Early Middle Ages Carolingian Empire As
Roman power in
Gaul declined during the 5th century, local Germanic tribes assumed control. In the late 5th and early 6th centuries, the
Merovingians, under
Clovis I and his successors, consolidated
Frankish tribes and extended hegemony over others to gain control of northern Gaul and the middle
Rhine river valley region. By the middle of the 8th century, the Merovingians were reduced to figureheads, and the
Carolingians, led by
Charles Martel, became the rulers. In 751, Martel's son
Pepin became King of the Franks, and later gained the sanction of the Pope. Charlemagne's good service to the Church in his defense of Papal possessions against the
Lombards made him the ideal candidate. On Christmas Day of 800, Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne emperor, restoring the title in the West for the first time in over three centuries. opine that the Carolingian Renaissance made possible the subsequent renaissances (even though by the early 10th century, the revival already diminished). After the death of Charles the Fat in 888, Carolingian rule in the Roman Empire came to an end. According to
Regino of Prüm, the parts of the realm "spewed forth kinglets", and each part elected a kinglet "from its own bowels". The last such emperor was
Berengar I of Italy, who died in 924.
Post-Carolingian Eastern Frankish Kingdom Around 900, East Francia's autonomous
stem duchies (
Franconia,
Bavaria,
Swabia,
Saxony, and
Lotharingia) reemerged. After the Carolingian king
Louis the Child died without issue in 911,
East Francia did not turn to the Carolingian ruler of West Francia to take over the realm but instead elected one of the dukes,
Conrad of Franconia, as . On his deathbed, Conrad yielded the crown to his main rival,
Henry the Fowler of Saxony (), who was elected king at the Diet of
Fritzlar in 919. Henry reached a truce with the raiding
Magyars, and in 933 he won a first victory against them in the
Battle of Riade. Henry died in 936, but his descendants, the
Liudolfing (or Ottonian) dynasty, would continue to rule the Eastern kingdom or the Kingdom of Germany for roughly a century. Upon Henry the Fowler's death,
Otto, his son and designated successor, was elected king in
Aachen in 936. He overcame a series of revolts from a younger brother and from several dukes. After that, the king managed to control the appointment of dukes and often also employed bishops in administrative affairs. He replaced leaders of most of the major East Frankish duchies with his own relatives. At the same time, he was careful to prevent members of his own family from making infringements on his royal prerogatives.
Formation of the Holy Roman Empire of the
Holy Roman Church In 951, Otto came to the aid of Queen
Adelaide of Italy, defeating her enemies, marrying her, and taking control over Italy. In 955, Otto won a decisive victory over the
Magyars in the
Battle of Lechfeld. In 962, Otto was crowned emperor by
Pope John XII, thus intertwining the affairs of the German kingdom with those of Italy and the Papacy. Otto's coronation as emperor marked the German kings as successors to the empire of Charlemagne, which through the concept of , also made them consider themselves as successors to Ancient Rome. The flowering of arts beginning with Otto the Great's reign is known as the
Ottonian Renaissance, centered in Germany but also happening in Northern Italy and France. Otto created the imperial church system, often called "Ottonian church system of the Reich", which tied the great imperial churches and their representatives to imperial service, thus providing "a stable and long-lasting framework for Germany". During the Ottonian era, imperial women played a prominent role in political and ecclesiastic affairs, often combining their functions as religious leader and advisor, regent or co-ruler, notably
Matilda of Ringelheim,
Eadgyth,
Adelaide of Italy,
Theophanu, and
Matilda of Quedlinburg. In 963, Otto deposed John XII and chose
Leo VIII as the new pope (although John XII and Leo VIII both claimed the papacy until 964, when John XII died). This also renewed the conflict with the Byzantine emperor, especially after Otto's son
Otto II () adopted the designation . Still, Otto II formed marital ties with the east when he married the Byzantine princess
Theophanu. Their son,
Otto III, came to the throne only three years old, and was subjected to a power struggle and series of regencies until his age of majority in 994. Up to that time, he remained in Germany, while a deposed duke,
Crescentius II, ruled over Rome and part of Italy, ostensibly in his stead. In 996 Otto III appointed his cousin
Gregory V the first German pope. A foreign pope and foreign papal officers were seen with suspicion by Roman nobles, who were led by
Crescentius II to revolt. Otto III's former mentor
Antipope John XVI briefly held Rome, until the Holy Roman emperor seized the city. Otto died young in 1002, and was succeeded by his cousin
Henry II, who focused on Germany. Otto III's (and his mentor Pope Sylvester's) diplomatic activities coincided with and facilitated the Christianization and the spread of Latin culture in different parts of Europe. They coopted a new group of nations (Slavic) into the framework of Europe, with their empire functioning, as some remark, as a "Byzantine-like presidency over a family of nations, centered on pope and emperor in Rome". This has proved a lasting achievement. Though, Otto's early death made his reign "the tale of largely unrealized potential".
