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50 free Holy Roman Empire trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Holy Roman Empire trivia for history students, strategy-game veterans and anyone who has wondered how a 'Roman' empire came to be run from Vienna. The quiz runs from Charlemagne's coronation on Christmas Day 800 and Otto the Great's in 962, through the Investiture Controversy and Henry IV's walk to Canossa, the Hohenstaufen emperors Barbarossa and Frederick II, the Interregnum and the Golden Bull of 1356 that fixed the seven electors. It then covers the Habsburg centuries: Maximilian's Imperial Reform and the Reichskammergericht, Charles V and the last papal coronation, Luther and the Peace of Augsburg, the Thirty Years' War and Westphalia, the Perpetual Diet at Regensburg, and Francis II laying down the crown in 1806 after Austerlitz. There are questions on how the Empire actually worked - King of the Romans, Imperial Circles, free imperial cities, the Kaiserpfalz - plus Voltaire's quip and which member states still survive as monarchies today. Difficulty runs from easy to properly obscure. Every answer has been checked against a reference page and each question shows its source once you have answered.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which Frankish king was crowned Roman Emperor by Pope Leo III on Christmas Day 800?
Charlemagne
The pope wanted a male Roman emperor as head of Christendom after Empress Irene took sole power in Constantinople.
Q 02Which German king's 962 coronation by Pope John XII is often taken as the empire's true beginning?
Otto the Great
In 955 he had crushed the Magyars at the Battle of Lechfeld; the following year he deposed the very pope who had crowned him.
Q 03In what year did the last emperor abdicate and dissolve the Holy Roman Empire?
1806
Napoleon's Confederation of the Rhine had pulled the German client states out from under the empire after his crushing victory of 1805.
Q 04Which philosopher quipped that the Holy Roman Empire was 'in no way holy, nor Roman, nor an empire'?
Voltaire
By his day the Thirty Years' War had left the empire a patchwork of some 300 territories, so the joke landed.
Q 05'Holy' was added to the empire's name in 1157 under Barbarossa, reflecting his ambition to dominate what?
Italy and the papacy
The full form 'Holy Roman Empire' is only attested from 1254.
Q 06After a 1512 decree, the empire was often styled the Holy Roman Empire 'of the' what?
German Nation
The addition coincided with the loss of the Italian and Burgundian lands, though historians dispute whether the suffix was ever truly official.
Q 07Nazi propaganda later labelled the Holy Roman Empire as which 'Reich'?
The First
The German Empire of 1871 became the Second and Nazi Germany the Third; after the dissolution people had simply called it 'the old Empire'.
Q 08Besides Germany and Italy, which kingdom joined the empire in 1032 as its third main component?
Burgundy
By the 15th century effective control of both Italy and this kingdom had faded and governance concentrated on the Kingdom of Germany.
Q 09To which pope did Emperor Henry IV make his humiliating 1077 'Walk to Canossa'?
Gregory VII
Henry had pointedly addressed the pope by his birth name, Hildebrand; the dispute over appointing bishops is known as the Investiture Controversy.
Q 10Which 1122 agreement between Henry V and the papacy ended the Investiture Controversy?
The Concordat of Worms
The empire kept its political power but the emperor lost the sacred aura he had once enjoyed, and the princes emerged as major players.
Q 11In which region did Frederick Barbarossa die in 1190, while taking part in the Third Crusade?
Cilician Armenia
He had emphasised the 'Romanness' of the empire, and at Roncaglia in 1158 had his imperial rights enumerated in terms of Justinian's law code.
Q 12Which crusade did the excommunicated Frederick II lead in 1228, regaining Jerusalem by treaty?
The Sixth
Ruling mostly from Sicily, he granted sweeping privileges to the German princes, and the 1232 Statutum first called them 'lords of their lands'.
Q 13After 1257, Richard of Cornwall contested the crown with which Spanish king, who never set foot in Germany?
Alfonso X of Castile
Q 21In what year did Frederick III become the first Habsburg to be crowned Holy Roman Emperor?
