Holy Roman Empire

HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE. - I. IMPERO CAROLINGIO. - It was founded by Charlemagne, king of the Franks, of the Lombards and patrician of Rome, when he assumed the imperial crown at the hands of Pope Leo III on Christmas night of the year 800 in the basilica of St. Peter in Rome. It was the conclusion of all of Charles's military work: with the submission of the Lombards and the Saxons he had brought to completion what had been the program of the Merovingian monarchy: the unification of all the Germanic tribes under Frankish hegemony.

This immense barbarian State, whose king imposed the Christian faith on all, appeared in the eyes of cultured persons as providential: defense of Christendom, propagation of the faith. Charles was regarded as the head of the Christian people and the renewer of the Empire. Alcuin and the other men of letters of the Frankish Court insist greatly on the virtually imperial character of Charles's Kingdom; they affirm that the prosperity of Charlemagne is indispensable to the Empire of Christendom, they pray that he may long remain at the government of the Empire. Charles had, moreover, for many years assumed attitudes more similar to those of the Byzantine emperors than to those of his Merovingian predecessors: he occupied himself with religious questions, from the liturgy and worship to ecclesiastical organization and dogma; like Constantine and Justinian he already appeared as rex et sacerdos.

The ceremony of the coronation took place according to the Byzantine ritual: coronation by the Pope, adoration and acclamation by the same, by the Roman nobility, by the people of Rome. Charles had for the occasion donned the Roman imperial vestments; in the bulls of his diplomas was written: Renovatio Romani Imperii, in the protocol of the diplomas he used the formula Augustus... Romanorum imperium gubernans; on the coins he appeared with the diadem on his head and the Roman mantle on his shoulders. In Roman and Frankish circles it was now said that the Roman Empire had been renewed.

The Roman element in Charles's imperial construction remained vague and completely external. Charles, after a stay of a few months, abandoned Rome and never returned to Italy. His political authority was always bound to his quality of king of the Franks and of the Lombards; he regarded the Empire as a kind of high magistracy of a moral and religious nature that should dominate the whole Christian world and impose peace and order upon it. This conception is solemnly affirmed in the great Capitulary of 802: justice was to be the program of government and all the officials of the Frankish State were to draw inspiration from this ideal. Substantially it cannot be said that Charles adopted new ideas in internal policy after 800, but certainly now this religious and moral mission came to be rendered more authoritative, more solemn, because linked with the Roman imperial and Christian tradition.

The Roman coronation provoked lively objections on the part of the government of Constantinople. Charles sought to ward off the accusations by negotiating with Irene a marriage: once the Empress had fallen, he resumed negotiations with the emperor Nicephorus, and these having failed, open war ensued on the eastern frontier (especially in the Adriatic). Only in 812 was an understanding reached: Charles was recognized as emperor by the Byzantine Emperor: now between the two there was societas (alliance) and amicitia (cordiality). Once the question was resolved, Charles was able to provide for the succession; in 806 he had divided the Kingdoms among his sons, in 813 he himself crowned as emperor and colleague his son Louis in the basilica of Aachen (Sept. 2).

Louis the Pious succeeded his father (Jan. 28, 814) in the same position of king of the Franks and of the Lombards and of Roman emperor. In 816 he consented that the coronation be repeated by Pope Stephen V, who had purposely betaken himself to Reims, and it was then that the rite of anointing with the holy oils was introduced: the Pope affirmed that his intervention was necessary to give perfection to the ceremony of coronation. Louis assumed the title divina ordinante providentia imperator augustus without any reference to Rome. Was this perhaps a clause of the Franco-Byzantine agreement? Louis's imperial policy is the same as his father's. But now there was already discussion of the relations between the Frankish Kingdom and the Empire: how was the indivisibility of imperial power to be reconciled with the divisibility of the Frankish domains? The problem was resolved by the Ordinatio Imperii of Louis the Pious of July 817: successor in the Empire was to be his firstborn son Lothair with the greater part of the territories, the younger sons were each to have a kingdom, but in dependence on the elder. The Ordinatio was approved at the Diets of Nijmegen and of Thionville (821). Lothair was crowned by his father at Aachen already in 817; in 823, having descended into Italy, he was crowned in Rome by the Pope, who thus reaffirmed the necessity of his intervention for the perfecting of the coronation. In 825 Lothair was associated by his father in the government. This unitary conception of the Empire, which acquired territorial value, had been proposed by Louis's minister, Wala, the abbot of Corbie.