Henry II died in 1024 and
Conrad II, first of the
Salian dynasty, was elected king only after some debate among dukes and nobles. This group eventually developed into the college of
electors. The Holy Roman Empire eventually came to be composed of four kingdoms: •
Kingdom of Germany (part of the empire since 962), •
Kingdom of Italy (from 962 until 1801), •
Kingdom of Bohemia (from 1002 as the
Duchy of Bohemia and raised to a kingdom in 1198), •
Kingdom of Burgundy (from 1032 to 1378).
High Middle Ages Investiture Controversy Kings often employed bishops in administrative affairs and often determined who would be appointed to ecclesiastical offices. In the wake of the
Cluniac Reforms, this involvement was increasingly seen as inappropriate by the Papacy. The reform-minded
Pope Gregory VII was determined to oppose such practices, which led to the
Investiture Controversy with King
Henry IV (, crowned emperor in 1084). kept in the
Vatican Library, 1115) Henry IV repudiated the pope's interference and persuaded his bishops to excommunicate the pope, whom he famously addressed by his birth name "Hildebrand" rather than his papal name "Gregory". The pope, in turn, excommunicated the king, declared him deposed, and dissolved the oaths of loyalty made to Henry. As his son,
Frederick II, though already elected king, was still a small child and living in Sicily, German princes chose to elect an adult king, resulting in the dual election of Frederick Barbarossa's youngest son
Philip of Swabia and Henry the Lion's son
Otto of Brunswick, who competed for the crown. After Philip was murdered in a private squabble in 1208, Otto prevailed for a while, until he began to also claim Sicily.
Pope Innocent III, who feared the threat posed by a union of the empire and Sicily, was now supported by Frederick II, who marched to Germany and defeated Otto. After his victory, Frederick did not act upon his promise to keep the two realms separate. Though he had made his son Henry king of Sicily before marching on Germany, he still reserved real political power for himself. This continued after Frederick was crowned emperor in 1220. Fearing Frederick's concentration of power, the pope finally excommunicated him. Another point of contention was the Crusade, which Frederick had promised but repeatedly postponed. Now, although excommunicated, Frederick led the
Sixth Crusade in 1228, which ended in negotiations and a temporary restoration of the
Kingdom of Jerusalem. For his many-sided activities, prestige, and dynamic personality Frederick II has been called the greatest of all the medieval German emperors. In the Kingdom of Sicily and much of Italy, Frederick built upon the work of his Norman predecessors and forged an early absolutist state bound together by an efficient secular bureaucracy. Despite his imperial prestige and power, Frederick II's rule was a major turning point toward the partitioning of central rule in the Empire. Since his political focus was south of the Alps, he was mostly absent from Germany and issued far-reaching privileges to Germany's secular and ecclesiastical princes to ensure their cooperation. In the 1220 , Frederick gave up a number of
regalia in favour of the bishops, among them tariffs,
coining, and the right to build fortification. The 1232 mostly extended these privileges to secular territories. Although many of these privileges had existed earlier, they were now granted globally, and once and for all, to allow the German princes to maintain order north of the Alps while Frederick concentrated on Italy. The 1232 document marked the first time that the German dukes were called , owners of their lands, a remarkable change in terminology as well. the affirmed a division of labor between the emperor and the princes and laid much groundwork for the development of particularism in Germany. Even so, from 1232 the vassals of the emperor had a veto over imperial legislative decisions and any new law established by the emperor had to be approved by the princes. These provisions not withstanding, royal power in Germany remained strong under Frederick and by the 1240s the crown was still rich in fiscal resources, land holdings, retinues, and all other rights, revenues, and jurisdictions. Frederick II used the political loyalty and practical jurisdictions granted to the higher German aristocracy to impose peace, order, and justice upon Germany. The jurisdictional autarky of the German princes was favoured by the crown itself in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries in the interests of order and local peace. The inevitable result was the territorial particularism of churchmen, lay princes, and interstitial cities; however, Frederick was a ruler of vast territories and "could not be everywhere at once". The transference of jurisdiction was a practical solution to secure the further support of the German princes and, moreover, was a process which had already been underway even under Henry VI and Frederick Barbarossa. It is unlikely that a particularly "strong ruler" such as Frederick II would have even pragmatically agreed to legislation that was truly concessionary rather than cooperative, neither would the princes have insisted on such. The Mainz
Landfriede or , decreed at the Imperial Diet of 1235, became one of the
basic laws of the empire and provided that the princes should share the burden of local government in Germany. The authority of the crown was not in question, rather its practical allocation in such a wide region which lacked a general administrative apparatus. Far from a broad diminution of royal power, the Mainz Landfriede was a constitutional recalibration based on the culmination of multi-decade political realities and a testament to Frederick II's considerable political strength, his increased prestige during the early 1230s, and sheer overpowering might that he succeeded in securing the princes' support and rebound them to Hohenstaufen power.
