50 Fun Facts About Holy Roman Empire

Which Frankish king was crowned Roman Emperor by Pope Leo III on Christmas Day 800?

Charlemagne's backers argued that the Roman throne stood vacant, since Empress Irene ruled alone in Constantinople and they would not count a woman as emperor.

Which German king's 962 coronation by Pope John XII is often taken as the empire's true beginning?

Otto the Great turned on his pope within two years: in 963 he deposed John XII for plotting with his Italian enemy and installed Leo VIII in his place.

Which emperor ended the Holy Roman Empire in 1806 under pressure from Napoleon?

Francis II did more than abdicate: he released every state and official from their oaths to the empire, which kept Napoleon or anyone else from being elected in his place.

Which philosopher quipped that the Holy Roman Empire was 'in no way holy, nor Roman, nor an empire'?

Voltaire was writing about a century after the wars of religion had cost the empire land and central authority it never recovered, so the grand old title rang hollow.

Which Italian city did Barbarossa force to surrender in 1162 and then largely destroy?

Milan's people were driven out into the countryside, but the city was soon rebuilt, and in 1176 the allied cities of northern Italy dealt Barbarossa a heavy defeat.

After a 1512 decree, the empire was often styled the Holy Roman Empire 'of the' what?

German Nation was added once the emperors had lost their grip on Italy, perhaps to mark the narrower realm, though historians dispute whether the suffix was ever truly official.

Nazi propaganda later labelled the Holy Roman Empire as which 'Reich'?

The First Reich in Nazi counting, with the German Empire of 1871 as the Second: the scheme let Hitler's regime pose as the rightful heir to a thousand years of empire.

Besides Germany and Italy, which kingdom joined the empire in 1032 as its third main component?

Burgundy came to the emperor by bequest when its childless last king died in 1032; the realm was later known as the Kingdom of Arles.

To which pope did Emperor Henry IV make his humiliating 1077 'Walk to Canossa'?

Gregory VII had excommunicated Henry, who by tradition stood three days in the snow outside Canossa castle as a penitent before the pope lifted the ban.

Which 1122 agreement between Henry V and the papacy ended the Investiture Controversy?

The Concordat of Worms split the ceremony in two: the Church invested bishops with ring and staff, while the emperor granted their lands with a sceptre, keeping them his vassals.

How did Emperor Frederick Barbarossa die in 1190 on the Third Crusade?

Drowning in a river in what is now southern Turkey ended his crusade before it reached the Holy Land, and most of his leaderless army simply turned for home.

Which excommunicated ruler won back Jerusalem by treaty rather than battle on the Sixth Crusade?

Frederick II entered Jerusalem under the pope's ban and placed the crown on his own head in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, with no patriarch there to crown him.

Which Iberian kingdom's ruler, Alfonso X, was elected German king in 1257 but never set foot in Germany?

Castile's Alfonso X claimed the crown through his Hohenstaufen mother and spent heavily on the cause, but never travelled to Germany and gave up the claim in 1275.

Who in 1273 became the first Habsburg to hold the royal title, though he was never crowned emperor?

Rudolf I twice defeated Ottokar II of Bohemia, who fell in battle in 1278, then granted the recovered duchies of Austria and Styria to his own sons, founding Habsburg power there.

Which 1356 decree by Charles IV fixed the college of prince-electors and imperial election rules?

The Golden Bull, named for its gold seal, made the electors near-sovereign in their own lands, with hereditary titles and the right to mint coins and hold their own courts.

How many prince-electors chose the emperor under Charles IV's 1356 decree?

Seven electors chose the king: the archbishops of Mainz, Trier and Cologne and four lay princes, and from 1356 four of their votes were enough to settle it.

Which city did Charles IV make the seat of the emperor, ushering in that land's 'Golden Age'?

He built up Bohemia as the Luxembourg dynasty's core land; the Kingdom of Bohemia had been raised from a duchy in 1198.

To what title did a prospective emperor first have to be elected before claiming the crown?

King of the Romans was the title an election conferred; from 1508 rulers called themselves emperor-elect at once, with papal consent, instead of travelling to Rome to be crowned.

In which Italian city, rather than Rome, did Clement VII crown Charles V in 1530, the last papal imperial coronation?

Bologna hosted the ceremony three years after Charles's own unpaid troops had sacked Rome, forcing Clement to shelter in Castel Sant'Angelo.

Which city regularly hosted imperial elections from the 14th century onward?

Frankfurt's electors voted in a side chapel of St Bartholomew's church, and from 1562 new rulers were crowned in the same building as well.

Which Habsburg, father of Maximilian I, was the last emperor crowned in Rome?

Frederick III was crowned by the pope in Rome in 1452 and then won most of his quarrels by simply outliving his rivals, reuniting the divided Austrian lands for his son.

What did the empire's 1495 reform diet outlaw, sending such disputes to a new supreme court?

Feuds between nobles had been a lawful way to press a claim; the Perpetual Peace of 1495 banned them for ever and sent such quarrels to the new Imperial Chamber Court.

Which league of merchant cities, led by Lübeck, dominated Baltic and North Sea trade in the medieval empire?

The Hanseatic League began as an alliance of trading towns formed to protect their merchants abroad.

Which 1555 settlement let the empire's rulers choose Catholicism or Lutheranism for their territories?

The Peace of Augsburg made each prince's choice binding on his subjects, a rule later summed up as cuius regio, eius religio; dissenters could only sell up and move away.

In which war of 1546–47 did Charles V defeat the Protestant princes without crushing Protestantism?

The Schmalkaldic War ended with Charles V's victory at Mühlberg in 1547, but a second princes' revolt five years later put him to flight and ended his hopes of restoring one church by force.

