The struggle against the Empire

As the kings were winning the struggle against the church, the Holy Roman Empire too retreated in front of their onslaught. Its position had been weakened by the dispute over the investiture; from the end of the eleventh century to the beginning of the fourteenth there was hardly an Emperor who did not suffer excommunication at some point during his reign.

³¹ On papal finances during this period, see J. A. F. Thomson, Popes and Princes, 1487-1517

(London: Allen and Unwin, 1980), pp. 86ff.; for the opposition that the sale of indulgences encountered, see R. Kiermayer, ‘‘How Much Money Was Really in the Indulgence Chest?,” Sixteenth-Century Journal, 17, 3, 1986, pp. 303-18.

³² For this development, see N. S. Davidson, ‘‘Temporal Power and the Vicar of Christ: The Papal State from 1450 to 1650,” RenaissanceandModernStudies, 36, 1993, pp. 1-14. Bouvines (1214), Philip II Augustus of France defeated the last serious attempt made by an Emperor - Otto IV - to put back the clock to the days of Charlemagne. Next, the death of Emperor Conrad IV in 1254 was followed by a long interregnum during which the throne was vacant. By the time Rudolf I of Habsburg ascended the throne in 1273, it had led to the collapse of whatever reality Imperial power still possessed outside greater Germany. It was during this period that, exploiting the situation where rival claimants were fighting each other, the kings of Aragon, Hungary, and Bohemia assumed the Imperial orb and the so-called closed crown as symbols of their authority.

Even what ‘‘help” the Holy Roman Empire sometimes received from the papacy in its struggle against the monarchs could backfire. Thus, as a part of his lifelong campaign against Philip IV, Boniface VIII tried to interest Albert I of Habsburg in the French throne.

On the other hand, that phrase itself reflected the Empire's superior status in all affairs that, transcending individual kingdoms, affected Christianity as a whole. However shadowy its real power the Empire, as heir to Rome, remained very much alive in men's minds; this was true not only in Central Europe but also in Italy where people were desperately looking for ways to counter the power of the church. A mere ten years after Boniface issued his Unam Sanctam, Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) published De monarchia. Intended by its author to be his prose magnum opus, the work was written against the background of the endless wars which afflicted the peninsula. Dante starts by explaining that temporal government has been instituted by God in order to keep human beings, a species of willful animals, in check. Next he argues that, since existing kingdoms cannot but engage in conflict with each other, a supreme secular authority is needed to exercise justice over them; that it is to the Roman people, and no other, that universal monarchy properly belongs; and that the monarch in question should be co-equal with, but in no way dependent on, the pope.

Less interested in things Roman, but even more determined in defense of the Empire were two close contemporaries of Dante's, Marsilius of Padua (1280-1343) and William of Ockham (1285-1349). The former was a Franciscan monk who spent a good part of his life in Paris. These were the years when the papacy was violently denouncing the Franciscans for insisting on the poverty of Christ and demanding that the church follow in his footsteps; perhaps in defense of his order, Marsilius put himself at the service of Lewis the Bavarian during the latter's attempt to gain the Imperial throne.

The treatise, originally written in Latin but later translated into French, was read by Pope Clement V, who found in it no fewer than 224 heresies and who denounced its author as ‘‘a beast from hell.'' This did not prevent Ockham, Marsilius' fellow Franciscan and political consultant to Lewis, from writing in his Dialogus that the Emperor was ‘‘over all persons and causes supreme.'' ‘‘However many liberties the Emperor may grant the French and other kings, still the realm of France and others may not be totally separated from the Empire, for to do so would be to destroy the Empire.''^[85] Later in the same work Ockham, displaying the kind of casuistry which earned him the nickname of ‘‘Invincible Teacher,'' dec­lared that all kings were subject to the Emperor even though the latter in his wisdom had not so ordained by his express command.

Throughout this period the Emperor retained his titular position as the head of the feudal hierarchy. Holding his dominion directly from God, his rights were immutable and his writ, in theory, valid all over Christendom. As a ‘‘Roman'' he stood over all nations and was fit to act as their judge; everywhere his name continued to be mentioned in the masses people said. Whenever an Emperor and another ruler met it was the former who enjoyed precedence, a situation which often led to diplomatic incidents. A king, such as Charles VI of France, who was visited by an Emperor had to guard against the danger that the guest might seat himself on the royal chair without asking for permission first.^[86] Conversely an Emperor visit­ing a king was likely to find himself greeted by the declaration that he was not superior.