Kingdom of Bohemia The
Kingdom of Bohemia was a significant regional power during the
Middle Ages. In 1212, King
Ottokar I (bearing the title "king" since 1198) extracted a
Golden Bull of Sicily (a formal edict) from Emperor Frederick II, confirming the royal title for Ottokar and his descendants, and the Duchy of Bohemia was raised to a kingdom. Bohemia's political and financial obligations to the Empire were gradually reduced.
Charles IV set
Prague to be the seat of the Holy Roman emperor.
Interregnum of the
Holy Roman Church After the death of Frederick II in 1250,
Conrad IV, Frederick's son (died 1254), enjoyed a strong position having defeated his papal-backed rival
anti-king,
William of Holland (died 1256). However, Conrad's death was followed by the
Interregnum, during which no king could achieve universal recognition, allowing the princes to consolidate their holdings and become even more independent as rulers. After 1257, the crown was contested between
Richard of Cornwall, who was supported by the
Guelph party, and
Alfonso X of Castile, who was recognized by the Hohenstaufen party but never set foot on German soil. After Richard's death in 1273,
Rudolf I of Germany, a minor pro-Hohenstaufen count, was elected. He was the first of the
Habsburgs to hold a royal title, but he was never crowned emperor. After Rudolf's death in 1291,
Adolf and
Albert were two further weak kings who were never crowned emperor. Albert was assassinated in 1308. Almost immediately, King
Philip IV of France began aggressively seeking support for his brother,
Charles of Valois, to be elected the next king of the Romans. Philip thought he had the backing of the French Pope,
Clement V (established at Avignon in 1309), and that his prospects of bringing the empire into the orbit of the French royal house were good. He lavishly spread French money in the hope of bribing the German electors. Although Charles of Valois had the backing of pro-French
Henry, Archbishop of Cologne, many were not keen to see an expansion of French power, least of all Clement V. The principal rival to Charles appeared to be Count Palatine
Rudolf II. The electors, the great territorial magnates who had lived without a crowned emperor for decades, were unhappy with both Charles and Rudolf. Instead Count
Henry of Luxembourg, with the aid of his brother, Archbishop
Baldwin of Trier, was elected as Henry VII with six votes at Frankfurt on 27 November 1308. Though a vassal of King Philip, Henry was bound by few national ties, and thus suitable as a compromise candidate. Henry VII was crowned king at Aachen on 6 January 1309, and emperor by Pope Clement V on 29 June 1312 in Rome, ending the interregnum.
Changes in political structure depicting the structure of the Reich: The Holy Roman Emperor is sitting; on his right are three ecclesiastics; on his left are four secular electors. During the 13th century, a general structural change in how land was administered prepared the shift of political power toward the rising
bourgeoisie at the expense of the aristocratic
feudalism that would characterize the
Late Middle Ages. The rise of the
cities and the emergence of the new
burgher class eroded the societal, legal and economic order of feudalism. Peasants were increasingly required to pay tribute to their landlords. The concept of
property began to replace more ancient forms of jurisdiction, although they were still very much tied together. In the territories (not at the level of the Empire), power became increasingly bundled: whoever owned the land had jurisdiction, from which other powers derived. Jurisdiction at the time did not include legislation, which was virtually nonexistent until well into the 15th century. Court practice heavily relied on traditional customs or rules described as customary. During this time, territories began to transform into the predecessors of modern states. The process varied greatly among the various lands and was most advanced in those territories that were almost identical to the lands of the old Germanic tribes,
e.g., Bavaria. It was slower in those scattered territories that were founded through imperial privileges. In the 12th century the
Hanseatic League established itself as a commercial and defensive alliance of the
merchant guilds of towns and cities in the empire and all over northern and central Europe. It dominated marine trade in the
Baltic Sea, the
North Sea and along the connected navigable rivers. Each of the affiliated cities retained the legal system of its sovereign and, with the exception of the
Free imperial cities, had only a limited degree of political autonomy. By the late 14th century, the powerful league enforced its interests with military means, if necessary. This culminated in the
Danish–Hanseatic War from 1361 to 1370. The league declined after 1450.
