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WHH The Holy Roman Empire: Article

Holy Roman Emperor: AD 800

In 799, for the third time in half a century, a pope is in need of help from the Frankish king. After being
physically attacked by his enemies in the streets of Rome (their stated intention is to blind him and cut out his
tongue, to make him incapable of office), Leo III makes his way through the Alps to visit Charlemagne at
Paderborn.

It is not known what is agreed, but Charlemagne travels to Rome in 800 to support the pope. In a ceremony in
St Peter's, on Christmas Day, Leo is due to anoint Charlemagne's son as his heir. But unexpectedly (it is
maintained), as Charlemagne rises from prayer, the pope places a crown on his head and acclaims him emperor.

Charlemagne expresses displeasure but accepts the honour. The displeasure is probably diplomatic, for the legal
emperor is undoubtedly the one in Constantinople. Nevertheless this public alliance between the pope and the
ruler of a confederation of Germanic tribes now reflects the reality of political power in the west. And it
launches the concept of the new Holy Roman Empire which will play an important role throughout the Middle
Ages.

The Holy Roman Empire only becomes formally established in the next century. But it is implicit in the title
adopted by Charlemagne in 800: 'Charles, most serene Augustus, crowned by God, great and pacific emperor,
governing the Roman empire.'

Emperors and popes: AD 962-1250

The imperial role accorded by the pope to Charlemagne in 800 is handed on in increasingly desultory fashion
during the 9th century. From 924 it falls into abeyance. But in 962 a pope once again needs help against his
Italian enemies. Again he appeals to a strong German ruler.

The coronation of Otto I by pope John XII in 962 marks a revival of the concept of a Christian emperor in the
west. It is also the beginning of an unbroken line of Holy Roman emperors lasting for more than eight centuries.
Otto I does not call himself Roman emperor, but his son Otto II uses the title - as a clear statement of western
and papal independence from the other Christian emperor in Constantinople.

Otto and his son and grandson (Otto II and Otto III) regard the imperial crown as a mandate to control the
papacy. They dismiss popes at their will and install replacements more to their liking (sometimes even changing
their mind and repeating the process). This power, together with territories covering much of central Europe,
gives the German empire and the imperial title great prestige in the late 10th century.

But subservience was not the papal intention in reinstating the Holy Roman Empire. A clash is inevitable.

Papal decline and recovery: AD 1046-1061

The struggle for dominance between emperor and pope comes to a head in two successive reigns, of the
emperors Henry III and Henry IV, in the 11th century. The imperial side has a clear win in the first round.

In 1046 Henry III deposes three rival popes. Over the next ten years he personally selects four of the next five
pontiffs. But after his death, in 1056, these abuses of the system bring a rapid reaction. Pope Nicholas II, elected
in 1058, initiates a process of reform which exposes the underlying tension between empire and papacy.

In 1059, at a synod in Rome, Nicholas condemns various abuses within the church. These include simony (the
selling of clerical posts), the marriage of clergy and, more controversially, corrupt practices in papal elections.
Nicholas now restricts the choice of a new pope to a conclave of cardinals, thus ruling out any direct lay
influence. Imperial influence is his clear target.

In 1061 the assembled bishops of Germany - the emperor's own faction - declare all the decrees of this pope null
and void. Battle is joined. But meanwhile the pope has been enlisting new allies.

In 1059 Nicholas II takes two political steps of a kind, unusual at this period, which will later be commonplace
for the medieval papacy. He grants land, already occupied, to recipients of his own choice; and he involves
those recipients in a feudal relationship with the papacy, or the Holy See, as the feudal lord.

This time the beneficiaries are the Normans, who are granted territorial rights in southern Italy and Sicily in
return for feudal obligations to Rome. The pope, in an overtly political struggle against the German emperor, is
playing a strong hand. The issue will be brought to a head within a few years by another pope, Gregory VII.