In the civil struggles determined by the necessity of assigning a domain to Charles the Bald, son of Louis's second marriage, and then in those that broke out after Louis's death among his sons, the Ludovician unitary conception with the primacy of the eldest of the princes disappears. After the Treaty of Verdun (843) there was established among the Carolingian princes, with the disappearance of the Empire, the regime of fraternity, a permanent alliance based on brotherhood, for the purpose of preserving peace.

Lothair I retained only an honorary pre-eminence, thanks to the imperial title. In 850 he had his son Louis II crowned and consecrated emperor by the Pope, with whom, however, the imperial dignity came to be only a vain title without content. After the death of Louis (873) the Pope intervened actively in the affair of the imperial title; subsequently there were crowned Charles the Bald, Carloman of Germany, Charles the Fat, who in 884 reunited, through the death of all the Carolingians, in his hands the whole Empire of Carloman. But now centralization was a dream: France, Germany, Italy lived an autonomous life, and with the death of Charles the Fat (Jan. 13, 888) there occurred the definitive crumbling of the great Empire, which failed because of its wavering between simple spiritual unity and territorial reality. After 888 there were still in Italy attempts to recreate the Empire: Guy of Spoleto, Arnulf of Germany, Louis of Provence, Berengar I had themselves crowned in Rome by the Pope, but theirs was by now a useless title; too weak was the political base to reaffirm the imperial principle.

II. GERMAN EMPIRE

This name designates the medieval Christian Empire created by Otto I, King of Germany, with the imperial coronation that took place in St. Peter's in Rome on 2 February 962, at the hands of Pope John XII, and dissolved by Emperor Francis II of Lorraine with the declaration of 6 August 1806. Ideologically the Ottonian Empire was linked to the Carolingian Empire, whose nostalgic memory had not vanished among the ecclesiastical and educated classes, but its territorial basis was now only the complex of Germany-Italy, to which Burgundy was later added through the annexation that occurred under Conrad II in 1032. The expression "Holy Empire" already appears in the age of Frederick Barbarossa (1152-1190); the expression "Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation" appears under Maximilian I (1493-1519). In its origins the German Roman Empire is a supreme civil dignity, semi-religious in character, distinct from the monarchical institutions of the three Kingdoms: the Roman coronation establishes its link with tradition; the consecration affirms its spiritual character; its Germanic nature results from the fact that the imperial dignity was transmissible only to princes elected King of Germany.

The election as King of Germany and future emperor takes place in the Diet of the Empire, in which all the lay and ecclesiastical feudatories of Germany participate. At the end of the 12th century, the princes emerge among the feudatories, that is, the feudal lords who depend directly on the crown; the others participate no longer to decide but to give their assent. In the 13th century the exclusive right of election is restricted to the few princes who hold the high offices of the court. In the age of the interregnum (1254-72) the theory of the electors takes shape: there is talk of the bishops of Mainz, Cologne and Trier, that is, the chancellors of the three Kingdoms, of the Count Palatine of the Rhine, seneschal, of the Duke of Saxony, marshal, of the Margrave of Brandenburg, chamberlain; there is discussion of the King of Bohemia, cupbearer, but not a German. The number of electors and the electoral rights of the various dynasties were debated until the "Golden Bull" of Charles IV (1356), which established the rules: the election was to take place at Frankfurt, by majority; the electors were to be the three ecclesiastical princes and four laymen — the Duke of Bavaria, the Duke of Saxony, the King of Bohemia, the Margrave of Brandenburg. In 1648, in the Treaty of Westphalia, the Count Palatine of the Rhine was recognized as the eighth elector; in 1692 the Prince of Brunswick-Lüneburg was declared the ninth elector.