Late Middle Ages Rise of the territories after the Hohenstaufens Charles IV The difficulties in electing the king eventually led to the emergence of a fixed college of
prince-electors (
Kurfürsten), whose composition and procedures were set forth in the
Golden Bull of 1356, issued by
Charles IV (reigned 1355–1378, King of the Romans since 1346), which remained valid until 1806. This development probably best symbolizes the emerging duality between emperor and realm (
Kaiser und Reich), which were no longer considered identical. The Golden Bull also set forth the system for election of the Holy Roman Emperor. The emperor now was to be elected by a majority rather than by consent of all seven electors. For electors the title became hereditary, and they were given the right to mint coins and to exercise jurisdiction. Also it was recommended that their sons learn the imperial languages –
German,
Latin,
Italian, and
Czech. The decision by Charles IV is the subject of debates: on one hand, it helped to restore peace in the lands of the Empire, that had been engulfed in civil conflicts after the end of the Hohenstaufen era; on the other hand, the "blow to central authority was unmistakable". Thomas Brady Jr. opines that Charles IV's intention was to end contested royal elections (from the Luxembourghs' perspective, they also had the advantage that the King of Bohemia had a permanent and preeminent status as one of the Electors himself). At the same time, he built up Bohemia as the Luxembourghs' core land of the Empire and their dynastic base. His reign in Bohemia is often considered the land's Golden Age. According to Brady Jr. though, under all the glitter, one problem arose: the government showed an inability to deal with the German immigrant waves into Bohemia, thus leading to religious tensions and persecutions. The imperial project of the Luxembourgh halted under Charles's son
Wenceslaus (reigned 1378–1419 as King of Bohemia, 1376–1400 as King of the Romans), who also faced opposition from 150 local baronial families. The shift in power away from the emperor is also revealed in the way the post-Hohenstaufen kings attempted to sustain their power. Earlier, the Empire's strength (and finances) greatly relied on the Empire's own lands, the so-called
Reichsgut, which always belonged to the king of the day and included many Imperial Cities. After the 13th century, the relevance of the
Reichsgut faded, even though some parts 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 to reward faithful duty or as an attempt to establish control over the dukes. The direct governance of the
Reichsgut no longer matched the needs of either the king or the dukes. The kings beginning with
Rudolf I of Germany increasingly relied on the lands of their respective dynasties to support their power. In contrast with the
Reichsgut, which was mostly scattered and difficult to administer, these territories were relatively compact and thus easier to control. In 1282, Rudolf I thus lent Austria and
Styria to his own sons. In 1312,
Henry VII of the
House of Luxembourg was crowned as the first Holy Roman Emperor since Frederick II. After him all kings and emperors relied on the lands of their own family (
Hausmacht):
Louis IV of
Wittelsbach (king 1314, emperor 1328–1347) relied on his lands in Bavaria;
Charles IV of Luxembourg, the grandson of Henry VII, drew strength from his own lands in Bohemia. 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.
Imperial Reform Fredrick III The "constitution" of the Empire still remained largely unsettled at the beginning of the 15th century. Feuds often happened between local rulers. The "
robber baron" (
Raubritter) became a social factor. Simultaneously, the Catholic Church experienced crises of its own, with wide-reaching effects in the Empire. The conflict between several papal claimants (two
anti-popes and the "legitimate"
Pope) ended only with the
Council of Constance (1414–1418); after 1419 the Papacy directed much of its energy to suppressing the
Hussites. The medieval idea of unifying all
Christendom into a single political entity, with the Church and the Empire as its 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 needed. The vision for a simultaneous reform of the Empire and the Church on a central level began with
Sigismund (reigned 1433–1437, King of the Romans since 1411), who, according to historian Thomas Brady Jr., "possessed a breadth of vision and a sense of grandeur unseen in a German monarch since the thirteenth century". But external difficulties, self-inflicted mistakes and the extinction of the Luxembourg male line made this vision unfulfilled.
Frederick III was the first Habsburg to be crowned Holy Roman Emperor, in 1452. He had been very careful regarding the reform movement in the empire. For most of his reign, he considered reform as a threat to his imperial prerogatives. He avoided direct confrontations, which might lead to humiliation if the princes refused to give way. After 1440, the reform of the Empire and Church was sustained and led by local and regional powers, particularly the territorial princes. In his last years, he felt more pressure on taking action from a higher level.