Nor was the Emperor's position without its practical significance. He was, after all, the only one who could create kings; as Emperor Maxi­milian (1493-1519) once remarked in jest, he was indeed ‘‘the king of kings'' since all those theoretically under his authority aspired to be kings (and, as happened to Duke Charles the Bold of Burgundy in 1472, were sorely disappointed when their request was denied). Furthermore, at various times and places there were other actions that he alone could take. Thus Lewis the Bavarian appropriated to himself the right to permit marriages within the prohibited degree of consanguinity, with all that this implied for the distribution of inheritances, etc.;^[88] in Scotland until the reign of James III (1460-1844) the Emperor alone was entitled to create public notaries. Finally, until 1356 - which was when the kings of Bohe­mia, Poland, and Hungary took it for themselves - the crime of lese majeste could be committed only against him. Thus, strictly speaking, the Em­peror alone among mortals stood for a type of law different from, and superior to, the one that governed disputes between individuals.

As had been the case ever since the ascent of Otto I in 962, the center of the Holy Roman Empire's power continued to be Germany where vari­ous Emperors owned their own hereditary lands - principally in Austria, Bohemia, the Tyrol, and Alsace. Unlike other princes, whose position had become hereditary by about 1300, Emperors continued to be elected.

Still, the ability of the princes to strengthen themselves at the expense of the Emperor had its limits. Not only did he remain the sole individual with the authority to call out the Imperial forces, but control over com­mon facilities such as fortresses, roads, and rivers remained in his hands. Created by and for the electors, the bull did not change the position of perhaps 300 secular and ecclesiastical lords of various ranks; nor that of some 2,000 knights who held land directly from the Emperor, nor that of eighty-five ‘‘free’’ or Imperial cities which were scattered from the Baltic Sea to Switzerland and whose role as centers of wealth and industry was growing all the time. All of them continued to be subject to the Emperor’s jurisdiction as exercised first through the Hofgericht (Household Court) and then through the Kammergericht and Reichsgericht, which took its place during the fifteenth century. It is true that Emperor Maximilian met with little success in his efforts to set up an Imperial system of taxation as well as a unified Imperial army. On the other hand the repeated attempts of the princes to set up a new constitution that would enable them to further emancipate themselves were equally unsuccessful. Meanwhile the very fact that attempts at reform were being made lent new life to the idea of a common fate and a common authority positioned above that of individual princes.³⁹

In Italy, too, though it had to affirm its position by means of countless wars, the Empire’s suzerainty continued to be acknowledged.

Besides the explicit recognition of Imperial overlordship that it con-

³⁹ See H. S. Offler, ‘‘Aspects of Government in the Late Middle Ages,’’ in J. R. Hale, et al., eds., Europe in the Late Middle Ages (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1965), pp. 241ff.; and F. Hartung, ‘‘Imperial Reform, 1485-1495: Its Course and Character,’’ in G. Strauss, ed., Pre-Reformation Germany (London: Macmillan, 1972), pp. 73-135.

⁴⁰ See M. Mollat and P. Wolff, The Popular Revolutions of the Late Middle Ages (London: Allen and Unwin, 1973), pp. 76-83, 98-107, 142-61. tained, usually such consent could be had only for hard cash. For example, the Florentines in 1355 humbly begged to become an Imperial vicariate and even paid out 100,000 florins for the privilege. In 1359 Galeazzo Visconti likewise paid 100,000 florins in order to be recognized as duke of Milan. Amadeus VIII was made duke of Savoy in 1416, Giovan Franceso Gonzaga count of Mantua in 1432. In 1437, seeking to legitimize its control over the newly conquered terra ferma, even Venice - which had never in any case been part of the Empire - requested to be admitted as an Imperial vicariate and promised to pay 1,000 ducats a year. In 1452 Emperor Frederick III visited Italy and found the various cities vying with each other as to which one would accord him the greatest honors. He sold titles as if they were herrings; by way of disposing of the biggest herring of all he appointed Luigi III of Mantua a duke. As late as 1494 Lodovico Il Moro paid Emperor Maximilian 100,000 florins - which seems to have been the going rate - to be confirmed as duke of Milan. To be sure, these and similar deals should be understood not as an empty quest for titles but as part of a ruthless game of Realpolitik played by Italian rulers among themselves as well as by several foreign potentates. On the other hand, none of this would have been possible if there had not been very real advantages to obtaining the Emperor's recognition, which in turn serves as an index of the power, both legal and practical, that he still retained.

