Holy Roman Empire
ChronologyFrom the East Franks to the Investiture ControversyThe Empire is usually considered to have been founded in 962 by Otto I the Great, at the latest. Although some date the beginning of the Holy Roman Empire from the coronation of Charlemagne as emperor of the Romans in 800, Charlemagne himself more typically used the title king of the Franks. This title also makes clearer that the Frankish Kingdom covered an area that included modern-day France and Germany and was thus the kernel of both countries. Most historians therefore consider the establishment of the Empire to be a process that started with the split of the Frankish realm in the Treaty of Verdun in 843, continuing the Carolingian dynasty independently in all three sections. The eastern part fell to Louis the German, who was followed by several leaders until the death of Louis IV, called "the Child", the last Carolingian in the eastern part. The leaders of Alamannia, Bavaria, Frankia and Saxonia elected Conrad I of the Franks, not a Carolingian, as their leader in 911. His successor, Henry I the Fowler (r. 919–936), a Saxon, achieved the acceptance of a separate Eastern Empire by the West Frankish (still ruled by the Carolingians) in 921, calling himself rex Francorum orientalum (king of the East Franks). Heinrich designated his son Otto to be his successor, who was elected king in Aachen in 936. His later crowning as Emperor Otto I (later called "the Great") in 962 would mark an important step, since from then on the Empire – and not the West-Frankish kingdom that was the other remainder of the Frankish kingdoms – would have the blessing of the pope. Otto had gained much of his power earlier, when, in 955, the Magyars were defeated in the Battle of Lechfeld. In contemporary and later writings, the crowning would be referred to as translatio imperii, the transfer of the Empire from the Romans to a new Empire. The German emperors thus thought of themselves as being in direct succession of those of the Roman empire; this is why they initially called themselves Augustus. Still, they did not call themselves "Roman" emperors at first, probably in order not to provoke conflict with the Roman emperor who still existed in Constantinople. The term imperator Romanorum only became common under Conrad II later. At this time, the eastern kingdom was not so much "German" as rather a "confederation" of the old Germanic tribes of the Bavarians, Alamanns, Franks and Saxons. The Empire as a political union probably only survived because of the strong personal influence of King Henry the Saxon and his son, Otto. Although formally elected by the leaders of the Germanic tribes, they were actually able to designate their successors. This changed after Henry II died in 1024 without any children. Conrad II, first of the Salian Dynasty, was then elected king in 1024 only after some debate. How exactly the king was chosen thus seems to be a complicated conglomeration of personal influence, tribal quarrels, inheritance, and acclamation by those leaders that would eventually become the collegiate of Electors. Already at this time the dualism between the "territories", then those of the old tribes rooted in the Frankish lands, and the king/emperor, became apparent. Each king preferred to spend most time in his own homelands; the Saxons, for example, spent much time in palatinates around the Harz mountains, among them Goslar. This practice had only changed under Otto III (king 983, emperor 996–1002), who began to utilize bishopries all over the Empire as temporary seats of government. Also, his successors, Henry II, Conrad II, and Henry III, apparently managed to appoint the dukes of the territories. It is thus no coincidence that at this time, the terminology changes and the first occurrences of a regnum Teutonicum are found. The glory of the Empire almost collapsed in the Investiture Controversy, in which Pope Gregory VII declared a ban on King Henry IV (king 1056, emperor 1084–1106). Although this was taken back after the 1077 Walk to Canossa, the ban had wide-reaching consequences. Meanwhile, the German dukes had elected a second king, Rudolf of Swabia, whom Henry IV could only defeat after a three-year war in 1080. The mythical roots of the Empire were permanently damaged; the German king was humiliated. Most importantly though, the church became an independent player in the political system of the Empire.The Empire under the HohenstaufenConrad III came to the throne in 1138, being the first of the Hohenstaufen dynasty, which was about to restore the glory of the Empire even under the new conditions of the 1122 Concordat of Worms. It was Frederick I "Barbarossa (king 1152, emperor 1155–1190) who first called the Empire "holy", with which he intended to address mainly law and legislation. Also, under Barbarossa, the idea of the "Romanness" of the Empire culminated again, which seemed to be a attempt to justify the emperor's power independently of the (now strengthened) pope. An imperial assembly at the fields of Roncaglia in 1158 explicitly reclaimed imperial rights at the advice of quattuor doctores of the emerging judicial facility of the University of Bologna, citing phrases such as princeps legibus solutus ("the leader is not bound by law") from the Digestae of the Corpus Juris Civilis. That the Roman laws were created for an entirely different system and didn't fit the structure of the Empire was obviously secondary; the point here was that the court of the Emperor made an attempt to establish a legal constitution. Imperial rights had been referred to as regalia since the Investiture Controversy, but were enumerated for the first time at Roncaglia as well. This comprehensive list included public