Nation+Building+-+Holy+Roman+Empire

Nation Building - Holy Roman Empire **The Founding of The Holy Roman Empire ** When Charlemagne died, after taking over a lot of present day France and Germany, the land was divided into many states. Since Charlemagne died, the dukes of Saxony decided to take over some of the neighboring German land (Charlemagne’s land). In 936 Otto I, one of the dukes of Saxony became the King of Germany. Otto I then eventually founded the Holy Roman Empire. The Holy Roman Empire was formed to revive the Western Ro man Empire. Otto I started working very closely with the church. He made some bishops top government officials and when the pope needed help with some Roman rebels, Otto I sent an army to help the pope out. Otto I and the pope were very close and because of this in 962, the pope crowned Otto I the Emperor. His followers proceeded to call him the Holy Roman Emperor because “holy” in his name meant that he was crowned by the pope, and “Roman” was because his followers felt that they inherited ancient Rome from past Roman emperors.  There was really no official government system in the Holy Roman Empire. The German emperors claimed rule over a lot of land including: central and eastern Europe and parts of France and Italy. Even though the German emperors were technically ruling over the land, their vassals were the ones controlling everything. So really, the emperor’s real job was to control their vassals; the problem was, they had difficulty doing this. Because of this the government wasn’t really secure and things were not off to a great start for the Holy Roman Empire. In 1054, Henry IV became the king of Germany and Gregory VII was the pope. Henry eventually was made the Holy Roman Emperor. Conflict had started and broke out with the Pope, Gregory. He had banned lay investiture. In lay investiture, the Pope or someone with power could make people bishops and put them in office. Gregory thought that only he should have the power to appoint bishops into office. Henry IV responded very angrily to the Gregory’s actions. Henry IV thought that since he was ruling over the bishops, he should be able to appoint them to office. The German princes sided with the Gregory, which also really angered Henry. In 1076 Gregory excommunicated Henry and he went to the north to crown someone else as Emperor. Trying to regain his thrown back, in 1077, Henry came crying back to Gregory. He said that he had sinned and being that Gregory was the Pope, he had to accept the sin and he gave the throne back to Henry. The excommunication order was lifted and everything went back to normal. However, Henry wanted to get revenge on Gregory so he sent an army after him and forced Gregory into exile.

__Prevention or Suppression of Rebellious Groups __  One of the way of prevention or Suppression of Rebellious Groups of the Holy Roman Empire was lay investiture. The lay investiture is the appointment of church officials and clergy such as bishops, abbots, and archbishops by feudal lords and vassal, rather than by churches itself. It gave right to choose any religious officials, who vassals and feudal lords trust to be their side to monarch. At the same time, the monarchs defend their powers from church and expend their power, and suppress the rebellious groups, which I think is a good way to suppress the rebellious groups and defend power from church at that time. However, because the lay investiture is disadvantageous to church and the fact that, the religion is used by political power. Pope Gregory wanted the church to be independent from secular rulers. Therefore, he banned the practice of lay investiture. After, King Henry IV heard that the pope banned the practice of lay investiture, of course he was angry, so he quickly took action of ordering Gregory to excommunicate, and military forces. Therefore, Gregory had no choice, so he gave up and lifts the order of excommunication. In conclusion, I think the lay investiture was a great way of prevention or suppression of rebellious groups. Also, it was important to protect or defend the power of church.

__Creation of Functional Government of the Holy Roman Empire __  The Holy Roman Empire’s creation of a functional, peaceful population that obeys or participates in the government was mostly created by some policies. Oneof them is sovereignty; it is a policy that gives the motley and variable collection of powers to the rulers of territories. This policy gave more power to rulers other than emperors by limiting emperor’s power. This policy also gave many rights such asreligion rights, right to dispense justice, collecting taxes and tolls, and ability to have one’s territories’ soldiers and bring them to war. Also the division of the power in the government created a functional government. The power in the government was divided into five branches;legislative, executive, judiciary, international, and feudal, which is very similar to today’s USA’s government system. The reason this policy is important is that it limited the powers of emperor or any kind of branches in the government, which dismissed the chance of any dictatorship. In conclusion, I think the most important thing that makes a functional, peaceful population that obeys or participates in the government is valence of political power and I think Holy Roman Empire was a great empire that divided political power at that time.

__ The Rising Economic Power __ In the beginning of the Holy Roman Empire there was a struggle for power. The leaders of the empire kept on appearing and disappearing. Some of these emperors include Charlemagne, Otto I, Pope John XII, Berengar II, and the German kings. This is where the empires economy reached its height, which is when they controlled much of central Europe including modern day Italy, Germany, and France. There are many factors that contributed to the height of the economy, but there are only two key ones. One of which is geography. The Holy Roman Empire was centrally located in Europe and expanded down through Italy. This empire was extremely large. When you combined this centrally located state in Europe, and its size you got an empire with easy access to trade. There was very few people living in the empire compared to China. This caused many wealthy people to begin emerging in The Holy Roman Empire. These wealthy people bought property that began to make classes and further developed the society. Trade began to increase and trade routes as well. Most of these trade routes went through the Holy Roman Empire, which increased its trading even more. As the empire continued to expand towns and guilds emerged. This brought new inventions and technology along with it. Many people began to iron weld because of these new inventions. There were also many ideas adopted from the empires that they traded with. Agriculture was the center of the economy and so there was much advancement made in farming and terracing. The economy began to decline due to wars, which finally ended after the imperial army lost in the French Revolutionary Wars.