As poems, folktales, and prophecies show, during the last quarter of the fifteenth century the idea of empire as a universal organization was alive and well in the popular consciousness.⁴¹ In Germany and Italy it seemed that the spirit of the age itself was turning its hopes on the Emperor; in countless minor works he was addressed as the one ruler who could, if he only would, deliver Christendom from the manifold evils that were beset­ting it. Always first on the order of priorities there appeared the defeat of the Turks who were causing trouble all over the Mediterranean and threatening Christendom's eastern frontiers in the Balkans and Hungary. Next came putting an end to the corruption of the church and compelling the princes to make peace among themselves so that murder and robbery would cease and the roads be rendered safe for travel. To crown it all the medieval idea of a crusade aimed at recapturing the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem remained very much alive. Once again, the person who was expected to lead it was obviously the Emperor.

How widespread such expectations were is shown by the fact that they found an echo in the one quarter where it could least be expected, namely ⁴¹ See F. Kampers, Die deutsche Kaiseridee inProphetie undSage (Munich: Aalen, 1969 edn.), pp. 129ff.

France. To be sure, here it was on a French king rather than a German or Roman one that various authors centered their hopes. However, the contents of those hopes and the qualities attributed to the would-be Emperor himself bore a surprising resemblance to those which were being voiced in the Empire during the same period; here as elsewhere it was a question of a prince who, exercising sacrum imperium over the populus praeelectus Christi, would impose justice, unite Christendom, and lead a crusade.^[89] Returning to Germany and Italy, the works of such figures as Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa and the humanist Aeneas Picolomini - both acting as advisers to Frederick III, and the latter destined to be elected pope in 1503 - prove that these popular aspirations were shared by at least some of the elite, as does Ariosto's famous poem, Orlando Furioso. These and other contemporary works^[90] may help explain why, for all the Empire's weakness, most people were reluctant to take active steps that would lead to its disintegration. Surprisingly enough this even applied to the independent-minded Swiss. Forming part of the Empire but resisting incorporation into the hereditary lands, they had been fighting the Habs­burgs since at least 1291. Early in the fifteenth century a federal council was created, uniting the various cantons into a loose confederation and launching them toward eventual statehood. Yet it was only in the Peace of Basel (1499) that they formally emancipated themselves from obedience to Imperial law.

The installation as Emperor of Charles V in 1519 represented a land­mark. On the one hand he had to swear a coronation oath which, for the first time, allowed the princes a voice in Imperial affairs; this was exten­ded by the establishment at the Diet of Worms in 1521 of a Reichs­regiment, or Imperial Council, with twenty-two members that was to govern in his absence and preserve the peace. Side by side with these internal reforms he had his chancellor and mentor, Mercurio Gattinara, prepare two memoranda which spelt out his rights and duties as a ‘‘uni­versal'' Emperor.^[91] Charles was a master of propaganda and the spectacle of the Emperor in his council did not fail to make an impression on contemporaries; at any rate the advisers of the French king, such as Jean Feu and Charles de Grassaille, persisted in their attempts to prove that their master was as good as the Emperor and in no way his subject. The same applies to Henry VIII of England who, on the occasion of the visit that Charles paid him in 1522, organized a tableau vivant that displayed Charlemagne in the act of handing out crowns to the both of them. For as long as he reigned, ‘‘the last medieval Emperor,” as he is often called, retained his pretensions to act as supreme arbitrator among Christian princes of all ranks. He regarded himself as carrying an equal responsibil­ity with the pope for maintaining the faith and defending it against heresy, and, of course, as God's own appointed leader in Christendom's struggle against the infidels who, as it happened, reached the peak of their power during those very years.

