From the Carolingian Empire to the Holy Roman Empire
6.3.1 The Frankish Monarchy Dissociates Itself from the Empire
The breakup of the Empire led to numerous struggles for the imperial title among Charlemagne’s descendants.[210] One of these dynastic conflicts eventually led to the Frankish kingdom’s detachment from the Empire.
The first step was the dethronement of the Carolingian ruler Charles the Simple, by Hugo the Great in 923, a situation that would definitively establish the authority of the latter’s son, Hugh Capet (987-996), by imposing the hereditary principle for succession to the throne (Bautier 1992, 27-37), thereby ensuring a surprising continuity which would last until the rise of the French monarchy in the early thirteenth century.[211] The Franks were resolved to break off from the Empire largely because of the fact that it had become “Germanized”, as in 962 the imperial title had gone to a Germanic nobleman: Otto, Duke of Saxony.6.3.2 The Germanic Revival of the Imperial Idea
German historiography establishes 911 as a chronological milestone to mark the passage from the Frankish to the Germanic Empire. According to tradition, it was in this year that Conrad I was elected the first King of Germany.[212] The authority exercised by the German king was largely theoretical, however, as the Germanic territories were ruled by powerful nobles (usually dukes) whom the king had to subjugate, whether by arms or by means of alliances. The problem was that the novus rex, although crowned and publicly acknowledged by all, were in perpetually tenuous positions, as they had to face potential opposition from two camps: their defeated rivals and the members of their clans, and those who had voted for him, but with a view to their own self interest, expecting greater wealth in return, ever willing to rescind their support if they concluded that doing so would benefit them (Reuter 1991, 203).
Under these conditions only the strongest kings prevailed, such as Henry I (919-936), Duke of Saxony[213] and, above all, his son Otto I.6.3.2.1 Otto I and the Rise of the Holy Roman Empire of the Germanic Nation
In the year 936, Henry I of Saxony’s heir was elected “King of Germany”[214] with the name of Otto I (936-973). The new German king managed to expand the boundaries of his kingdom and shore up his authority. In the East, he definitively halted the Hungarians and imposed his protectorate upon the Slavs of Bohemia, while in the West, he annexed modern-day Lorraine and part of today’s Belgium to the German kingdom. In just years Otto I managed to become the most powerful ruler in the West, which prompted him to aspire to the Kingdom of Italy which since the time of Charlemagne had been the key to wielding the imperial scepter. To this end he invaded the Italian peninsula and was crowned Emperor in Rome by Pope John XII on February 2, 962 (Bryce 2012, 94-95), thereby seizing a title which had been unclaimed for more than 40 years, becoming the founder of what would ultimately be known in the historiography as the Holy Roman Empire.[215] From this moment forward the man designated as the King of Germany would possess the right to be King of Italy and to be crowned Emperor, though his coronation still lay in the hands of the Pope.
6.3.2.2 Eight and a Half Centuries of History
The imperial coronation of Otto I marked the dawn of a nearly 300-year period known in German historiography as the Kaiserzeit (“Time of the Emperors”), the apogee of the Germanic Empire (van Caenegem 1995, 63), to last until the end of the Hohenstaufen Dynasty upon the death of Frederick II in 1250. From that moment forward, the Holy Roman Empire lost its splendor, though this did not keep it from recovering a key role in the history of Europe, as occurred during the era of Charles V (1519-1558), or during the reign of Maria Theresa’s husband, Francis I (1745-1765).[216] It would survive until 1806, when it was dissolved by Francis II after his defeat by Napoleon at Austerlitz (Whaley 2011, II, 645-650).
6.3.2.3 The Imperial Territories in 962
In the eleventh century, “Germany” did not exist as a unitary political entity. The term originally denoted a patchwork of peoples (Franks, Saxons, Bavarians and Swabians) dominated by various lords whose only common ground was that they were all able to communicate in the Theotisca lingua, which featured various dialects.[217] [218] From the moment when Otto I was crowned king all the aforementioned territories came to be referred to as Teutonicorum regnum2 However, because the King of Germany also had to be the King of Italy to claim the imperial title, and he depended on the Pope to be crowned, he also needed to dominate the Italian Peninsula, which was a source of strife. In fact, Otto I ended up opposing and contesting the authority of John XII, who he deposed after convening a council which appointed Leo VIII as the new Pope (Bryce 2012, 132-133).