roads, tariffs, coining, collecting punitive fees, and the investiture, the seating and unseating of office holders. These rights were now explicitly rooted in Roman Law, a far-reaching constitutional act; north of the Alps, the system was also now connected to feudal law, a change most visible in the withdrawal of the feuds of Henry the Lion in 1180 which lead to his public banning. Barbarossa thus managed for a time to more closely bind the stubborn Germanic dukes to the Empire as a whole. Another important constitutional move at Roncaglia was the establishment of a new peace (Landfrieden) for all of the Empire, an attempt to (on the one hand) abolish private vendettas not only between the many local dukes, but on the other hand a means to tie the Emperor's subordinates to a legal system of jurisdiction and public persecution of criminal acts – a predecessor concept of "rule of law", in modern terms, that was, at this time, not yet universally accepted. In order to solve the problem that the emperor was (after the Investiture Controversy) no longer as able to use the church as a mechanism to maintain power, the Stauffers increasingly lended land to ministerialia, formerly unfree service men, which Frederick hoped would be more reliable than local dukes. Initially used mainly for war services, this new class of people would form the basis for the later knights, another basis of imperial power. Another new concept of the time was the systematic foundation of new cities, both by the emperor and the local dukes. These were partly due to the explosion in population, but also to concentrate economic power at strategic locations, while formerly cities only existed in the shape of either old Roman foundations or older bishoprics. Cities that were founded in the 12th century include Freiburg, possibly the economic model for many later cities, and Munich. The later reign of the last Staufer, Frederick II, was in many ways different from that of earlier Emperors. Still a child, he first reigned in Sicily, while in Germany, Barbarossa's son Philip of Swabia and Otto IV competed with him for the title of King of the Germans. After finally having been crowned emperor in 1220, he risked conflict with the pope when he claimed power over Rome; astonishingly to many, he managed to claim Jerusalem in a Crusade in 1228 while still under the pope's ban. While Frederick brought the mythical idea of the Empire to a last highpoint, he was also the one to initiate the major steps that lead to its disintegration. On the one hand, he concentrated on establishing a – for the times – extraordinarily modern state in Sicily, with public services, finances, and jurisdiction. On the other hand, Frederick was the emperor who granted major powers to the German dukes in two far-reaching privileges that would never be reclaimed by the central power. In the 1220 Confoederatio cum princibus ecclesiasticis, Frederick basically gave up a number of regalia in favor of the bishops, among them tariffs, coining, and fortification. The 1232 Statutem in favorem principum mostly extended these privileges to the other (non-clerical) territories. Although many of these privileges had existed earlier, they were now granted globally, and once and for all, to allow the German dukes to maintain order north of the Alps while Frederick wanted to concentrate on his homelands in Italy. The 1232 document marked the first time that the German dukes were called domini terrae, owners of their lands, a remarkable change in terminology as well.The rise of the territories after the StauffenAfter the death of Frederick II in 1250, none of the dynasties worthy of producing the king proved able to do so, and the leading dukes elected several competing kings. The time from 1246 (beginning with the election of Heinrich Raspe and William of Holland) to 1273, when Rudolph I of Habsburg was elected king, is commonly referred to as the Interregnum. The difficulties in electing the king eventually led to the emergence of a fixed collegiate of electors, the Kurfürsten, whose composition and procedures were fixed in the Golden Bull of 1356. This development maybe symbolizes best the emerging duality between Kaiser und Reich, emperor and realm, who were no longer considered identical. This is also revealed in the way the post-Stauffen kings attempted to sustain their power. While earlier, the Empire's strength (and finances) greatly relied on the Empire's own lands, the so-called Reichsgut, which always belonged to the respective king (and included many Imperial Cities), its relevance faded after the 13th century (even though some fractions of it did remain until the Empire's end in 1806). Instead, the Reichsgut was increasingly pawned to local dukes, sometimes to raise money for the Empire, but more frequently as a reward for faithful duty or in an attempt to civilize stubborn dukes. It seems that the direct governance of the Reichsgut no longer matched the needs of either the king or the dukes. Instead, the kings, beginning with Rudolph I of Habsburg, increasingly relied on the lands of their respective dynasties to support their power. As opposed to the Reichsgut, which was mostly scattered and difficult to administrate, the territories were comparably compact and thus easier to control. In 1282, Rudolph I thus lended his own Austria and the Steiermark to his own sons; Louis IV of Wittelsbach (king 1314, emperor 1328–1347) relied on his lands in Bavaria; Charles IV of Luxembourg drew strength from his own lands in Bohemia. Interestingly, it was thus increasingly in the king's own interest to strengthen the power of the territories, since the king profited from such a benefit in his own lands as well. The 13th century also saw a general