What gave these claims a new credibility was the fact that, in spite of the Empire's loss of real political power during the preceding two centuries, Charles was in a unique position. By birth he was simply the duke of Burgundy, a territory much of which had been lost by his grandfather to the French crown in 1477 and which neither he nor any of his successors was ever able to recover. However, a fortunate and entirely unforeseen series of dynastic accidents put him in possession of Spain (complete with its dependencies in northern and southern Italy), as well as Germany and his own native Netherlands. From Spain, where the last remaining Mus­lim principality had just been destroyed, came the world's best troops, ‘‘doctors of the military discipline” as the saying went.⁴⁵ Also from Spain, as well as the Netherlands and, increasingly, the New World, came the financial muscle with which to maintain those troops.⁴⁶

A conscientious though somewhat ponderous ruler, Charles himself was concerned above all with maintaining his God-given patrimony. He regarded the many wars that he waged as purely defensive; to others, caught between his various territories and aware of the superior dignity attached to the Imperial title, they looked suspiciously like an attempt to reestablish universal rule, monarchia mundi, in all its former glory. Strad­dling the globe from Europe through the Americas to the Philippines, Charles' power peaked in 1525 when, following the Battle of Pavia, he took his main enemy Francis I prisoner and imposed his own terms on him. In 1527 his forces sacked Rome and took Pope Clement VII

⁴⁵ See T. S. Foreman, ‘‘Doctors of Military Discipline: Technical Expertise and the Paradigm of the Spanish Soldier in the Early Modern Period,” Sixteenth-Century Journal, 27, 1, Spring 1996, pp. 325-54.

⁴⁶ E. J. Hamilton, American Treasure and the Price Revolution in Spain, 1501-1650 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1934), p. 34, gives a table of bullion imported into Spain from America; Elliott, Imperial Spain, p. 200, emphasizes the role of the Netherlands in financing the campaigns of Charles V. prisoner, thus showing the whole world who was master. Three years later he received the Imperial crown from the same pope in Bologna; as it happened, this was the last time that the ceremony was performed.

The really decisive watershed was probably reached when Charles, tired out and realizing his own inability to control such a huge realm, abdicated in 1555-6. He had toyed with the idea of leaving all of it to his only legitimate son, Philip; in the end, though, the latter received Spain (together with its overseas colonies), Sicily, South and North Italy, and the Low Countries. The Empire proper, plus the Imperial title, went to Charles' brother Ferdinand who, holding the title of king of the Romans, had acted as his deputy for three decades past and also ruled the Hab­sburgs' own hereditary lands. The two branches of the Habsburg house had much in common, being united by their hatred of France, the Protestants, and of course the Turks. Constantly intermarrying among themselves, they were to remain on close terms for a century and a half until the War of the Spanish Succession (1702-13) finally put a French Bourbon prince on the throne in Madrid. Still, once the Empire had been deprived of the Spanish financial and military resources, whatever dreams Vienna may have had concerning the reestablishment of universal mon­archy were stone-dead.

Though the procedure whereby the Emperor was elected by seven of Germany's principal princes remained unchanged, Ferdinand's succes­sion also marked another kind of turning point. It is true that the name of Habsburg had been associated with the Imperial throne for centuries and indeed that none but Habsburgs had occupied it from 1438 on. Still, as late as 1519 two princes who were neither Habsburgs nor Ger­mans - Henry VIII and Francis I - had been able to launch serious bids for it; the last named even had to be fended off by means of close to a million thalers in bribes that the Fugger banking house of Augsburg paid to the electors on Charles' behalf. Now, the very ease with which Charles was able to pass on the reins of government to a designated member of his own family put an end to the situation whereby, in theory, any Christian regardless of nationality could become Emperor. Ferdinand on his part was a capable ruler who saw the writing on the wall. Unable to make the Empire pay for his wars against the Turks, he turned to the hereditary lands, laying the groundwork for an administra­tion that included the first unified privy council, the first unified court of appeal, and a similarly unified chancellery and chamber of accounts. His election, and that of his successor, can be seen as setting in motion the process whereby the Empire, its title to the contrary, gradually turned from Germany to the Danube and crystallized into a dynastic state much like all others, until, at length, it came to be known under the name of Austria.^[92]

