EMPIRE 



pope a spiritual supremacy over- 

 riding that of the emperor as the 

 temporal head of Christendom ; and 

 overriding that of all temporal 

 authorities whatever within their 

 own dominions. Theoretically, the 

 papacy did not claim to exercise 

 control over things temporal. But 

 practically the lay and ecclesiastical 

 interpretations of the spiritual 

 and temporal spheres of control 

 differed and overlapped, so that 

 there was an endless contest of 

 authority. Thus we have the em- 

 perors in their fourth aspect, as the 

 supreme representatives of secular 

 authority in antagonism to ecclesi- 

 astical authority, in the contest 

 between Church and State. 



Guelfs and Ghibellines 

 The Saxon emperors, Henry and 

 the three Ottos, finally rolled back 

 or stemmed the advance of more 

 barbarian races on the E., and 

 penned the Magyars into Hungary. 

 They dominated the papacy, nomi- 

 nating several of the popes. They 

 were followed in the llth century 

 by the Franconian or Salian series, 

 Conrad II and Henry III, IV, and 

 V. The reign of Henry IV was 

 marked by the struggle between the 

 emperor and Pope Gregory VII, 

 with whom begins the great period 

 of papal domination. With Henry's 

 death the rivalry opened in Ger- 

 many between the Saxon house of 

 the Welfs, or Guelfs, and the Swa- 

 bian house of the Hohenstaufen. 



The Swabians secured the im- 

 perial crown for some generations ; 

 hence the an ti -imperialists in Italy 

 adopted the name of Guelf as a 

 party title, while the imperialists 

 were called Ghibellines. The em- 

 peror Frederick Barbarossa (1152- 

 90) was worsted in his struggle with 

 the popes, while the cities of Lom- 

 bardy succeeded, after a hard 

 struggle, in securing their liberties ; 

 but in Germany he broke the power 

 of the Guelfs and established his 

 own supremacy, which was main- 

 tained by his successor, Henry VI. 

 Henry, by his marriage, acquired 

 the kingdom of Sicily ; his son, 

 Frederick II, the last Hohenstau- 

 fen emperor, succeeded to the em- 

 pire after an interval of, contest 

 between other rivals. But he was 

 in effect a Sicilian, not a German. 

 His reign and the strife which pre- 

 ceded it destroyed what Frederick 

 I had done towards the unification 

 of Germany itself. Frederick II's 

 death in 1250 was followed by the 

 great interregnum during which no 

 imperial authority was recognized. 

 It was brought to an end by the 

 election of a minor prince, Rudolph 

 of Hapsburg, 1273, who laid the 

 foundations of the greatness of that 

 famous house. 



2893 



The medieval European system 

 was now breaking up. The papacy 

 lost prestige by its transference 

 from Rome to Avignon. The im- 

 perial crown passed from one house 

 to another ; from Hapsburg to 

 Luxembourg, from Luxembourg to 

 Bavaria, from Bavaria back to 

 Luxembourg. It was at this time 

 that a group of German princes 

 were definitely established as the 

 electors with whom alone lay the 

 right of fixing the imperial suc- 

 cession. Sigismund, son of the em- 

 peror Charles IV, acquired the 

 kingdom of Hungary by marriage, 

 though it was not brought within 

 the imperial bounds as was Bohe- 

 mia. With Charles IV the efforts of 

 German rulers to maintain their 

 position in Italy came to an end. 



The reign of Sigismund, during 

 the early part of the 15th century, 

 is chiefly notable for the reinstate- 

 ment of the papacy after the great 

 schism at the council of Constance 

 (1414-18), and also for the estab- 

 lishment of the first Hohenzollern 

 margrave of Brandenburg, the 

 progenitor of the kings of Prussia. 



On Sigismund's death, in 1437, 

 Albert of Hapsburg became king 

 and emperor ; and from his day 

 until 1806 a Hapsburg was, with 

 one exception, at the head of the 

 Holy Roman Empire. 



