, or should I say their genetics, all over European royal families. They had members who ruled almost every single royal house in Europe. Literally, from Spain to Poland, there were Habsburgs. The Habsburg kingdoms are often. confused with the Holy Roman Empire because the emperor was often the king of other realms as well. The Holy Roman Empire managed to survive until 1806 when the forces of Napoleon managed to defeat the Emperor Francis II, who dissolved it as an institution. So that is sort of a very quick

cliff notes version of the Holy Roman Empire. I've touched on some of these things in previous episodes, and I'm sure the Holy Roman Empire is going to be brought up in many future episodes as well. Now, however, for the rest of the episode, I want to address the actual term holy Roman Empire, and Voltaire's criticism of that term that it was neither holy nor Roman nor an empire. When Charlemagne was crowned emperor, he was simply crowned the head of the quote Roman Empire. The Latin term sacrum, or sacred, was first used in conjunction with the empire in 1157 with the ascension of Frederick Barbarossa.

The term holy Roman Empire wasn't used until the third. century. In 1512, the official term became the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation, although this official name was seldom used in official written documents. Of course, after the Holy Roman Empire, the subsequent German Empire leader took the title of Kaiser, which is just the German word for Caesar. So, with that, let's look at each of these terms. First, was it holy? The question here isn't if the emperor or the empire was pious or saintly. If that's the case, then no empire or kingdom in history was holy. For centuries after the coronation of Charlemagne, it was tradition for the emperor to be crowned in Rome by the Pope.

The empire was often simply known as the, quote, Christian empire, even though that was a misnomer because there was still the Byzantine Empire, which was Christian, and every single kingdom in Europe was also Christian at the time. The emperor himself wasn't a religious leader, but he did have electors who were bishops, so the church did have a say and who would take the throne. own. The official state religion was Catholicism, up until the Protestant Reformation. As most of the territory in the empire was in Germany, adapting to Protestantism was a political necessity. However, only two strains of Protestantism were legalized in the empire, Lutheranism and Calvinism. So, as far as if it was holy, I am going to say, mostly, at least up until the year 1571, when it began to accept multiple Christian denominations, but even after that, Christianity

generally was still the official religion. The holy part is actually the easiest to resolve. Next up would be the Roman part. When Charlemagne was crowned Roman Emperor, it was done under the theory of translatio imperiae. This theory justifies or explains the transfer of Imperium. For the reasons I gave before about the Empress Irene, that was the justification for the transfer of Imperium. As I explained, back in the very first episode of this podcast, the Byzantine Empire was really nothing more than the continuation of the Roman Empire in the East. No one called the Byzantines Bysentines until they were gone. The Byzantines called themselves Romans. In fact, if you remember back to that very first episode, there were some people in Greek islands who considered themselves Roman up until the first decade of the 20th century. However, Constantinople and the other lands around the Mediterranean Sea were part of the of the Roman Empire. Germany, which is where the bulk of the Holy Roman Empire, never was part of the Roman Empire. In fact, it very famously was never able to be conquered by the Romans,

and they handed the Romans one of their most famous defeats at the Battle of Tudaburg Forest. So, a German-Roman emperor is very un-Roman. Moreover, Rome itself was controlled by the papal states, and, at least for most of history, was not part of the Holy Roman Empire. So I'm going to have to say that it was not Roman, not in any meaningful sense of the term. It neither controlled Rome, nor was most of its territory part of the original Roman Empire. So finally, wasn't an empire. Well, what is an empire? The dictionary definition of empire is, quote,

a political unit having an extensive territory or compromising a number of territories or nations and ruled by a single supreme authority, end quote. So was the Holy Roman Empire comprised of multiple territories and nations? And the answer actually is yes. In fact, there were many principalities, duchies, and kingdoms that compromised the empire. So I think it does meet that requirement. However, the emperor usually didn't have that much control over many of these territories. The real power was usually vested in a lower-level member of the nobility that controlled the region directly.

In fact, the power of the emperor was usually a matter of. how strong an individual emperor was as a person. And there were a great many weak Holy Roman emperors who held the title, but not much power. Most of the criticisms of the Holy Roman Empire was that it was closer to a federation than it was an empire. Well, the problem with that was it really wasn't a federation either. It wasn't a union of equals. However, even big empires like the British, Mongol, and Islamic empires had regional rulers who handed local details. So, to sum it all up, I would say that the Holy Roman Empire,

Roman Empire was really a sort of holy, non-Roman quasi-empirate. But that really doesn't roll off the tongue. Everything Everywhere Daily is an Airwave Media podcast. The executive producer is Darcy Adams. The associate producers are Thor Thompson and Peter Bennett. I just wanted to extend a big thank you to everyone who is supporting the show over at patreon.com. I have show merchandise available there, including hoodies, t-shirts, and stickers.

Plus, it really just helps me get this show out every single day, including, of course, weekends and holidays. Remember, if you leave a review or send me a boostagram, you too can have it read on the show.