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Vandelay

Vandelay

CEO Vandelay Industries
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Feb 13, 2001
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Any Saturday Night Live fans out there?

'The Holy Roman Empire was neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire - Discuss!!!'

In my arrogance I've always thought that this joke went a little over the head for tyhe typical SNL audience.

/Vandelay
 
Nope, it was neither, but at leat it was Germanic... except in Northern Italy. :D

The complete name of the HRE should be the Holy Roman Germanic Empire... but for gaming purpose they sacrificed the G-word. :)

Drakken
 
And the emperors concentrated their affairs on Italy, totally forgetting they had to rule Germany as well. That gave the local nobles some freedom and decreaced power of the emperor. And that made emperor weak and princes strong. And that lead to different small countries anywhere in germany. Bad thing it was.
And wasn't it Holy Roman Emprire of German people or something?
Never understood it? Why to go to Italy anyway??? Wine is much better, but the walks to Canossa must be pretty tireing and embarrasing.
 
Charlemagne divided his empire in 3 parts. The main part, in the middle, was incluing important part of Italian peninsula and great part of eastern germany, Lowlands, western France. Maybe the desire of Frederic Barberousse and his successor was to form the same (junction of german and italian worlds) with an important extension in eastern germany.

It is not a theory, just a thought I had. I am maybe totally wrong.

R.F.
 
What to Call the HRE?

Actually, nobody referred to the HRE as the Holy Roman Empire until very late in the period of the game. It was simply 'The Empire' (just as New Yorkers refer the 'The City')- everyone knew what you meant. Historians glommed onto the HRE tag as a way to differentiate it from the other empires like the Byzantines, Ottomans, Russians, et al.

The name 'Holy Roman' was a selection from the long title of the Emperor himself. If it weren't for Voltaire's cynical assertion that the HRE was neither holy nor Roman nor an empire, we would have dispensed with the name long ago. Most modern historians of the medieval period have in fact done so: if they don't simply call it the Empire, they refer to it as the Medieval Empire, to differentiate it from any others.

The title 'Holy Roman Empire of the German (or Teutonic) Nation' was an early 19th century interpolation by German Nationalists, who wished to stress the Germanicity of the Empire - seeing it as a prefigurement of the unification of Germany for which they were proseletyzing.

At least, that's what I recall Herr Doktor Sommerfeldt telling me in Medieval Germany classes as an undergraduate almost 20 years ago. I knew that History degree would come in handy sometime... ;)
 
Why Italy?

Originally posted by hjarg
Never understood it? Why to go to Italy anyway??? Wine is much better, but the walks to Canossa must be pretty tireing and embarrasing.
Click to expand...

Less Serious:
The wine is better? I guess I disagree. I have a weakness for German whites, particularly from the Mosel region. Of course finding decent German wine in the US is hard, so I should probably plan another trip.

More Serious:
Italy in general and Rome in particular was considered the center of the world. It was the source of religious authority as well as the origin point for the last large scale political structure, the Roman Empire. For an Empire seeking to restore the glories of the Roman Empire it seemed obvious to head there. Probably a little less obvious now, after the rise in power and influence that occurred in Northern and Western Europe during the next few centuries.
 
Re: Why Italy?

Originally posted by frunk
Italy in general and Rome in particular was considered the center of the world. It was the source of religious authority as well as the origin point for the last large scale political structure, the Roman Empire.
Click to expand...

If they were smart, they'd just set up their own popes farther north. It worked great for France.

What's German for 'Anti-Pope' anyway?
 
Re: What to Call the HRE?

Originally posted by Misha
The title 'Holy Roman Empire of the German (or Teutonic) Nation' was an early 19th century interpolation by German Nationalists, who wished to stress the Germanicity of the Empire - seeing it as a prefigurement of the unification of Germany for which they were proseletyzing.
Click to expand...

I believe the Nazis considered HRE the First Reich, the German Empire founded in 1871 by Wilhelm I the Second, and called their own the Third.
 
Another two good reasons for going to Italy were:
1) to be crowned by the Pope
2) because Italy was extremely wealthy, both by way of domination of Mediterranean trade for much of the period, and by way of manufacture of top quality cloth of many different kinds (Lucca velvet for example).
 