Effect ol the Thirty Years' War 

 In 1519 Charles V succeeded his 

 grandfather, Maximilian I, as em- 

 peror. His reign is contempor- 

 aneous with the development of 

 the Reformation. The hereditary 

 Austrian and other German estates 

 of the house of Hapsburg were 

 transferred to Ferdinand, the 

 brother of Charles, and he suc- 

 ceeded his brother as emperor in 

 1556. The pacification of Passau, 

 procured mainly by his agency 

 just before his accession, gave 

 Germany peace for some 60 years 

 by establishing a compromise be- 

 tween the Roman Catholic and 

 Protestant princes. The attempt 

 of Charles V to establish the per- 

 sonal supremacy of the emperor 

 throughout Germany, failed ; Ger- 

 man princes, big and little, were 

 nearly independent sovereigns. 



In the 17th century Ferdinand 

 II, in the Thirty Years' War, 

 sought to bring the Protestant 

 princes into subjection, while Wal- 

 lenstein, careless of the religipus 

 question, sought by means of the 

 war to make the emperor absolute 

 monarch of Germany. Both at- 

 tempts failed. After the Thirty 

 Years' War (1648) the independ- 

 ence of the greater German princes 

 was an established fact, while the 

 still nominal imperial authority 

 was little more than a fiction. The 



EMPIRE 



struggle of the next 100 years 

 between Bourbon and Hapsburg 

 was not a struggle between the 

 Empire and France, but between 

 the Hapsburgs and France. Al- 

 though the war of the Austrian 

 succession included a contest for 

 the succession to the imperial 

 crown between the Bavarian 

 claimant, Charles Albert, and Maria 

 Theresa, the representative of the 

 Hapsburgs, that was altogether a 

 minor aspect of the struggle. 



End of the Holy Roman Empire 

 Charles Albert was made em- 

 peror, but on his death the crown 

 reverted to the Hapsburgs in the 

 person of Francis of Lorraine, 

 whose son Joseph II again aimed 

 at establishing an imperial ascend- 

 ancy by the consolidation of Haps- 

 burg dominions within Germrny. 

 The attempt, however, collapsed 

 when Frederick II of Prussia 

 formed the Furstenbund (League 

 of Princes) to maintain the con- 

 stitutional rights of the German 

 princes which meant in effect 

 their freedom from any recogniz- 

 able imperial control. 



In 1792 the French Republic 

 went to war, not with the Empire, 

 but with Austria. It was Austria, 

 not the Empire, which was brought 

 to submission by Bonaparte in 

 1797, again by Moreau at the 

 battle of Hohenlinden in 1800, and 

 by Napoleon at Austerlitz in 1805, 

 when Napoleon had already pro- 

 claimed himself emperor. There 

 was no longer any plausibility in 

 maintaining the pretence that 

 there was one imperial head of 

 Christendom, so in 1806 the em- 

 peror Francis dropped the title and 

 the Holy Roman Empire ended. 



The history of the Holy Roman 

 Empire down to the 16th century 

 is, in respect of one part of it, 

 identical with the history of Ger- 

 many, and, in respect of another 

 part, is intimately bound up with 

 the histories of Italy and of the 

 papacy. In the 16th century it is 

 practically the history of Germany ; 

 the emperor is the German em- 

 peror with no pretensions to being 

 the Roman emperor or the head of 

 Christendom. From the middle of 

 the 17th century the emperor is 

 the Austrian emperor ; the German 

 or Holy Roman Empire exists only 

 in name, with the survival of con- 

 stitutional forms, until even the 

 name disappears in 1806. See 

 Charlemagne ; Electors ; Golden 

 Bull; Papacy; consult also The 

 Holy Roman Empire, J. Bryce, 

 1864 and later ; The Empire and the 

 Papacy, T. F. Tout, 1898 ; The 

 Medieval Empire, H. A. L. Fisher, 

 1898 ; The Close of the Middle Ages, 



R. Lodge, 1901. A. D. Innes 