__ The Imperial Army and its Chronology __

The military of the Holy Roman Empire was called the Imperial Army. It was technically not their army but more like, separate state armies within the empire. The troops were usually Austrian or Prussian troops. The army was created in 1422 and it ended in 1806. They did not have a standing army that was always ready to go out and fight at any time. Instead the army only met when there was danger. They began with about 20,000 infantry but soon the population of the army rose to 40,000 men. The army of the Holy Roman Empire was very diverse. Otto I became the Holy Roman Emperor on February 2, 962. Otto invaded Italy to help defeat the rebellious Roman Nobel’s and help the Pope. Fredrick II followed up after Otto I. He was mostly involved with conflicts against the Pope. Henry III came next and he invaded Bohemia were he was defeated in a ambush which completely destroyed his army. He returned to Germany and then appointed Charles IV. Charles IV had a son Charles V who became the next emperor. Charles the V was involved in a war against France in 1521. Charles dominated Italy and the war resolved with a peace treaty. He also fought Germany in a war in the 1520’s-1530’s. As you can see the emperors of the Holy Roman Empire came across many oppositions. There was such a large variety of opponents its hard to believe that The Holy Roman Empire did not collapse before it did.

__National Identity __  In the Holy Roman Empire, a national identity was never created. There are many reasons for this. The Holy Roman Empire covered a lot of Eastern Europe, Germany, Italy and France; there were many different kinds of people. Everyone had different beliefs and cultures since they were all from different places. They also spoke different languages. The government never really tried to unite everyone. The only thing that was common amongst people was their religion; everyone was Christian. Some people believed in different types of Christianity but everyone believed in at least some Christianity. In the Holy Roman Empire, there were many power struggles. Not one ruler had power, or control of their people for a significant amount of time. Since there was never one significant ruler, the Holy Roman Empire couldn’t even be identified by a ruler.

 ** Maximilian I ** In 1493 the ruler of Germany died leaving Maximilian I the next ruler of Germany. Eventually he became the Holy Roman Emperor. In 1949 he led an expedition in the Netherlands where he was up against the rebels of Gelderland. There he made an attack on England so that his son Phillip is formally given the Government. In 1499 Maximilian got involved in a war against the Swiss for not paying taxes to the Italians. However, they were aided by France and defeated the German troops. In September of 1499 they signed a treaty of Basel, confirming their independence from the empire. **Charlemagne** The first emperor that was given the position by a pope is Charlemagne. Before he became the emperor of the Romans, he was the king if the franks. When the Pope, Leo III was attacked by invaders, he went to Charlemagne for help. Charlemagne was able to defend the romans from the invaders and kept the Pope safe under his protection. On Christmas, 800, Charlemagne was crowned the emperor of the Romans and that is when the Holy Roman Empire began. Since Charlemagne had so much power he wanted to make the majority of Europeans to be Christians. Due to the fact that we was a great emperor and planned ahead of time during wars, he was able to conquer the Saxon and Slavs. With them in the rule of Charlemagne he slowly got them to worship monotheism. In 814, Charlemagne died which led to his son Louis I taking over the throne. **Otto I** Also referred by the name Otto the Great, he ruled the Germans and later became the Holy Roman Emperor. He is often referred as the founder of the Holy Roman Empire although; the Pope Leo III gave Charlemagne the position first. When Otto was given the position as emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, Pope John was worried that had too much power. He controlled the Germans, the middle kingdom, and Italy. After hearing the doubts of Pope John he was removed from office and brought in Leo VIII. However, the citizens of Rome didn’t like the decision and thought their independence had been lost. Pope Leo VIII returned his position as a Pope, however, died a year later. After the death of Leo, John became the Pope again. A couple years later he was able to gain diplomatic achievements and married his son with the Byzantium Empire emperor’s daughter, gaining a set alliance. ** Henry III ** He jointly ruled Germany with his father, Conrad II. After his death, Henry became the ruler of the Holy Roman Empire by Pope Clement II. After Clement dies, Henry switches from a lot of different Popes but sticks to Pope is Leo IX. During the summers of 1053, Henry told Leo his Pope, that he had to many wars to worry about and couldn’t support him. So Leo builds his own army and decides to go to war, by oath a Pope should never bare a weapon. However, he led his army at the Battle of Civitate sul Fortore, in 1053. A smaller force of Norman horsemen led by Hunphrey of Hauteville, Count of Apulia and his stepbrother Robert Guiscard defeated him. Though is misfortune has occurred by the end of Henry’s rule, he controlled much of Eastern Europe and Italy while remaining peaceful with Germany. **Major infrastructure** Romans were the first to introduce the idea of paved roads. With theses roads, they were able to trade, share customs, and navigate throughout the empire. During the Holy Roman Empire, major buildings were build that reflected upon their religious views. Two examples of building that were building during the Holy Roman Empire are ST. Mary’s cathedral and St. Michaels Church. Bernward built St. Michaels church during 1010 and 1022. After a fire that brought down the church, St. Mary’s cathedral was built and replicated many pillars that St. Michaels church had. Though there are small churches and cathedrals from the Holy Roman Empire era which still remain throughout Europe, a church that has great significance besides being a church is Aachen Cathedral. Charlemagne started the project of building this church and was buried in there. Still the bones of Charlemagne remain preserved in a shrine. 