!!!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
K. Schottenloher, Die Bezeichnung Heiliges Roemisches 
Reich Deutscher Nation, in: Festschrift E. Stollreither, 1950; F. 
Heer, Heiliges Roemisches Reich, 1967; W. Brauneder, Verfassung und 
Verwaltung, %%sup 6/%1992; idem (ed.), Heiliges Roemisches Reich und 
moderne Staatlichkeit, 1993; H. Baltl, Rechtsgeschichte, 
%%sup 7/%1993; G. Mraz, Oesterreich und das Reich 1804-06: Ende und 
Vollendung, 1993.


%%language
[Back to the Austrian Version|AEIOU/Heiliges_Römisches_Reich|class='wikipage austrian']
%%

[{FreezeArticle author='AEIOU' template='Lexikon_1995_englisch'}]
[{ALLOW view All}][{ALLOW comment All}][{ALLOW edit FreezeAdmin}]