The Empire was therefore traditionally recognized as elective in law, although in practice heredity was imposed by the predominant houses, which left the electors only the right to consent. Thus the emperors belonged to a few dynasties: the Saxon (942-1003), the Franconian (1024-1125), the Swabian (1137-1254), the Luxembourg (1347-1437), the Habsburg (1437-1740), the Lorraine (1745-1806). The princes rebelled against heredity only at the death of Henry VI (1197); the principle of election was reaffirmed in the elections of Henry II (1004), of Lothair III (1125), of Otto IV (1198), of Henry VII (1308). The electors divided among different claimants: in 1125 between Lothair III and Frederick, in 1198 between Otto IV and Philip of Swabia, in 1256 between Alfonso of Castile and Richard of Cornwall; in 1314 between Louis the Bavarian and Frederick of Habsburg. From the beginning of the 12th century it became customary to designate with the title of King of the Romans the King of Germany already crowned at Aachen and designated for the imperial election; Frederick Barbarossa introduced the custom of having the future successor in the Kingdom and in the Empire designated also with the title of King of the Romans, and from the 13th century this title ended up replacing in usage the title of King of Germany. Some emperors not crowned at Rome retained the title of King of the Romans throughout their lives, such as Philip of Swabia (1198-1207), Henry Raspe (1246-47), William of Holland (1247-58), Alfonso of Castile (1256-84) and his rival Richard of Cornwall (1256-72). So too the kings of the end of the 13th century, Rudolf of Habsburg, Adolf of Nassau and Albert of Habsburg (1272-1308), then Rupert Count Palatine (1400-10) and Albert II (1437-39). Maximilian of Habsburg obtained from Julius II the right to call himself Imperator electus (Erwählter Kaiser).

Usually there were three coronations: at Aachen, as King of Germany, at Milan (or at Monza), as King of Italy, at Rome as emperor. Some also went to Burgundy to be crowned king there. The last Emperor crowned King of Italy at Milan was Charles IV (1356); Frederick III was the last Emperor crowned at Rome (1452); Charles V was the last Emperor crowned by the Pope in Italy, at Bologna, in St. Petronius (1530). Afterwards, beginning with Ferdinand of Habsburg, a single coronation at Frankfurt was used, because Empire and German Kingdom were by then one and the same thing.

The imperial coronation had a mystical meaning and a juridical value and was necessary to give perfection to the assumption of the throne. Since the Ottonian tradition established that it should take place through the action of the Pope, the latter claimed the right to approve the royal election that had taken place in Germany and therefore the right of choice in the case of a contested election between two claimants. This right was vigorously upheld by Innocent III against the German princes and by John XXII against Louis of Bavaria. The coronation includes the taking of the oath of fidelity to the Pope, the anointing with the sacred oils, the handing over of the sword, the sceptre, the ring, and then from the 13th century also of the orb; ordained subdeacon, the new emperor assists the Pope in the celebration of the Mass, participates as a sacred person in Communion under both Species (no longer, however, in the 15th century), and is received as a canon by the Chapters of St. Peter's in the Vatican and of St. John Lateran.

The German Roman Empire inherited the Carolingian politico-religious conceptions. That is, the defense of the Church and of orthodoxy, the preservation of peace, the championing of justice and the faith against internal enemies (heretics) and external enemies (infidels). From this religious conception springs a political conception: the whole of Christendom is de iure subject to the Empire; the emperor is the moral head of the Christian people and the source of law, a universal organ of justice. These conceptions were developed by imperialist politicians and jurists, from Peter Crassus to Dante (De monarchia, Divina Commedia), to Bartolus of Sassoferrato.