structural change in how land was administered. Instead of personal duties, money increasingly became the common means to represent economic value in agriculture. Peasants were increasingly committed to pay tributes for their lands; the concept of "property" more and more replaced more ancient forms of jurisdiction, although the two were still very much tied. In the territories (not at the level of the Empire), power became increasingly bundled: who owned the land had jurisdiction, from which other powers were derived. (It is important to note however that jurisdiction, at this time, was not assumed to include legislation, which practically did not exist until well into the 15th century. Court practice heavily relied on traditional customs or rules described as such.) It is during this time also that the territories began to transform themselves into predecessors of modern states. The process varied greatly among the various lands and was most advanced in those territories that were most identical to the lands of the old Germanic tribes, such as in Bavaria; it was slower in those scattered parts that were founded through imperial privileges.Imperial ReformThe "constitution" of the Empire was still largely unsettled at the beginning of the 15th century. Although some procedures and institutions had been fixed, for example by the Golden Bull of 1356, the rules of how the king, the electors, and the other dukes should cooperate in the Empire much depended on the personality of the respective king. It therefore proved somewhat fatal that Sigismund of Luxemburg (king 1410, emperor 1433–1437) and Frederick III (king 1440, emperor 1452–1493) neglected the old core lands of the empire and mostly resided in their own lands. Without the presence of the king, the old institution of the Hoftag, the assembly of the realm's leading men, deteriorated. The Reichstag as a legislative organ of the Empire did not exist yet. Even worse, dukes often went into feuds against each other that, more often than not, escalated into local wars. At the same time, the church was in crisis too. The conflict between several competing popes was only resolved at the Council of Constance (1414–1418); after 1419, much energy was spent on fighting the heresy of the Hussites. The medieval idea of a unified Corpus christianum, of which the papacy and the Empire were the leading institutions, began to decline. With these drastic changes, much discussion emerged in the 15th century about the Empire itself. Rules from the past no longer adequately described the structure of the time, and a reinforcement of earlier Landfrieden was urgently called for. During this time, the concept of "reform" emerges, in the original sense of the latin verb re-formare, to regain an earlier shape that had been lost. When Frederick III needed the dukes to finance war against Hungaria in 1486 and at the same time had his son, later Maximilian I elected king, he was presented with the dukes' united demand to participate in an Imperial Court. For the first time, the assembly of the electors and other dukes was now called Reichstag (to be joined by the Imperial Cities later). While Frederick refused, his more conciliant son finally convoked the Reichstag at Worms in 1495, after his father's death in 1493. Here, the king and the dukes agreed on four bills, commonly referred to as the Reichsreform (Imperial Reform): a set of legal acts to give the disintegrating Empire back some structure. Among others, this act produced the Imperial Circle Estates and the Reichskammergericht, (Imperial Chamber Court); structures that would – to a degree – persist until the end of the Empire in 1806. However, it should take a few more decades until the new regulation was universally accepted and the new court began to actually function; only in 1512 would the Imperial Circles be finalized. The king also made sure that his own court, the Reichshofrat, continued to function in parallel to the Reichskammergericht. It is interesting to note that in this year, the Empire also receives its new title, the Heiliges Römisches Reich Deutscher Nation ("Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation").Crisis after ReformationWhen Martin Luther in 1517 initiated what would later be known as the Reformation, many local dukes saw the chance to oppose the Emperor. After a century of quarrels, this conflict – among others – eventually lead to the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648), devastating most of Europe.After the Peace of WestphaliaThe actual end of the empire came in several steps. After the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, which gave the territories almost complete sovereignty, even allowing them to form independent alliances with other states; the Empire was only a mere conglomeration of largely independent states.The implosion of the Empire
AnalysisIt has been said that modern history of Germany was primarily predetermined by three factors: the Reich, the Reformation, and the later dualism between Austria and Prussia.[1] Many attempts have been made to explain why the Reich never managed to gain a strong central power over the territories, as opposed to neighboring France. Some reasons include:
German Third ReichAfter the unification of Germany as a nation state in 1871 (see German Empire), the Holy Roman Empire was sometimes known as the First Reich. Nazi Germany then referred to itself as the Third Reich, counting the 1871 Empire as the second, to connect itself with the resurrection of an allegedly better past.See also
References
External links\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nzh-cn:神圣罗马帝国\nzh-tw:神聖羅馬帝國 Category:German history |
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