HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE: The designation of the German-Italian empire established by Otto I., the Saxon king, who was crowned in Rome by Pope John XII. Feb. 2, 962. The "Holy Roman Empire" was at the best an ideal rather than an accomplished fact. The Roman em Origin pire, by reason of its almost world and wide dominion and its tendency under Name. the better rulers to promote universal peace and well-being, had made a great and lasting impression upon the Teutonic peoples, and it was natural that, when the seat of empire had been transferred to the East and when at last the empire had lost its grip upon the great and rapidly developing West, the first western ruler whose dominion seemed to justify imperial preten sions should seek to revive the title of Emperor of the Romans. At the close of the eighth century the authority of the Eastern Empire in Italy had reached the vanishing-point. The Frankish pre decessors of Charlemagne from Clovis onward had professed the Catholic faith and had cooperated with the bishops of Rome in extending the domin ion of the papal church so as to be conterminous with Frankish conquest as the most effective means of civilizing barbarian peoples and reconciling them to Frankish rule. The Lombards held a large part of Italy and imperilled the autonomy of the Church and its authority over what was claimed as the donation of Constantine or the patrimony of Peter (see Papal States). Charlemagne (q.v.) pro tected the Roman See against Lombard aggres sion, received the imperial crown at the hands of the pope, and completed with the Roman See an offensive and defensive alliance; and, while he committed himself to the protection of the Roman Catholic Church and the promotion of its interests throughout his vast domain to the exclusion of all other forms of religion, he entertained no thought of surrendering any part of his monarchical author ity, and to the last legislated as freely in ecclesiastical as in civil matters and required obedience from ecclesiastical no less than from civil functionaries. The empire of Charlemagne came nearer to the realization of the idea of a Holy Roman Empire than did any subsequent imperial administration. The origin of the name is obscure. It is found in no early documents. A certain sanctity was at tached to the old Roman empire whose head was the recipient of divine honors. That it should be applied to the dominion of a Christian sovereign who aspired to universal civil dominion and who professed an earnest desire to bring about the uni versal acceptance of the religion of Christ might have been expected. It is not probable that the idea of the Holy Ro-

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man Empire in its fully developed form was ever conceived or entertained by pope or emperor. Popes and emperors were for the most part practical men who were beset with practical difficulties and who made use of whatever means were

Underlying available for the gaining of practical Ideas. ends. If the pope dreamed of ideal conditions he was sure to conceive of the one holy Catholic Church with its papal head as exercising absolute dominion throughout the whole world and of all civil rulers as yielding willing obedience to the dictates of the head of the Church. If emperors ever idealized, they were sure to think of themselves as exercising universal sway in Church and State alike and of all ecclesiastics with the pope at their head as disinterestedly devoting their energies to the promotion of universal peace and obedience to the imperial will. Who first conceived the idea of a Holy Catholic Church and a Holy Roman Empire, both world-wide in extent, the Church with the pope at its head beneficently ruling a unified and willingly obedient Christian world and supported in its work by a unified and harmonious civil world-administration; and the empire with undisputed dominion ruling the world in righteousness with the interests of the Church a supreme object of endeavor, the pope giving unstinted support to the civil administration without infringing upon its functions; the emperor being single-minded in his devotion to spiritual interests without wishing in any way to interfere with the spiritual administration, does not appear. The sanctity of the old Roman Empire and the "eternal city" and of the Catholic Church now identified with the kingdom of God on earth and having the eternal city as its administrative center was in a sense conferred upon the German princes through the bestowal of the imperial crown. Yet nothing could be further removed from sanctity than the motives of John XII. in bestowing, and Otto I. in receiving, the imperial crown, as was manifest in the deposition of the profligate youth who held the papal office by the ambitious and selfish Saxon chieftain whom he had crowned and the excommunication of the emperor by the pope who sought the aid of Magyars and Saracens against his imperial foe. The almost continuous conflict between popes and emperors during the Middle Ages illustrated by the prolonged and .unrelenting hostilities between Gregory VII. and Henry IV., Alexander III. and Frederick I., Innocent III. and his three successors and Frederick II., shows that the ideal of the Holy Catholic Church and the Holy Roman Empire utterly failed of realization.

During the earlier time the imperial office was practically hereditary, but owing to the lack of centralized administrative machinery, occasional failures in male heirs to the throne, the disposition of the popes to interfere in favor of

Succession rivals ready to pledge themselves to to the greater subserviency' the growth of

Throne. the idea of the holiness and universal ity of the office, the elective principle finally prevailed. Theoretically, the entire body of freemen were supposed to be the electors, but, as no provision was made for the exercise of the ballot, it devolved upon the leaders to vote for the people. The tradition that Gregory V. (998-99) and Otto III. arranged that the electoral function should be limited to seven princes is not confirmed by contemporaFy documents. In 1125 I,otbair II. was nominated by a small number of nobles and then or not long afterward the number seven was fixed upon for the electors and came to have a sacred significance. Urban IV. (1263) speaks of the choosing of the emperor by seven electors as a matter of immemorial custom. The electoral dignity at that time belonged to the archbishoprics of Mainz, Treves, and Cologne, and to four secular princes. There was much dispute as to which of the nobles should be electors. The Golden Bull (1356) fixed upon the king of Bohemia, the count palatine, the duke of Saxony, and the margrave of Brandenburg. Frankfort was agreed upon as the place for the assembly of the electoral college and the archbishop of Mains as the convener. This arrangement remained in force until the Thirty Years' War, when (1621) the Count Palatine was deprived of his eieotorship in favor of the duke of Bavaria. The peace of Westphalia (see Westphalia, Peace of) restored the palatine electorship without annulling that of the duke of Bavaria. In 1692 the house of Brunswick-Lilneburg was given an electorate.

The imperial dignity was retained by the house of Saxony from 962 to 1138 (the Salic line from 1024), the Hohenstaufen from 1138 to 12'73, the HapebUrgers 1273-92, 1298-1308, 1438-1742, and 1765-1806. During the earlier centuries of the modern period the house of Hapsburg represented the greatest aggregation of power in Europe. The Holy Roman Empire consistently opposed the Protestant Reformation, yet Luther's reverence for it as an ancient and legitimate institution was so great that to the end of his life he discouraged his followers from taking up arms against it and predicted calamity in case his counsel should be unheeded. The hostility of France to the imperial house of Hapsburg on several occasions saved the Protestants from destruction (as in the Smalkald War, Thirty Years' War, etc.). The empire ended as a result of the Napoleonic conquest (1806).

A. H. NEWMAN.