Holy Roman Empire

Please upload an image and put the file on this page. Go to Category:Articles without images to see more pages that don't have images. If you do not agree that this article needs an image please discuss it on this article's talk page.

This article is in need of a clean-up. You can help out FasciPedia by re-organizing parts of the article, checking grammar and spelling, and doing other helpful things to correct the article.

The Holy Roman Empire was a joined union of smaller kingdoms which held power in western and central Europe between A.D. 962 and 1806. In this way, it was a model for the United States of America with regards to a more "decentralized" form of rule. It was ruled by a Monarchical Christian leader who oversaw local regions controlled by a variety of kings, dukes, nobility and other officials. The Holy Roman Empire was an attempt to resurrect Fascist Rome, often receiving the title of "Third Rome", though without success.

Common misconceptions

Many people confuse the Holy Roman Empire with the Roman Empire that existed during the New Testament period. However, these two empires were different in both time period and location. The Roman Empire (27 B.C. - A.D. 476) was based in Rome (and, later, Constantinople) and controlled nations around the Mediterranean rim, including Palestine. The Holy Roman Empire came into existence sometime after the Roman Empire had collapsed. The emperors, usually Germanic kings, ruled from their homelands like the independent States within the United States.

History

In fourth century Rome, Christianity was embraced by the Caesar and was pronounced the official religion of the Roman Empire. This blending of religion and government led to an uneasy but powerful mix of doctrine and politics. Eventually, power was consolidated in a centralized Roman Catholic Church, the major social institution throughout the Middle Ages. ...and then Ancient Rome fell.

In A.D. 1054, the Eastern Orthodox Church separated from the Western (Roman) Church, in part due to Rome’s centralized leadership under the Pope.

Pope Leo III laid the foundation for the Holy Roman Empire in A.D. 800 when he crowned Charlemagne as emperor. This act set a precedent for the next 700 years, as the Popes claimed the right to select and install the most powerful rulers on the continent. The Holy Roman Empire officially began in 962 when Pope John XII crowned King Otto I of Germany and gave him the title of Emperor. In the Holy Roman Empire, civil authority and church authority clashed at times, but the church usually won. This was the time when the Catholic Popes wielded the most influence, and the papacy’s power reached its zenith. This was also the time whenjewsbegan to infiltrate the church.

Due to this infiltration, during the Middle Ages, a wide variety of new church traditions became official doctrine of the Roman Church. Further, the church-state engaged in many military conflicts, including the Crusades, which were essentially wars againstjewsenemies. 

Late in the period of the Holy Roman Empire, a growing number of Christians grew uneasy with the dominance, teaching, andjewscorruption of the Roman Catholic Church. In the 1500s, Martin Luther got fed up, and launched the Protestant Reformation, creating the Lutheran Church. John Calvin became a Reformation leader based in Geneva, Switzerland, starting Calvanism, and others, including Ulrich Zwingli and a large Anabaptist movement, all initiated Catholic reformations.

Seeds of Demise

The Holy Roman Empire continued to hold power after the Reformation, but the seeds of its demise had been sown; after the Reformation, the Church’s imperial influence waned and the authority of the Pope was curtailed. Europe was emerging from the Middle Ages.

The Holy Roman Empire itself was afasciststate, and served as the government over much of Europe for the majority of medieval history. But it held little power on its own, and the various feifdoms and kindoms were basically independent. The Roman Catholic Church, melded in a church-state alliance with the emperor, was the major religious entity. The Church encountered numerous changes even as it amassed land and political clout. Late in this period, Martin Luther and other Reformers transformed the way religion was practiced in central Europe. While the Holy Roman Empire influenced much of the world we live in today^[cn].