Also, some of the Emperors were of Italian descent (ie, their mothers were
from Italian aristocratic families), and some grew up in Italy. If I am not
mistaken, some of the medieval Popes called upon the Emperor for support
against the Byzantines, Moslems, and Vikings in S. Italy.
 
The HRE was a holy roman empire. Charlemagne was crowned by the pope as were his successors and one of their titles was the protestor of the true faith or something like that.

The reason they frequently had wars in Italy was that some emperors (like Frederick II) posessed the kingdom of Sicily and also had frequent quarrels with the pope on the subject of who controlled the appointments of bishops in Germany. This would result in Fredericks going to Canossa (which I think is also in Italy)
 
This would result in Fredericks going to Canossa (which I think is also in Italy)
Click to expand...

Actually, Fredericks have never gone to Canossa - it was Henry IV. :rolleyes:

As far as the HRE goes, in the end of 15th century (when EU timeline starts) it has practically lost its Italian connection (Italy started to be an arena of French and Spanish influence), and functioned as some sort of loose confederation of German states (with electors being all German secular and church princes).
If I remember my history lessons correctly, the title of HR Emperor had no longer any real value outside of Germany - that is why somewhere in the 15th or 16th century they stopped using the Holy Roman Empire name and started to use the Holy Roman Empire of German People name. The Habsburgs held the title ever since, until the Napoleonian wars, when after loosing to Napoleon, the Emperor has agreed to resign from his title and accept the "Emperor of Austria" instead.
 
Originally posted by Vandelay
Any Saturday Night Live fans out there?

'The Holy Roman Empire was neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire - Discuss!!!'

In my arrogance I've always thought that this joke went a little over the head for tyhe typical SNL audience.

/Vandelay
Click to expand...

Quip by Voltaire, right?
 
Mike Myers in drag as a Jewish upper class woman who always gave her audience a topic for duscussion when she was feeling "verklempt".

She always got verklempt when she thought of Boarbara.

/Vandelay
 
IMHO

The Empire was not Holy, because it had (in the time of Voltaire) lots of protestant inhabitants (not to mention electors)

The Empire was not Roman, because it had nothing in commom with the Roman Empire, of which it was supposed to be a continuation.

The Empire was not an Empire, because the Emperor (or the Diet) had no real power (once again, in Voltaire's time), ie. the new Emperor had to affirm the Germanic Liberties before he could be crowned, and the peace of Westphalia destroyed any hope for the Habsburgs to centralize their empire.

One of the many interesting things about the period 1492-1792 is that the Habsburgs had to change the main foundations of their power, and succeeded to do so. The Empire lost it's value in 1648 (Westphalia) and the connection with Spain lost it's value after the Spanish empire declined and the Bourbons became kings of Spain.
 
And the reason the Empire ended is cuz the German people didn't want Napoleon to grab his hands on the title of "Holy Roman Emperor." No way could a Frenchman rule Germans. Maybe they should have let Napoleon rule 'em. Might have saved them some trouble later on when it came to the World Wars.
 
Originally posted by Sumer
And the reason the Empire ended is cuz the German people didn't want Napoleon to grab his hands on the title of "Holy Roman Emperor." No way could a Frenchman rule Germans. Maybe they should have let Napoleon rule 'em. Might have saved them some trouble later on when it came to the World Wars.
Click to expand...


Actually, Napoleon reorganized a lot of the HRE, merging tons of tiny independant states in more important ones.


Also, not only HRE made a lot of wars in Italy, but during the medieval period, a lot of them had few to none interest in german affairs, and actually lived in Italy (Sicily, for instance). As someone pointed out, this lack of interest resulted in the long run in the patchwork of states we see in EU (and there was actually much more states in Germany) instead of the centralized french kingdom, which originally was in the same situation (or possibly even in a worse situation)than Germany. But the french kings only thought about vacations in Italy when the work has been done (i.e. at the beginning of EU period).
 
Hmmm

I think the HRE was called "roman" because Charlemagne saw himself as a descendant of the roman emperors....
That's also the reason, that the emperor of bycantine was against a west-roman emperor...
 
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