Berthold von Henneberg, the Archbishop of Mainz, who spoke on behalf of reform-minded princes (who wanted to reform the Empire without strengthening the imperial hand), capitalized on Frederick's desire to secure the imperial election for his son
Maximilian. Thus, in his last years, he presided over the initial phase of Imperial Reform, which would mainly unfold under Maximilian. Maximilian himself was more open to reform, although naturally he also wanted to preserve and enhance imperial prerogatives. After Frederick retired to Linz in 1488, as a compromise, Maximilian acted as mediator between the princes and his father. When he attained sole rule after Frederick's death, he would continue this policy of brokerage, acting as the impartial judge between options suggested by the princes.
Creation of institutions Major measures for the Reform were launched at the
1495 Reichstag at
Worms. A new organ was introduced, the
Reichskammergericht, that was to be largely independent from the Emperor. A new tax was launched to finance it, the
Gemeine Pfennig, although this would only be collected under Charles V and Ferdinand I, and not fully. To create a rival for the
Reichskammergericht, Maximilian established the
Reichshofrat in 1497, which had its seat in Vienna. During Maximilian's reign, this council was not popular though. In the long run, the two Courts functioned in parallel, sometimes overlapping. In 1500, Maximilian agreed to establish an organ called the
Reichsregiment (central imperial government, consisting of twenty members including the Electors, with the Emperor or his representative as its chairman), first organized in 1501 in
Nuremberg. Maximilian resented the new organization, while the Estates failed to support it. The new organ proved politically weak, and its power returned to Maximilian in 1502. The most important governmental changes targeted the heart of the regime: the chancery. Early in Maximilian's reign, the Court Chancery at Innsbruck competed with the Imperial Chancery (which was under the elector-archbishop of Mainz, the senior Imperial chancellor). By referring the political matters in Tyrol, Austria as well as Imperial problems to the Court Chancery, Maximilian gradually centralized its authority. The two chanceries became combined in 1502. In 1496, the emperor created a general treasury (
Hofkammer) in Innsbruck, which became responsible for all the hereditary lands. The chamber of accounts (
Raitkammer) at Vienna was made subordinate to this body. Under , the
Hofkammer was entrusted with not only hereditary lands' affairs, but Maximilian's affairs as the German king too.
Reception of Roman law and
Joanna of Castile. The top right corner shows
Cain and Abel. Satire against Maximilian's legal reform, associated with imperial tyranny. Created on behalf of the councilors of Augsburg. Plate 89 of
Von der Arztney bayder Glück by the . At the 1495 Diet of Worms, the Reception of Roman Law was accelerated and formalized. The Roman Law was made binding in German courts, except in the case it was contrary to local statutes. In practice, it became the basic law throughout Germany, displacing Germanic local law to a large extent, although Germanic law was still operative at the lower courts. Other than the desire to achieve legal unity and other factors, the adoption also highlighted the continuity between the Ancient Roman empire and the Holy Roman Empire. To realize his resolve to reform and unify the legal system, the emperor frequently intervened personally in matters of local legal matters, overriding local charters and customs. This practice was often met with irony and scorn from local councils, who wanted to protect local codes. The legal reform seriously weakened the ancient
Vehmic court (
Vehmgericht, or Secret Tribunal of
Westphalia, traditionally held to be instituted by
Charlemagne but this theory is now considered unlikely), although it would not be abolished completely until 1811 (when it was abolished under the order of
Jérôme Bonaparte).
National political culture Maximilian and Charles V (despite the fact both emperors were internationalists personally) were the first who mobilized the rhetoric of the Nation, firmly identified with the Reich by the contemporary humanists. With encouragement from Maximilian and his humanists, iconic spiritual figures were reintroduced or became notable. The humanists rediscovered the work
Germania, written by Tacitus. According to Peter H. Wilson, the female figure of
Germania was reinvented by the emperor as the virtuous pacific Mother of Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. Whaley further suggests that, despite the later religious divide, "patriotic motifs developed during Maximilian's reign, both by Maximilian himself and by the humanist writers who responded to him, formed the core of a national political culture." Maximilian's reign also witnessed the gradual emergence of the German common language, with the notable roles of the imperial chancery and the chancery of the Wettin Elector
Frederick the Wise. The development of the printing industry together with the emergence of the postal system (
the first modern one in the world), initiated by Maximilian himself with contribution from Frederick III and
Charles the Bold, led to a revolution in communication and allowed ideas to spread. Unlike the situation in more centralized countries, the decentralized nature of the Empire made censorship difficult. Terence McIntosh comments that the expansionist, aggressive policy pursued by Maximilian I and Charles V at the inception of the early modern German nation (although not to further the aims specific to the German nation per se), relying on German manpower as well as utilizing fearsome
Landsknechte and mercenaries, would affect the way neighbours viewed the German polity, although in the longue durée, Germany tended to be at peace.
