The Holy Roman Empire
For more than eight centuries German lands formed the core of a loose, many-layered empire rather than a single state.
- Heart of Europe: A History of the Holy Roman Empire — Peter H. Wilson, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2016)
- Germany: Memories of a Nation — Neil MacGregor, Allen Lane (2014)
- A Concise History of Germany — Mary Fulbrook, Cambridge University Press (2019)
When the East Frankish king Otto I was crowned emperor in Rome in 962, he revived a western imperial title first given to Charlemagne in 800. The Empire that followed, later called the “Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation”, lasted until 1806.
- Heart of Europe: A History of the Holy Roman Empire — Peter H. Wilson, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2016)
- A Concise History of Germany — Mary Fulbrook, Cambridge University Press (2019)
It was never a nation-state. At its height it stretched from the North Sea to Italy and included Czech, Dutch, Italian and French speakers. The emperor was elected by a small group of princes, the electors, and ruled by bargaining with hundreds of territories: powerful states like Saxony and Bavaria, prince-bishoprics like Cologne and Mainz, and self-governing imperial cities like Nuremberg and Frankfurt. From the fifteenth century the title stayed almost continuously with the Austrian Habsburgs.
- Heart of Europe: A History of the Holy Roman Empire — Peter H. Wilson, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2016)
Nineteenth-century nationalists mocked the Empire as weak, and Voltaire’s quip that it was “neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire” stuck. Historians such as Peter Wilson now stress instead how it kept a fragile peace among very different communities through courts, assemblies and compromise.
- Heart of Europe: A History of the Holy Roman Empire — Peter H. Wilson, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2016)
Napoleon broke it up. After he created the Confederation of the Rhine, Francis II laid down the imperial crown on 6 August 1806. But its legacy is visible in every German town hall, cathedral and regional capital.
- Heart of Europe: A History of the Holy Roman Empire — Peter H. Wilson, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2016)
- Germany: Memories of a Nation — Neil MacGregor, Allen Lane (2014)
Why it matters today
The Empire's patchwork of kingdoms, bishoprics, duchies and free cities is why Germany is still a federal country of strong regions, many capitals and fierce local loyalties. Many Germans now see its messy, negotiated way of sharing power as a distant ancestor of the EU and of the Federal Republic, rather than as a failed nation-state.