When Charles V split his inheritance, who received the Holy Roman Empire and the Austrian lands?

His brother Ferdinand had governed the Austrian lands since 1521 and was already the elected heir to the empire, while Charles's son Philip took Spain, the Netherlands and the Americas.

Which reclusive emperor, patron of the astronomers Tycho Brahe and Kepler, died in 1612 with the empire sliding toward war?

Rudolf II preferred alchemy, astrology and his art collection to governing, and his brother Matthias forced him to hand over one crown after another before he died.

The 1648 Peace of Westphalia was negotiated and signed in which two cities?

Osnabrück and Münster split the congress in two, Sweden treating with the emperor's envoys in one town and France in the other; both were declared neutral ground for the talks.

About how many territories were represented in the Imperial Diet at the time of the Peace of Westphalia?

About 300 territories had a voice there, because the list ran from the great electorates down to abbeys, free cities and counts whose lands covered only a few square miles.

From 1663 until the empire's dissolution the Imperial Diet sat in permanent session in which city?

Regensburg's diet met in 1663 to deal with the Ottoman threat and simply never went home, sitting on as a standing congress of envoys until the empire ended.

What was the Reichsgut?

The crown lands that belonged to whoever was king were steadily pawned to local princes from the 13th century, so later rulers had to lean on their own family lands instead.

Which battle in 1805 preceded the last Holy Roman Emperor's decision to lay down the imperial crown?

Austerlitz saw Napoleon rout the combined Austrian and Russian armies in a single December day, and the peace that followed cost Austria Venice and Tyrol.

What new title had the last Holy Roman Emperor taken for himself in 1804, two years before dissolving the empire?

Emperor of Austria was his answer to Napoleon's proclamation as Emperor of the French: a hereditary title that kept him Napoleon's equal in rank.

Which two princely member states of the Holy Roman Empire survive as monarchies today?

Luxembourg and Liechtenstein both kept their thrones, though Liechtenstein's princes long ruled from afar: none made Vaduz his permanent home until the eve of the Second World War.

Which two Free Imperial Cities still exist as states of the Federal Republic of Germany?

Hamburg and Bremen are still German city-states; Lübeck was one too until 1937, when the Nazi government folded it into Prussia.

What was the empire's principle that its rulers inherited supreme power from the ancient Roman emperors called?

Translatio imperii, 'transfer of rule', pictured Rome's authority passing from hand to hand, to the Franks and then the Germans, so German kings could call themselves Roman emperors.

What was a Kaiserpfalz?

An imperial palace visited by the travelling court was a necessity: the empire had no capital, so kings ruled on the move and the court went to its food supplies, not the reverse.

Which city was the favourite residence of the Holy Roman Empire's first emperor and later the coronation place of German kings?

Aachen's palace chapel became the first emperor's burial place in 814, and for six centuries German kings were crowned there and seated on the marble throne said to be his.

Which Habsburg heiress, barred as a woman from the imperial throne, had her husband elected emperor in 1745?

Maria Theresa inherited the Habsburg lands in 1740, fought off the neighbours who tried to carve them up, and then secured the imperial crown for her husband instead.

Which Byzantine princess married Otto II, forming marital ties between the two Roman empires?

Their son Otto III inherited the throne at three, and imperial women such as Adelaide and Theophanu acted as regents and co-rulers.

Emperor Henry VI held which English king prisoner until a huge ransom was paid in 1194?

Richard I, the Lionheart, was seized in Austria on his way home from crusade and handed to Henry VI, whose 150,000-mark ransom then paid for the conquest of Sicily.

Which southern German city was home to the Fugger and Welser banking dynasties?

Augsburg's Jakob Fugger put up well over half the money that bought Charles V the electors' votes in 1519, making the banker a creditor of the emperor he had made.

Which port in the Habsburg Netherlands was Europe's leading trade hub before its merchants fled north to Amsterdam?

Antwerp lost its lead after mutinous Spanish troops sacked it in 1576 and a Spanish army retook it by siege in 1585, when many of its merchants moved north.

Which rival king was Charles V's main opponent in the bribery-ridden 1519 imperial election?

Francis I of France spent heavily on the electors too, but Charles outbid him with Fugger loans and was chosen unanimously; Henry VIII of England had also put his name forward.

Which 17th-century war, sparked by a Bohemian revolt, devastated the empire's German lands?

The Thirty Years' War began as a Bohemian revolt, then drew in Denmark, Sweden and France, turning a local quarrel into a European war that killed up to eight million people.

Which land won exemption from imperial taxes and courts in a 1499 war, then formal independence in 1648?

Switzerland's confederates beat Maximilian I in the Swabian War of 1499 and ignored the empire's courts and taxes from then on; the peace of 1648 only made the break official.

At which battle in 955 did the German king's army end decades of Magyar raids?

Lechfeld ended the raids for good: the Magyars never invaded Germany again, and the survivors settled down in what became the kingdom of Hungary.

Which dynasty began with Conrad II's election in 1024 and produced Henry IV, the king humbled at Canossa?

The Salians, a Frankish family from the Rhineland, ruled for a century, and their founder began the great cathedral at Speyer where he and his heirs lie buried.

Which union of German client states did Napoleon create in 1806, weeks before the empire was dissolved?

The Confederation of the Rhine began with sixteen states that formally seceded from the empire on 1 August 1806; five days later the emperor laid down his crown.

Which city did an imperial and Polish relief army save from an Ottoman siege in 1683?

Vienna was relieved by an army under Poland's King John III Sobieski, and in the war that followed the emperor took most of Hungary from the Ottomans.