Such concepts inevitably had to be the starting point of a caesaropapist conceptual system. While in theory the Gelasian doctrine of distinction prevailed, with the pre-eminence of the Church by virtue of its charismatic office, Otto I claimed to elect popes and bishops without distinguishing between the spiritual element and the temporal element. Otto III departed from this tradition by designing a Christian-Roman Empire in which Church and Empire were identified; yet even he in practice did not depart from caesaropapism. Under the emperors of the 11th century these tendencies asserted themselves more energetically: Henry II had an almost sacerdotal concept of the imperial office: he presided over councils, favored the moral reform of the Church; caesaropapism presented itself in its most religious aspect.

With Conrad II the problem was viewed politically: the aim was the subjection of all lay and ecclesiastical powers to the emperor. Henry III gathered the fundamental motives of the religious policy of his predecessors, but the reform activity carried out by the Empire with harshness determined the reaction of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, which in the Gregorian Dictatus Papae found the hierocratic program and the affirmation of the superiority of religious authority over civil authority.

Between the two opposing tendencies the conflict appears in the question of investitures: the Church wishes to assert its moral autonomy and religious freedom, freeing itself from the bonds by which feudalization had subordinated it to civil authority. The imperialists uphold the rights of the Empire as they are pointed out by historical tradition: concord between Church and State, protection and control of the Papacy on the part of the Empire. The irreconcilability of the two theses leads to discussion of a clean separation of the spiritual from the temporal, but nowhere is anyone prepared to run the risk of an anti-traditionalist solution: the Church cannot do without the civil element, the Empire must lean upon the Church. The Concordat of Worms (1122) is a provisional transaction between Callixtus II and Henry V; their successors often violated it. Thus the struggle resumes between Frederick Barbarossa and Alexander III: Empire and Papacy oppose each other as two universal monarchies contending for the dominion of the world; there are disputes of a territorial order, the Matildine lands, the territories of central Italy, then there appears that most serious one of the conquest of the Kingdom of Sicily by the Empire, which involves the danger for the Papacy of being encircled and struck in its political and religious independence. But there is also discussion of theoretical questions: whether the Empire is a papal benefice, whether the pope can claim to scrutinize the election and the conduct of the emperor.

In the imperial schism between Otto IV and Philip, Pope Innocent III asserts his superiority for the translation (principaliter) and for the coronation (finaliter), then asserts rights ratione peccati. Frederick II, to the Popes who maintain that Christus rex et sacerdos de ordine Melchisedach transmitted to the apostle Peter the spiritual power to be exercised directly and the temporal power to be exercised through the princes, counterposes the Gelasian theory of distinction: the imperial power comes directly from God; the prince has the right and the duty to protect Christendom and the Church. Innocent IV responds by excommunicating the Emperor, deposing him, absolving his subjects from the oath of fidelity, inviting the princes to elect another emperor.

The conflict eases during the interregnum: the rival princes turn to the Pope as arbiter, Rudolf of Habsburg renounces the traditional territorial claims, but then it revives under Boniface VIII, who imposes his superiority on Albert of Habsburg; Clement V first favors Henry VII on his journey of coronation, but then in the Emperor's action against the King of Naples he glimpses a new danger for papal independence and reaffirms the ancient superiority. Thus John XXII claims the government of the Empire during the new civil struggle in Germany, entrusts its vicariate to the King of Naples. Louis the Bavarian energetically opposes the papal excommunications; exploiting the democratic conceptions of Marsilius of Padua, he organizes in Rome his own coronation by the Roman people, deposes John XXII and replaces him with an antipope. The prince-electors assembled at Rhense (16 July 1338) swear to defend the liberties, rights and customs of the Empire, proclaim that the imperial dignity comes directly from God, declare the papal sentences against the Emperor unjustified. In the "Golden Bull" of 1356 no mention is made any longer of the papal right. Now the struggle between Papacy and Empire languishes and only the canonists and jurists occupy themselves with it; the imperial coronations of the 15th century no longer raise discussions and conflicts: they are simple ceremonies.