Imperial power ,
Holy Roman Emperor. Maximilian was "the first Holy Roman Emperor in 250 years who ruled as well as reigned". In the early 1500s, he was true master of the Empire, although his power weakened during the last decade before his death. Whaley notes that, despite struggles, what emerged at the end of Maximilian's rule was a strengthened monarchy and not an oligarchy of princes. Benjamin Curtis opines that while Maximilian was not able to fully create a common government for his lands (although the chancellery and court council were able to coordinate affairs across the realms), he strengthened key administrative functions in Austria and created central offices to deal with financial, political and judicial matters – these offices replaced the feudal system and became representative of a more modern system that was administered by professionalized officials. After two decades of reforms, the emperor retained his position as first among equals, while the empire gained common institutions through which the emperor shared power with the estates. By the early 16th century, the Habsburg rulers had become the most powerful in Europe, but their strength relied on their composite monarchy as a whole, and not only the Holy Roman Empire (see also:
Empire of Charles V). Maximilian had seriously considered combining the Burgundian lands (inherited from his wife
Mary of Burgundy) with his Austrian lands to form a powerful core (while also extending toward the east). After the unexpected addition of Spain to the Habsburg Empire, at one point he intended to leave Austria (raised to a kingdom) to his younger grandson
Ferdinand. His elder grandson Charles V later gave Spain and most of the Burgundian lands to his son
Philip II of Spain, the founder of the Spanish branch, and the Habsburg hereditary lands to his brother Ferdinand, the founder of the Austrian branch. In France and England, from the 13th century onward, stationary royal residences had begun to develop into
capital cities that grew rapidly and developed corresponding infrastructure: the
Palais de la Cité and the
Palace of Westminster became the respective main residences. This was not possible in the Holy Roman Empire because no real hereditary monarchy emerged, but rather the tradition of elective monarchy prevailed
(see: Imperial election) which, in the High Middle Ages, led to kings of very different regional origins being elected
(List of royal and imperial elections in the Holy Roman Empire). If they wanted to control the empire and its rebellious regional rulers, they could not limit themselves to their home region and their private palaces. As a result, kings and emperors continued to travel around the empire well into modern times, using their temporary residences
(Kaiserpfalz) as transit stations for their
itinerant courts. From the late Middle Ages onward, the weakly fortified
pfalzen were replaced by
imperial castles. It was only King
Ferdinand I, the younger brother of the then Emperor Charles V, who moved his main residence to the Vienna
Hofburg in the middle of the 16th century, where most of the following Habsburg emperors subsequently resided. Vienna did not become the capital of the empire, just of a Habsburg hereditary state (the
Archduchy of Austria). The emperors continued to travel to their elections and coronations at
Frankfurt and
Aachen, to the
Imperial Diets at different places and to other occasions. The
Perpetual Diet of Regensburg was based in
Regensburg from 1663 to 1806.
Rudolf II resided in
Prague, the
Wittelsbach emperor
Charles VII in Munich. A German capital in the true sense only existed in the Second
German Empire from 1871, when the
Kaiser,
Reichstag and
Reichskanzler resided in
Berlin.
Early capitalism While particularism prevented the centralization of the Empire, it gave rise to early developments of capitalism. In Italian and Hanseatic cities like Genoa and Pisa, Hamburg and Lübeck, warrior-merchants appeared and pioneered raiding-and-trading maritime empires. These practices declined before 1500, but they managed to spread to the maritime periphery in Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands and England, where they "provoked emulation in grander, oceanic scale". William Thompson agrees with M.N. Pearson that this distinctively European phenomenon happened because in the Italian and Hanseatic cities which lacked resources and were "small in size and population", the rulers (whose social status was not much higher than the merchants) had to pay attention to trade. Thus the warrior-merchants gained the state's coercive powers, which they could not gain in Mughal or other Asian realms – whose rulers had few incentives to help the merchant class, as they controlled considerable resources and their revenue was land-bound. In the 1450s, the economic development in Southern Germany gave rise to banking empires, cartels and monopolies in cities such as
Ulm,
Regensburg, and
Augsburg.