By the time these events took place the Reformation was in full swing. Wherever it reached, Protestant rulers, seeking to assert their indepen­dence, hastened to deny the Emperor whatever special rights he still possessed concerning religion. In 1533, as part of his attempt to bring his own church under control, one prince - Henry VIII - broke all precedents by formally declaring ‘‘this realm of England an Empire [that] so hath been accepted in the world.” To this claim the Arthurian legends clearly did not provide a sufficient foundation; the thing to do was to bring in consultants in the form of Italian humanists. Their leader was Polydore Vergil, formerly a papal employee in charge of collecting Peter's Pence who had risen to become archdeacon of Wales. They used their expertise to produce a whole series of complicated historical fabrications which showed Henry to be an ‘‘Imperator'' whose title was derived from that of a more ancient fellow Briton, the Roman Emperor Constantine;^[93] later part of their work, known as English History, was to become required reading in schools. Together with the imperial dignity Henry also took the title of ‘‘Majesty.'' In this he was soon followed by Francis I and, a generation later, Philip II whose own Spanish ancestors had been addressed simply as ‘‘Highnesses.'' All three also assumed the ‘‘closed'' Imperial crown.

To top it all, Europe's overseas expansion was beginning to change people's views. As Cortes proudly wrote to Charles V in 1520, so im­mense were Spain's conquests and so numerous its new subjects as to deserve the appellation of a new empire in addition to the old; the possibility that he might style himself‘‘Emperador de Indias'' was, in fact, explored by Charles' advisers, only to be rejected.^[94] Thus it was the Habsburgs' dominions in Central Europe which, up to the first quarter of the eighteenth century, continued to be known simply as ‘‘The Empire'' and its officials as ‘‘Imperialists.'' Nevertheless, the notion of a supreme religico-political construct uniting the Christian world but excluding the infidel began to crack; the more so because a non-Christian ruler - the Ottoman Suleiman the Magnificent - was being drawn into European politics through the alliance that he made with Francis I. Out of the Empire's ruins can be seen to emerge, from about 1550 on, at least two other entities - the Spanish and the British - which, though neither universal nor in any sense Roman, by virtue of their far-flung territories demanded, and were considered by some to deserve, the same title.⁵⁰

In 1598 the duc de Sully, claiming to act in the name of his master Henry IV, for the first time proposed a plan which, had it been accepted, would have led to the Holy Roman Empire's demise. The existing inter­national regime whereby most rulers, in consequence of ancient feudal ties, were in one way or another dependent on others for at least part of their countries was to be abolished. The various countries were to be consolidated along geographical lines and Europe divided between fifteen equal states each possessing the full attributes of sovereignty. They in turn were to be united in a sort of prototype League of Nations. Unlike its twentieth-century successor it was to be itinerant; meeting for a year each time in one city selected out of a list of fifteen, it would combine the roles formerly played by both Empire and church by fighting the Turk, laying down international law, settling disputes, preserving the peace, and pun­ishing transgressors. Sully specified that the League's armed forces would consist of precisely 117 warships, 220,000 infantry, 53,800 cavalry, and 217 cannon - a formidable force by seventeenth-century standards and one more than sufficient to overawe any of its members. Nothing came of the scheme, which in some ways was intended simply to end Habsburg rule in Germany and make Henry IV the arbiter of Europe. And indeed there is some doubt whether it was seriously meant.⁵¹

Exactly two decades later the Habsburgs, provoked beyond endurance by the Protestant challenge to their throne, launched the Thirty Years War in a last-ditch effort to restore the Imperial power in Germany if not throughout Europe. They started with Bohemia where the Protestant aristocracy was in revolt and where, following the Battle of White Moun­tain in November 1620, their victory was swift and complete. Eight years later, with his forces approaching the Baltic, Ferdinand II (1610-37) believed he had made sufficient progress to publish the Edict of Res­titution. In it he commanded that property taken from the church since the Peace of Augsburg be restored to its former owners. While Lutherans

⁵⁰ For an example of the Spanish use of the word ‘‘empire,” see Philip III's letter to his

viceroy in the Indies, 28 November 1606, quoted in H. Grotius, The Freedom of the Seas, R. van Deman Magoffin, ed. (New York: Carnegie Endowment, 1916), p. 77. An example of English usage may be found in F. Bacon, ‘‘An Essay upon the Origin and Nature of Government,” in Bacon, Works (London: Miller, 1720), vol. I, p. 103.