Gregory VII and investiture: AD 1075

Pope Gregory seizes political control by decreeing, in 1075, that no lay ruler may make ecclesiastical
appointments. Powerful bishops and abbots are henceforth to be pope's men rather than emperor's men.

The issue becomes known as the investiture controversy, being in essence a dispute over who has the right to
invest high clerics with the robes and insignia of office.

The appointment of bishops and abbots is too valuable a right to be easily relinquished by secular rulers. Great
feudal wealth and power is attached to these offices. And high clerics, as the best educated members of the
medieval community, are important members of any administration.

In subsequent periods compromises are made on both sides, particularly in the Concordat of Worms, in 1122,
where a distinction is made between the spiritual and secular element in clerical appointments. But investiture
remains a bone of contention between the papacy and lay rulers - not only in the empire, after the first dramatic
flare up between Gregory and Henry IV, but also in France and England.

Rome and the struggle for power: AD 1076-1138

The nine-year struggle between pope Gregory VII and the emperor Henry IV provides a vivid glimpse of the
political role of the medieval papacy. St Gregory, canonized in the Catholic Reformation, is one of the great
defenders of papal power. His career involves incessant power-broking and military struggle.

Henry IV, alarmed at the demands being made over investiture, sends a threatening letter to the pope in 1076.
The pope responds by excommunicating the emperor. By his public penance at Canossa, Henry has the
excommunication lifted. But the truce is short-lived. Henry's enemies, prompted by the pope's action, take a
hand.

German princes opposed to Henry IV elect and crown, in 1077, a rival king - Rudolf, the duke of Swabia.
Rudolf and Henry engage in a civil war, which Henry wins in 1080. By then the pope has recognized Rudolf as
the German king and has again excommunicated Henry.

This time Henry's response is more aggressive. He summons a council which deposes the pope and elects in his
place the archbishop of Ravenna (as pope Clement III). Henry marches into Italy, enters Rome and is crowned
emperor by this pope of his own creation. Meanwhile the real pope, Gregory, is living in a state of siege in his
impregnable Roman fortress, the Castel Sant'Angelo.

Gregory appeals for help to his vassals the Normans, recently invited by the papacy to conquer southern Italy
and Sicily. A Norman army reaches Rome in 1084, drives out the Germans and rescues Gregory. But the
Norman sack of the city is so violent, and provokes such profound hostility, that Gregory has to flee south with
his rescuers. He dies in 1085 in Sicily.

Clement III returns to Rome and reigns there with imperial support as pope (or in historical terms as antipope)
for most of the next ten years. Urban II, the pope who preaches the first crusade in 1095, is not able to enter the
holy city for several years after his election. Unrest prevails in Rome, and uncertainty in the empire, until the
Hohenstaufen win the German crown in 1138.

Hohenstaufen: AD 1138-1254

The castle of Staufen, in Swabia, lends its name to the Hohenstaufen dynasty. Frederick, the builder of the
castle, is a faithful follower of the emperor Henry IV. In 1079 he marries the emperor's daughter, Agnes. In
1138, after some years of upheaval and civil war, their son Conrad is elected the German king - as Conrad III.

For more than a century, with one minor interruption, members of the Hohenstaufen family inherit the German
kingdom - usually together with the status of Holy Roman emperor. The first Hohenstaufen to make a profound
impression on the empire is Conrad's nephew, Frederick I.

In a reign of thirty-eight years Frederick, known also as Frederick Barbarossa, asserts his authority throughout
Germany and extends imperial power into Bohemia, Poland and Hungary. But his greatest effort is in Italy,
where he tries to recover the empire in the north and to extend it south of the papal states down to Sicily.

He meets strong opposition in the north from the Italian communes, who form the Lombard league to resist him.
And his attempts in the south are unpopular with the papacy, alarmed at the danger of being surrounded. In the
long term Frederick's most significant act, before his death on crusade in 1190, is to marry his son Henry to
Constance, heiress to the Norman kingdom of Sicily.