Augsburg in particular, associated with the reputation of the
Fugger,
Welser and Baumgartner families, is considered the capital city of early capitalism. Augsburg benefitted majorly from the establishment and expansion of the
Kaiserliche Reichspost in the late 15th and early 16th century. The 1557, 1575, and 1607 bankruptcies of the Spanish branch of the Habsburgs though damaged the Fuggers substantially. Moreover, "Discovery of water routes to India and the New World shifted the focus of European economic development from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic – emphasis shifted from Venice and Genoa to Lisbon and Antwerp. Eventually American mineral developments reduced the importance of Hungarian and Tyrolean mineral wealth. The nexus of the European continent remained landlocked until the time of expedient land conveyances in the form of primarily rail and canal systems, which were limited in growth potential; in the new continent, on the other hand, there were ports in abundance to release the plentiful goods obtained from those new lands." The economic pinnacles achieved in Germany in the period between 1450 and 1550 would not be seen again until the end of the 19th century. In the Netherlands part of the empire, financial centres evolved together with markets of commodities. Topographical development in the 15th century made Antwerp a port city. Boosted by the privileges it received as a loyal city after the
Flemish revolts against Maximilian, it became the leading seaport city in Northern Europe and served as "the conduit for a remarkable 40% of world trade". Conflicts with the Habsburg-Spanish government in 1576 and 1585 though made merchants relocate to Amsterdam, which eventually replaced it as the leading port city.
Reformation and Renaissance . In 1516,
Ferdinand II of Aragon died. His grandson Charles would go on to inherit the thrones of
Castile and
Aragon (with his mother
Joanna of Castile), despite only being a teenager at the time. This succession to both thrones would later evolve into the union of
Spain. Another important event happened in 1517:
Martin Luther launched what would later be known as the
Protestant Reformation. The Reformation divided the Empire along religious lines as it proceeded, with the north, the east, and many of the major cities –
Strasbourg,
Frankfurt, and
Nuremberg – becoming
Protestant while the southern and western regions largely remained
Catholic. Maximilian died in 1519, triggering an election for the next Emperor. Charles was Ferdinand's grandson on his mother's side, but Maximilian's grandson on his father's side, and was one of the two main candidates for the position along with
Francis I of France. Charles won the election, becoming
Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor; he traveled to Germany in 1520. At the beginning of Charles's reign, another
Reichsregiment was set up again (1522), although Charles declared that he would only tolerate it in his absence and its chairman had to be a representative of his. Charles V was absent in Germany from 1521 to 1530. Similar to the one set up in the early 1500s, the
Reichsregiment failed to create a federal authority independent of the emperor, due to the unsteady participation and differences between princes. Charles V defeated the Protestant princes in 1547 in the
Schmalkaldic War, but the momentum was lost and the Protestant estates were able to survive politically despite military defeat. In the 1555
Peace of Augsburg, Charles V, through his brother Ferdinand, officially recognized the right of rulers to choose Catholicism or Lutheranism (Zwinglians, Calvinists and radicals were not included). In 1555,
Paul IV was elected pope and took the side of France, whereupon an exhausted Charles finally gave up his hopes of a world Christian empire. The succession Charles V arranged split the Habsburgs into two branches. The senior branch continued to rule in Spain and in the Burgundian inheritance, headed by Charles's son,
Philip II of Spain. The Holy Roman Empire went to a junior branch of the Habsburgs, Charles's brother
Ferdinand I. Many factors contribute to this result. For
James D. Tracy, it was the polycentric character of the European civilization that made it hard to maintain "a dynasty whose territories bestrode the continent from the Low Countries to Sicily and from Spain to Hungarynot to mention Spain's overseas possessions". Others point out the religious tensions, fiscal problems and obstruction from external forces including France and the Ottomans. On a more personal level, Charles failed to persuade the German princes to support his son Philip, whose "awkward and withdrawn character and lack of German language skills doomed this enterprise to failure".
