The Holy Roman Empire (Empires in the Middle Ages)
A modern photograph of Istanbul includes the iconic Galata Tower built by the Genoese in 1348 with the Bosphorus Strait visible in the foreground any claim to universal authority was the pope in Rome but legally he was the bishop of Rome confirmed in his position by the Byzantine emperor By the eighth century Byzantine control of Italy had vanished The Lombard kingdom of northern Italy had driven out the emperor’s representative in Ravenna in 751 There were also strong religious differences between the pope and the church in Constantinople differences that would lead to a com plete break in 1054 Confronted with this situation the Roman popes sought political protection from the only 6 the holy roman empire
Pippin the Short in a nineteenth-century chromolithograph 7 introduCtion
people who would give it the kings of the Franks the strongest power north of the Alps In 754 Frankish king Pippin the Short invaded Italy and conquered the Lombard kingdom Two years later Pippin assigned the former Byzantine territory around Ravenna to the pope creating the Papal States of Italy which would endure until the unification of Italy in the nineteenth century The close cooperation between popes and the Frankish kings had far-reaching consequences It laid the basis for centuries of conflict between emperors and popes over who had the supreme authority in Europe According to the popes the empire was the political arm of the church The emperors however saw them selves as directly responsible to God and they relied solely on conquest and control for their power 8 the holy roman empire
CHARLEMAGNE’S EMPIRE There is little doubt that the popes hoped to become the successors of the emperors in the West Since this was politically impossible the next best solution was to assert religious control by means of political institutions On December 25 800 Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne emperor during a service at St Peter’s Basilica in Rome It had been expected that the pope would consecrate Charlemagne’s son as king but as Charlemagne him self rose from prayer Leo placed a crown on his head and the assembled Romans acclaimed him as emperor But the one thousand years of tumult in store for the Holy Roman Empire was almost cut to a fraction of that length In 806 Charlemagne made arrangements to divide his territories among his three sons One has to wonder whether the Holy Roman Empire would have survived even past Charlemagne’s lifetime if two of the emperor’s sons had not died before him leaving 9 Chapter 1
