Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 10.djvu/187

* HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE. 161 HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE. overthrown by the barbarians in 476. When Charles the Great was crowned Emperor by Leo HI. he thought of himself as the successor of Augustus, Trajan, and ilarcus Aurelius, and styled himself Augustus. This theory prevailed throughout the Middle Ages. Louis the Pious, Lothaire I., Louis IL, Charles the Bald, and Charles the Fat were crowned as Roman emperors. After the deposition of the latter (887), which was followed by the disruption of the great Frankish Empire, the Imperial title was still held by a few princes, as Arnulf, King of Ger- many, and Btrenger 1., King of Italy. In 962 Otho the Great, after wresting the royal crown of Italy from a descendant of Charles the Great, had himself crowned Emperor of the Romans by Pope John XII., and inaugurated the Roman Empire of the Gennan nation. From that time the King of Germany was usually Emperor. The Empire consisted of Italy and the lands whose rulers recognized the overlordship of the German monarch; but theoretically the Emperor was the riiler of all Christians in Western Eu- rope, and some emperors, as, for example, Henry VI.. dreamed even of a world-wide empire. At different periods the rulers of Hvmgary, Po- land, Denmark, .Terusalem, and Cyprus were to a greater or less extent vassals of the Roman Emperor. Until the reign of Frederick Barbarossa the name had been merely 'Roman Empire;' Frederick added the designation 'Holy,' either to vindicate its sacred character against the ex- clusive pretensions of the Church, or else to describe its chief function as the protection of that Church. By the close of the thirteenth century the authority of the German emperors in Italy was reduced to a mere shadow. At the close of the fifteenth century the Swiss cut loose completely from the Empire. In the Xether- lands the Imperial authority had come to an end long before their connection with the Em- pire was declared to be severed in an article of the Peace of Westphalia (1648).- The early German kings were elected by the chief men of the nation with the assent of the other freemen. Gradually the chief nobles se- cured almost entire control of the elections, but there was no fixed mode of procedure. At the election of I.othair in 112.5. for example, a com- mittee consisting of ten from each duchy was chosen to select an Emperor. In the thirteenth century — by a process of evolution, which it is not possible to trace now — the number of elec- tors had been fixed at seven, but there was a dis- pute as to who were included in the seven. This was settled in 1.3.56 by the Golden Bull of Charles IV., which determined that the electoral college should be composed of the Archbishops of Mainz. Treves, and Cologne, the King of Bohemia, the Count Palatine of the Rhine, the Duke of Saxony, and tlie Margrave of Brandenburg. The Golden Bull also declared that the electoral votes were attached to the office, not to the persons, and de- scended in the case of the lay principalities by right of primogeniture. This continued to be the constitution of the electoral college until 1623, when Ferdinand II. arbitrarily transferred the vote belonging to the Count Palatine to Maxi- milian of Bavaria. At the Peace of Wcstphali.a (1648) an eighth electorate was created for the Palatinate. In 1602 the ninth electorate, that of Hanover, was instituted. Tlie Imperial elections were held at Frankfort-on-the-JIain and the cor- onation city was Aix-la-Chapelle. The Emperor at some time during his reign went to Rome to receive the Imperial crown at the hands of the Pope. The last ceremony of this kind took place in 15.30, when Charles V. was crowned at Bologna by Pope Clement VII. The successor-elect to the .Emperor of the Romans was styled King of the Romans. During the so-called Interregnum following on the death of the last Hobenstaufen Emperor there was a double election (12.57), both Richard oi Cornwall and Alfonso X. of Castile being made Emperor, one receiving four votes and the other three. Their election may be taken to illustrate the theory held by some at the time, that a man of any nationality might be chosen to the Em- pire; but their total failure to obtain anything but the mere Imperial title proved that as a matter of fact the sovereignty of the Holy Ro- man Empire could be held only by a Germanic prince. After 1438 all the emperors but two be- longed to the House of Hapsburg. Charles the Great and his immediate succes- sors followed the old German custom of calling together, at frequent intervals, the nobles and freemen for consultation about the public wel- fare. As feudalism developed these assemblies ceased, and the Emperor called together only such of his vassals as he chose. Their meet- ings were called Imperial Diets {Reichstage) . In the thirteenth century the cities became very influential, and consequently their representatives were summoned to the Diets. As the power of the emperors declined, the Diets took a more prominent part in the administration of the Em- pire. Their functions were judicial as well a3 administrative. In the fourteenth century it came to be fixed that the Diet consisted of the three classes : electors, princes, and representa- tives of the cities. The lesser nobility had no voice in the Diet. But the power of the Diet was slight, because it was concerned only with Im- perial matters, and the Empire had ceased to be of real importance as a factor in European poli- tics. This was clearly shown in 1496, when >Iaxi- milian I. attempted to unite the Imperial estates against the French invasion of Italy. The Diet which he summoned did nothing to check the French, but with the Emperor's consent created the Imperial Chamber (q.v.) a supreme tribunal for the preservation of peace within the Empire. It consisted of a president and sixteen members, who could not be removed from office. It held its sessions at Frankfort, Speyer. and other cities until 1698. when it was established permanently at Wetzlar. Gradually the Imperial Chamber became an important factor in the maintenance of peace within the Empire. The Emperor was jealous of it, as he had no control over it. Con- sequently he attempted to transfer some of its authority to the Aulic Council (q.v.), a some- what similar body for Austria, which was under his control. During the tirst half of the six- teenth century the -Aulic Council interfered in the affairs of Italy, the Netherlands, and other por- tions of the Empire. After that time, however, it was again restricted to Austrian interests alone. The Empire came to an end in 1806. when Francis II. resigned the Imperial crown after having assumed (1S04) the title of Emperor of Austria. After the time of the Hobenstaufen, whose dj-nasty came to an end in 1254, the Em-