Baroque period with his family , 1648 Germany would enjoy relative peace for the next six decades. On the eastern front, the Turks continued to loom large as a threat, although war would mean further compromises with the Protestant princes, and so the Emperor sought to avoid it. In the west, the Rhineland increasingly fell under French influence. After the Dutch revolt against Spain erupted, the Empire remained neutral, allowing the Netherlands to depart the empire in 1581. A side effect was the
Cologne War, which ravaged much of the upper Rhine. Emperor
Ferdinand III formally accepted Dutch neutrality in 1653, a decision ratified by the Reichstag in 1728. After Ferdinand died in 1564, his son
Maximilian II became Emperor, and like his father accepted the existence of Protestantism and the need for occasional compromise with it. Maximilian was succeeded in 1576 by
Rudolf II, who preferred
classical Greek philosophy to Christianity and lived an isolated existence in Bohemia. He became afraid to act when the Catholic Church was forcibly reasserting control in Austria and Hungary, and the Protestant princes became upset over this. Imperial power sharply deteriorated by the time of Rudolf's death in 1612. When Bohemians rebelled against the Emperor, the immediate result was the series of conflicts known as the
Thirty Years' War (1618–1648), which devastated the empire. Foreign powers, including France and Sweden, intervened in the conflict and strengthened those fighting the Imperial power, but also seized considerable territory for themselves. Accordingly, the empire could never return to its former glory, leading
Voltaire to make his infamous quip that the Holy Roman Empire was "neither Holy nor Roman nor an Empire." Still, its actual end did not come for two centuries. The
Peace of Westphalia in 1648, which ended the Thirty Years' War allowed
Calvinism, but
Anabaptists,
Arminians and other Protestant communities would still lack any support and continue to be persecuted well until the end of the empire. The Habsburg emperors focused on consolidating their own estates in Austria and elsewhere. At the
Battle of Vienna (1683), the
Army of the Holy Roman Empire, led by the Polish King
John III Sobieski, decisively defeated a large Turkish army, stopping the western Ottoman advance and leading to the eventual dismemberment of the
Ottoman Empire in Europe. The army was one third forces of the
Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and two thirds forces of the Holy Roman Empire.
Modern period . Map of the empire with
Emperor Joseph I and internally highlighted borders
Prussia and Austria illustrated as the
Austrian elephant vs the
Prussian lion By the rise of
Louis XIV, the Habsburgs were chiefly dependent on their hereditary lands to counter the rise of
Prussia, which possessed territories inside the Empire. Throughout the 18th century, the Habsburgs were embroiled in various European conflicts, such as the
War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714), the
War of the Polish Succession (1733–1735), and the
War of the Austrian Succession (1740–1748). The
rivalry between Austria and Prussia dominated the empire's history after 1740.
French Revolutionary Wars and final dissolution , 1789 From 1792 onward,
revolutionary France was at war with various parts of the Empire intermittently. The
German mediatization was the series of mediatizations and
secularizations that occurred between 1795 and 1814, during the latter part of the era of the
French Revolution and then the
Napoleonic era. "Mediatization" was the process of
annexing the lands of one
imperial estate to another, often leaving the annexed some rights. For example, the estates of the
Imperial Knights were formally mediatized in 1806, having been seized by the great
territorial states in 1803 in the so-called
Rittersturm. "Secularization" was the abolition of the temporal power of an
ecclesiastical ruler such as a
bishop or an
abbot and the annexation of the secularized territory to a secular territory. , 1805 The empire was dissolved on 6 August 1806, when the last Holy Roman Emperor
Francis II (from 1804, Emperor Francis I of Austria) abdicated, following a military defeat by the French under
Napoleon at the
Battle of Austerlitz in 1805 (see
Treaty of Pressburg). Napoleon reorganized much of the Empire into the
Confederation of the Rhine, a
French satellite. Francis'
House of Habsburg-Lorraine survived the demise of the empire, continuing to reign as
Emperors of Austria and
Kings of Hungary until the Habsburg empire's final dissolution in 1918 in the
aftermath of World War I. The Napoleonic Confederation of the Rhine was replaced by a new union, the
German Confederation in 1815, following the end of the
Napoleonic Wars. It lasted until 1866 when Prussia founded the
North German Confederation, a forerunner of the
German Empire which united the German-speaking territories outside of Austria and Switzerland under Prussian leadership in 1871. This state developed into
modern Germany. The abdication indicated that the Kaiser no longer felt capable of fulfilling his duties as head of the Reich, and so declared: "That we consider the tie that has bound us to the body politic of the
German Reich to be broken, that we have expired the office and dignity of the head of the Reich through the unification of the confederated Rhenish estates and that we are thereby relieved of all the duties we have assumed towards the German Reich Consider counted, and lay down the imperial crown worn by the same until now and conducted imperial government, as is hereby done." The only princely member states of the Holy Roman Empire that have preserved their status as monarchies until today are the Grand Duchy of
Luxembourg and the
Principality of Liechtenstein. The only Free Imperial Cities still existing as states within Germany are
Hamburg and
Bremen. All other historic member states of the Holy Roman Empire were either dissolved or have adopted republican systems of government. == Demographics ==