The Empire retains great importance in European politics because it continues to be the symbol of European moral unity; later the primacy of the emperor weakens and becomes only a right of precedence in ceremonial, not always, however, recognized and respected.

The Empire's relations with Italy change over the centuries. In the 10th century the Kingdom of Italy is included in the Holy Roman Empire as a conquest of the German king. The emperors from the 10th to the 12th century aim to consolidate the conquest of the peninsula by fighting Arabs, Byzantines, Normans. The problem is resolved with the conquest by Henry VI. The organization of Italy in the 10th century is entrusted to the great marches; in the 11th century their feudalization determines the imperial reaction. Now the emperors favor the lesser feudal nobility and the cities, but then the autonomist tendencies of the cities provoke the opposition of Frederick Barbarossa, who tends to subject the cities directly to the imperial potestas. The Treaty of Constance (1183) recognizes the consular civic organization from which an entire system of independent civic government develops. Frederick II, after the battle of Cortenuova, plans the organization of Italy with general, regional and communal imperial vicariates; everything vanishes after his death. Henry VII takes up the plan again, but now the system of vicariates is reconciled with the system of the signorie with a democratic basis that arose in the Communes; later in the 15th century the signoria-vicariate, with the adoption of feudal titles, enters the imperial feudal hierarchical system. The Empire retains in legal tradition special rights (reservata iura) and over various Italian states still in the 17th-18th centuries asserts fiscal and jurisdictional rights.

The organization of the Empire was always rudimentary, of a feudal type. Otto II fleetingly thought of a Roman organization, creating a definitive capital in Rome, with a court of a Byzantine type. Attempts at a centralized feudal organization occurred with Frederick Barbarossa and Henry VI. Under Frederick II the eccentric tendencies already prevail in Germany through the action of the free city and the territorial princes. The anarchy of the interregnum makes felt the need for a prince who represents peace and order, but the elections of Rudolf and of Henry VII bring to the throne princes concerned only with creating a state of their own. The "Golden Bull" of 1356 was the recognition of the princes' autonomy to reorganize the Empire, creating a political system that reconciles imperial authority, the power of the princes and the autonomies of the cities. The discussions are livelier under Maximilian (Diet of Augsburg of 1500). The reorganizing policy seems to become the ideal of Charles V, but the princes mask their separatist tendencies with the protection of Lutheranism. To the imperial Diets of Speyer (1520) and of Augsburg (1530) the League of Schmalkalden responds. The struggle between centralization and separatism led to the Peace of Augsburg of 1555; the religious freedom granted to the princes is the recognition that the Empire is divided into the Corpus evangelicum and the Corpus catholicum; the Empire loses its unity; the independence of the princes is strengthened. The Thirty Years' War is the last attempt to save the Empire; it fails because of the anti-Habsburg interventionists of Swabia and of France. The Peace of Westphalia (1648) confirms to all the German princes absolute independence, granting them the right to make peace and war, to conclude alliances with other princes. The Empire became merely a confederation of princes and cities (about 350) with a nominal head in the Emperor, assisted by a diet without authority; imperial power was given by the complex of the Habsburg states: Austria, Hungary, Bohemia. Thus the Empire lived until the Napoleonic age.

During the 19th century there was much discussion in Germany about the value and usefulness of the medieval Empire from the national point of view. Sybel represented the negative tendency, regarding the Empire and all its Roman policy as a squandering of energies that brought about the ascendancy of eccentric forces. Ficker asserted instead that imperial policy is an essential part of the life of the German people and of its civilization. This problem can also be viewed from the Italian point of view, that is, whether the union of Italy with Germany meant the prevalence of particularist forces over the centralizing monarchical tradition that lasted from Alboin to Berengar II; but there is no doubt that precisely the Italian particularism favored by the union with the Empire contributed powerfully to creating the civilization of the Communes and the Signorie, that is, on the whole, of the Renaissance.

Francesco Cognasso