1452
He was wary of reform for most of his reign but presided over its first phase in old age to secure the election of his son Maximilian.
Q 22Which new imperial court, largely independent of the emperor, was created at the 1495 Reichstag at Worms?
The Reichskammergericht
A new tax, the Common Penny, was meant to fund it; Maximilian answered by setting up a rival court, the Reichshofrat, in Vienna in 1497.
Q 23How many Imperial Circles (Reichskreise) existed after the last four were added in 1512?
Ten
They handled defence, taxation, coinage and peace-keeping regionally; Bohemia, Switzerland and the Italian fiefs stayed outside the system.
The princes used the leaderless decades to consolidate their own holdings; Rudolf of Habsburg's election in 1273 ended the deadlock.
Q 14Who in 1273 became the first Habsburg to hold the royal title, though he was never crowned emperor?
Rudolf I
In 1282 he granted Austria and Styria to his own sons, beginning the family's long reliance on its hereditary lands.
Q 15Which 1356 decree by Charles IV fixed the college of prince-electors and imperial election rules?
The Golden Bull
It is named for its golden seal, made a majority of electors sufficient rather than unanimity, and was added to UNESCO's Memory of the World Register in 2013.
Q 16How many prince-electors chose the emperor under Charles IV's 1356 decree?
Seven
Three were archbishops (Mainz, Trier, Cologne) and four secular rulers, including the King of Bohemia; the Bull suggested electors' sons learn German, Latin, Italian and Czech.
Q 17Which city did Charles IV make the seat of the emperor, ushering in that land's 'Golden Age'?
Prague
He built up Bohemia as the Luxembourg dynasty's core land; the Kingdom of Bohemia had been raised from a duchy in 1198.
Q 18To what title did a prospective emperor first have to be elected before claiming the crown?
King of the Romans
In theory only papal coronation then made him emperor; later rulers skipped that step and simply styled themselves Emperor-Elect.
Q 19In which Italian city did Clement VII crown Charles V in 1530, the last papal imperial coronation?
Bologna
Later emperors dispensed with the pope entirely and styled themselves Emperor-Elect; Charles abdicated in 1556 and retired to a monastery at Yuste.
Q 20Which city regularly hosted imperial elections from the 14th century onward?
Frankfurt
The Archbishop of Mainz summoned the electors and presided; a few elections were held elsewhere, such as Cologne in 1531.
Q 24Which 1555 settlement let the empire's rulers choose Catholicism or Lutheranism for their territories?
The Peace of Augsburg
Zwinglians, Calvinists and radicals were left out; Calvinism was only recognised in 1648.
Q 25In which 1547 war did Charles V defeat the Protestant princes without crushing Protestantism?
The Schmalkaldic War
The princes survived defeat, and Charles eventually gave up his dream of a single Christian world empire when Pope Paul IV sided with France.
Q 26When Charles V split his inheritance, who received the Holy Roman Empire and the Austrian lands?
His brother Ferdinand
Spain and the Burgundian lands went to his son Philip II, whose awkward manner and lack of German doomed any hope of the princes accepting him.
Q 27Which emperor, a lover of Greek philosophy, lived isolated in Bohemia and left the empire weakened at his death in 1612?
Rudolf II
When the Bohemians rebelled against his successors, the result was the Thirty Years' War.
Q 28The Peace of Westphalia that ended the Thirty Years' War in 1648 was signed in which two cities?
Osnabrück and Münster
Talks were split because each side insisted on meeting on territory it controlled; 109 delegations took part.
Q 29About how many territories were represented in the Imperial Diet at the time of the Peace of Westphalia?
300
Many 'little states' covered only a few square miles, which is why the empire was likened to a patchwork carpet.
Q 30From 1663 until the empire's dissolution the Imperial Diet sat in permanent session in which city?
Regensburg
Members rarely attended in person, so the late Diet was in effect a standing conference of ambassadors from the estates.