⁵¹ For Sully's project, see C. Pfister, ‘‘Les ‘oeconomies royales' de Sully et le grand dessein de Henry IV,'' Revue Historique, 56, 1894, pp. 307-30; A. Puharre, Les projets d’organisation europeene d’apr'es le grand dessein d’Henry IV et de Sully (Paris: Union federaliste inter-universitaire, 1954), pp. 51ff.;andD. Heater, The Idea of European Unity (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1992), pp. 30-8. would be tolerated, Calvinists were to be expelled; at a stroke of the pen, the Emperor thus attempted to restore his right to govern religion not only in his own hereditary lands but in the Empire as a whole. However, and even though perhaps a third of Germany's population perished, in the end the task proved too much for the Habsburgs. Their very victories, particularly in central Germany and culminating in the sack of Mag­deburg in 1631, terrified Catholic and Protestant princes alike. The former withdrew their support to the point where they temporarily forced the Emperor to reduce his army, dismiss his commander-in-chief, and seek peace. The latter were driven to look for help outside the Empire's frontiers. First Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, then Louis XIII of France intervened. Dutch money did the rest, and the tide of Imperial conquest was brought to a halt.

The Peace of Westphalia which, in 1648, concluded the war marked the monarch's triumph over both the Empire and the church.⁵² Imperial territory was partitioned. The kingdom of Sweden came away with much of the Baltic coast, which gain was not to prove permanent and was later lost to Prussia; the king of France received a considerable part of Alsace, which was destined to remain in his hands. The Swiss, who as will be recalled had distanced themselves from Imperial law in 1499, finally broke away and thus achieved the complete independence which they still retain. More important from our point of view, knowingly or unknowingly the first half of Sully's program was implemented. As a sharp line was drawn between the territories that belonged to the Empire and those that did not, the Emperor lost whatever pretensions over other rulers that he still retained. Western and Central Europe were divided between secular, sovereign potentates - though their number, swelled by the German princes who were granted ‘‘territorial lordship'' or Lan­dshoheit, turned out to be considerably larger than fifteen. Those who were within the Empire were given practically all the privileges of sover­eignty, including the right to maintain their own armed forces and, which in theory at any rate had been denied to them until then, the right to make alliances both among themselves and with foreign powers ‘‘so long as they were not directed against the Emperor.'' The entire com­plicated arrangement was guaranteed by two non-Imperial princes, the kings of France and Sweden. Thus the point had been reached where the Empire, instead of protecting the peace of others, needed protection itself.

The Treaties were also the first which, violating all previous usage, did not even mention God. The Edict of Restitution was canceled. The

52

For the text of the treaty, see K. Muller, ed., Instrumenta Pacis Westphalicae (Bern: Lang, 1966). terminus post quam for restoring confiscated church property was moved forward from 1555 to 1624, which meant that whatever changes had taken place between those two dates would not be undone and that entire bishoprics would remain in the hands of their secular rulers. The rights awarded to Lutheran rulers by the Peace of Augsburg were extended to Calvinist ones as well, so that there were now three official religions instead of two. Whatever the church to which they belonged, rulers were authorized to regulate the public exercise of religion in their territories; as to subjects' private beliefs, no binding articles were included, though the Treaties strongly recommended a policy of toleration which, in fact, tended to emerge in many states over the next few decades. As if to emphasize the triumph of politics over religion, the government of one disputed principality - the north German bishopric of Osnabrück - was made alternately Catholic and Protestant. No wonder Pope Innocent X, who had not been consulted, thundered against the Treaties, denouncing them as ‘‘null, void, invalid, iniquitous, unjust, damnable, reprobate, inane, empty of meaning and effect for all time.''⁵³

However, the times had changed since Charles V had raised the stan­dard of the Counter-Reformation and declared war on Protestants. Though the Treaties were not able to prevent more wars from taking place, in a world that was growing tired of religiously motivated conflict and where the Empire was manifestly no longer capable of holding its own even inside Germany the world-view that they expressed held up remarkably well. The dawning age of the Enlightenment meant that awareness of the cultural unity of Europe was stronger than ever before; on the other hand, the old universal Res Publica Christiana with its twin hierarchical governments was finally dead. Out of the chaos of war a new order, based on a rough balance of power between the great states, emerged ready to take its place.