6.3.2.4 The New Germanic Empire’s Political Weakness
Just like the Empire of Charlemagne after its division at Verdun in 843, the Holy Roman Empire was in reality limited to a largely symbolic role, in this case, the exaltation of the Germanic monarchy, as only German kings could be named emperors. The Germanic Empire only achieved a universal dimension during the reigns of a few emperors of exceptional magnetism and charisma—essentially during the eras of Frederick Barbarossa (1152-1190), and Frederick II (12121250), the grandson of the first, both of the Hohenstaufen House of Swabia, for instance. Not even these great rulers, however, managed to establish lasting imperial supremacy over the other princes of Christian Europe. After 1250, the German electors who designated the emperor preferred to appoint unremarkable figures to avoid having to submit to imperial authority (Bryce 2012, 191-192). Thus, great monarchs such as Alfonso X of Castile (1252-1284), or Philip the Fair of France (1285-1314) were never named, while lesser nobles were, such as Rudolf of Habsburg (1273-1291).
The German Holy Roman Empire was an artificial political construct in so far as it was an attempt to recreate a universal state that had disappeared—something that can only be understood from the perspective of medieval man, for whom the era in which it was his fate to live was considered a pale reflection of a brilliant, bygone time.[219] Firstly, this was because the kings of Germany could not claim the imperial title without being crowned by the popes. Between their election as kings of Germany and their papal coronation, the German monarchs held the temporary title of “King of the Romans” which was a fallacy, as neither the Roman citizenry nor the Roman state any longer existed, and the emperor was merely the visible head of a whole series of territories which were, in fact, legally and politically independent.[220]
6.3.2.5 The Legal Relevance of the Holy Roman Empire
The fact that the political importance of the medieval emperors was limited, and their title largely symbolic, did not prevent them from playing an undeniably important legal role. Thus, for example, the rediscovery and renewed application of Roman law (Bryce 2012, 159-160), which became the basis of the new European law of the Late Middle Ages, proceeded politically from the idea that the different European kingdoms were ultimately the heirs to the legacy of the Roman emperors. Brian Tierney has defined the century from 1150 to 1250 as the “age of lawyers”, not only because of the study of Roman law, beginning with Irnerius at the University of Bologna around 1100, which utterly transformed the art of jurisprudence, as law started being created by scholars (glossators and postglossators or commentators), but also because the study of Roman law provided “a very exalted theory of legislative sovereignty together with a wholly non-papal account of the origins of imperial authority” (Tierney 2004, 97-98).[221] This explains why some of the medieval Germanic emperors’ edicts were integrated into the Justinian Corpus iuris,[222] and there appeared the Tribunal of the Imperial Chamber Court (Reichskammergericht), created by the Diet of Worms in 1495, which applied Roman law.[223] There was, in addition, a practical reason for this reverence for the Roman legacy: the Empire was composed of a number of states that had their own political and legal systems, so that the only unifying factor was their reference to the Roman legal tradition, effective as general suppletory law in a good number of the German states all the way down until January 1, 1900, when the German Civil Code, the Biirgerliches Gesetzbuch (BGB) went into effect.
This perspective is even more important today, when the concept of the nationstate is in crisis in Europe as a result of the supranational integration trends initiated in 1950. Thus, from this point of view, the attempts of medieval emperors to create a public law common to all the kingdoms of their era seems less utopian, especially since German Unification in 1989 and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. This is why the Holy Roman Empire is increasingly presented in positive terms by current historiography, as it is seen as having provided a durable and dynamic political framework that protected the privileges and liberties of its constituents while coordinating collective action (Coy et al. 2010, 1).
6.4