The marriage of Henry to Constance brings Sicily and southern Italy into the German empire. Henry VI is
crowned emperor in Rome in 1191 and king of Sicily in 1194. But he dies shortly afterwards, in 1197, when his
son Frederick is just three years old.

At first it seems unlikely that the boy can inherit both Sicily and the German kingdom, particularly since the
prospect displeases the papacy. From 1198 he is recognized only as king of Sicily. But after a period of
confusion, with warring candidates, he is also elected king by the German princes in 1211. With some
reluctance the pope accepts the situation. He crowns Frederick II emperor in Rome in 1220.

Subsequent popes have cause to regret this coronation. They excommunicate Frederick II twice, and even
proclaim a crusade against him, in a prolonged power struggle which eventually weakens his authority in both
Sicily and Germany. In spite of the brilliance of his court in Sicily, and the nonchalant ease with which he
achieves his own crusade to Jerusalem, Frederick leaves an inheritance which cannot long survive him.

His son, Conrad IV, becomes the last ruler in the Hohenstaufen line. With Conrad's death, in 1254, there is a
vacancy on the German throne which is not filled for another nineteen years.

After the Hohenstaufen: AD 1254-1438

The Hohenstaufen period has seen some notably forceful popes (Innocent III, Gregory IX, Innocent IV) and
powerful emperors (Frederick I, Frederick II). It is followed, after the death of the last Hohenstaufen ruler in
1254, by a prolonged time of uncertainty in both papacy and empire.

The popes abandon Rome in 1309 and spend most of the 14th century in self-imposed exile in Avignon. From
1378 there are two rival popes (a number subsequently rising to three) in the split known as the Great Schism.

Meanwhile, for almost twenty years after the death of Conrad IV in 1254, the German princes fail to elect any
effective king or emperor. This period is usually known (with a grandiloquence to match the Great Schism in
the papacy) as the Great Interregnum.

The interregnum ends with the election of Rudolf I as German king in 1273. The choice subsequently seems of
great significance, because he is the first Habsburg on the German throne. But the Habsburg grip on the
succession remains far in the future. During the next century the electors choose kings from several families.
Not till the coronation of Charles IV in 1346 is there the start of another dynasty - that of the house of
Luxembourg.

Charles IV is crowned emperor in Rome in 1355. He makes his capital in Prague (he has inherited Bohemia as
well as Luxembourg), bringing the city its first period of glory. The imperial dignity remains in Charles's family
until 1438, when it is transferred to the Habsburgs.

At the beginning and end of those eighty years Charles and his son Sigismund take a strong line with the
papacy. Within a year of his coronation, Charles issues the Golden Bull of 1356 which excludes the pope from
any influence in the choice of emperor. And in 1414 Sigismund is instrumental in bringing together the Council
of Constance which finally ends the Great Schism and restores a single pope to Rome.

The Golden Bull and the electors: AD 1356-1806

The Golden Bull, issued by Charles IV in 1356, clarifies the new identity which the Holy Roman empire has
been gradually adopting. It ends papal involvement in the election of a German king, by the simple means of
denying Rome's right to approve or reject the electors' choice. In return, by a separate agreement with the pope,
Charles abandons imperial claims in Italy - apart from a title to the kingdom of Lombardy, inherited from
Charlemagne.

The emphasis is clear. This is now to be essentially a German empire, as reflected in a new form of the title
adopted in 1452 - sacrum Romanum imperium nationis Germanicae (Holy Roman Empire of the German
nation).

The Golden Bull also clarifies and formalizes the process of election of a German king. The choice has
traditionally been in the hands of seven electors, but their identity has varied.

The group of seven is now established as three archbishops (of Mainz, Cologne and Trier) and four hereditary
lay rulers (the count palatine of the Rhine, the duke of Saxony, the margrave of Brandenburg and the king of
Bohemia).