Heiliges Römisches Reich#

Holy Roman Empire, name for the realm of the Roman Emperor and the Imperial territories from the Middle Ages to 1806. It was established as successor to the Roman Empire of Antiquity when the Frankish king, Charlemagne, was crowned by Pope Leo III in the year 800. After the decline of the Frankish kingdom it was revived in 962 by King Otto I. The adjective "Sacrum" was added to the title in 1157 and the name "Sacrum Romanum Imperium" first used in 1254. In the 15th and 16th centuries the words "Deutscher Nation" - "of the German Nation" - were added to the German title ("Heiliges Roemisches Reich Deutscher Nation" - Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation"); this reference to the German people was all the more justified as by that time the empire had already been all but confined to Germany and only small parts of the other two "regna" (the Lombard-Italian and the Burgundian kingdoms) continued to form part of it. The full title was first used in a document (Reichsabschied) recording the decisions of the Diet of Cologne in 1512 (earlier references from 1409 and 1442). On account of its pre-national character the Holy Roman Empire did not develop into a state but remained a dualistic monarch-led entity that was composed of the Emperor and the Imperial Estates (Reichsstaende), equipped with a number of central institutions (Reichskammergericht, Reichshofrat, Reichshofkanzlei). It had no imperial government, a legislature that was hardly effective, and an imperial army, and it levied its own taxes. Disintegration started with the Peace of Westphalia, which limited the Emperor's rights to the right to enter reservations and to confirm the rights of the Imperial Estates, and ended in the course of the Napoleonic Wars.

Literature#