What Was the Holy Roman Empire?

The Holy Roman Empire was a sprawling political entity that dominated central Europe—including, at various times, much of what is now Germany, France, Austria, Switzerland, Italy and the Czech Republic—from roughly A.D. 800 to 1806. Defying easy categorization, it resembled less a unified nation-state and more a complex network of kingdoms, duchies and free cities loosely bound together under an emperor who was elected rather than born into power.

Perhaps the most famous quote about the Holy Roman Empire comes from the Enlightenment-era French philosopher Voltaire, who quipped in 1756 that it was “neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.” Yet despite its unorthodox organization, the Holy Roman Empire managed to survive more than 1,000 years of holy wars, invasions and internal power struggles, becoming one of history’s longest-lasting—and most misunderstood—political institutions.

On Christmas Day in A.D. 800, Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne—a powerful warlord and king of the Franks, a Germanic tribe in present-day Belgium, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and western Germany—as imperator Romanorum, emperor of the Romans. More than three centuries after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, its Eastern half still flourished as the Byzantine Empire, with its capital at Constantinople. The coronation of Charlemagne aimed to reclaim the imperial title for the West and to establish the power of the pope to choose the emperor.

“In the year 800 there was already an emperor—he just resided in Byzantium,” says Sean Dunwoody, an associate professor of history in the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at Binghamton University, State University of New York. “But Charlemagne and the Pope claimed the imperial title anyway. It was an appealing idea, and powerful political propaganda.”

Upon Charlemagne’s death in 814, his empire was divided among his heirs and split into three kingdoms corresponding roughly to modern-day France, Germany and Italy. In 962, King Otto I of the Eastern Franks consolidated power over northern Italy and was crowned emperor by Pope John XII.

Though Otto I and his imperial successors maintained strong control over both Germany and northern Italy and close ties with Rome, tensions arose in the 11th century over whether the emperor or the pope held the right to appoint church officials. That struggle, known as the investiture controversy, helped limit the religious influence and weaken the authority of the emperor relative to the princes and other nobles who ruled the territories of the Holy Roman Empire.

In the 13th century, a system emerged in which a group of prince-electors chose each emperor. The Golden Bull of 1356 formalized this elective monarchy, which prevented the empire from becoming a unified hereditary monarchy, though in practice certain families, such as the Habsburgs of Austria, dominated for long periods.

“Power was both nested and decentralized,” Dunwoody says. “Everyone’s rights and privileges were guaranteed by being part of the larger imperial system, but those same actors worked very hard to keep the emperor from becoming too powerful.”

Things became more structured in the early modern period, beginning in the late 15th century, when the Holy Roman Empire developed more durable institutions like the Imperial Diet, or Reichstag, where emperors, princes and free cities negotiated policy, along with imperial courts. Despite these official institutions, the empire remained a loose confederation of hundreds of territories, each jealously guarding its privileges. “Everybody who participated in the system relied on it being relatively weak in terms of its ability to centralize power,” Dunwoody says.

By the end of the 15th century, the empire was losing control of many territories in Burgundy and Italy and becoming increasingly German dominated as a result. However, Dunwoody stresses that “it’s wrong to think of the Holy Roman Empire as German. Its members lived in northern Italy, eastern France, Czechia, Slovakia and western Poland. They thought of themselves as part of an imperial system, not a nation.”

The dawn of the Reformation early in the 16th century divided the citizens of the Holy Roman Empire. As emperor, Charles V championed Catholicism, but was unsuccessful in stamping out Protestantism, leading to his abdication in 1558. A Bohemian revolt against Habsburg rule culminated in the Thirty Years’ War (1618-48), after which the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 ushered in a period of relative peace and stability for the empire.

“If you look at the generation after the war, from 1653 through the early 18th century, what you see is an imperial system that is incredibly effective,” Dunwoody says. “There was no reason to believe even until the 1780s that the empire was somehow doomed to fail.”

Then came Napoleon Bonaparte, who rose to power in France around 1800. Proclaiming himself the “new Charlemagne,” Napoleon marched his armies east, aiming to claim the title of Holy Roman Emperor for himself. But Emperor Francis II outflanked him, resigning his title and declaring the empire dissolved in 1806.

The true character and legacy of the Holy Roman Empire remains a topic of debate among historians. Dunwoody explains that even Voltaire’s famous quip—“neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire”—referred to a specific historical period, but was misunderstood by 19th- and 20th-century historians as an insulting characterization of the Holy Roman Empire of his day.

“Voltaire was looking back at the 14th century when…the dynasties that were then vying for the imperial crown basically decided that Italy was no longer terribly important for them,” Dunwoody says. “But [19th-century historians] saw what they thought were these 18th-century people describing the empire in denigrating terms, and that totally rhymed with their idea of the empire as a failed state.”

In fact, while the Holy Roman Empire was not a powerful, unified nation-state like those that flourished in later centuries, its decentralized nature didn’t prevent it from surviving for more than 1,000 years, defying both internal conflicts and external threats.

“The empire was not like Napoleon's France or Bismarck's Germany,” Dunwoody says. “It was never designed as such and never was meant to operate in that way. Instead, it was a different kind of thing—a really loose confederation of entities held together by traditions, kinship and certain political practices and ideas.”