Tags
Carolingian Empire, Charlemagne, Charles the Bald, Emperor Lothair, German Empire, German lands, Holy Roman Empire, Lotharingia, Louis the german, Louis the Pious
As I have shown, there is a great precedence for monarchs of certain geographical regions to maintain a certain ordinal system despite there being a change in the status or name of the State within those geographical regions.
The German lands are this final example. Over German lands we have seen a Kingdom of the Franks, the Carolingian Empire, the Kingdom of East Francia, Kingdom of Germany, the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation.
Prior to the creation of the German Empire there was the German Confederation which was an association of 39 predominantly German-speaking sovereign states in Central Europe. It was created by the Congress of Vienna in 1815 as a replacement of the former Holy Roman Empire, which had been dissolved in 1806.
After the German Confederation came the creation of the German Empire, also referred to as Imperial Germany, the Second Reich or simply Germany, and it was the period of the German Reich from the unification of Germany in 1871 until the November Revolution in 1918, when the German Reich changed its form of government from a Monarchy to a Republic.
The German Empire was forged by a series of wars under Prussian Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. After Austria was excluded Bismark united the remnants of the German Confederation into the German Empire under Prussian and Hohenzollern hedgomony.
The Imperial Title in what would become German lands began on Christmas Day 800 when Charles I the Great, King of the Franks (Charlemagne) knelt at the altar to pray, Pope Leo III crowned him Imperator Romanorum (“Emperor of the Romans”) in Saint Peter’s Basilica. By doing this the Pope effectively restarted the Roman Empire in Western Europe and nullified the legitimacy of Empress Irene of Constantinople.
Pope Leo III had been accused by his enemies of adultery and perjury and beaten and Charlemagne was his protector and for this Charlemagne was rewarded for his service with the Imperial Title.
Many historians, myself included, do not view the coronation of Charlemagne as Emperor as the start of the Holy Roman Empire. Most historians refer to this Empire as the Carolingian Empire. This Empire was passed on to Charlemagne’s only surviving son, Louis the Pious, who held the Imperial title until his death in 840.
Louis the Pious passed this Empire on to his three sons who after a civil war resulted in the Treaty of Verdun of 843. This divided the Empire into three kingdoms: the kin dom of West Francia, ruled by King Charles the bald, and Middle Francia, later known as Lotharingia, and ruled by Emperor Lothair I, and finally, East Francia was ruled by King Louis II the German.
It was the Kingdom of East Francia which formed the core of what later became the Holy Roman Empire. This Empire is seen as having had its start with the Coronation of King Otto I the Great of East Francia by Pope John XII on February 2, 962.
Now despite there being a distinction between the Carolingian Empire and the Holy Roman Empire, the granting of the ordinal numbers of it monarchs do begin with Charlemagne. In other words, Charlemagne is reckoned as Holy Roman Emperor Charles I.
Technically he was not the Holy Roman Emperor. If you want to go even further with technicalities, no Emperor held the title “Holy Roman Emperor” they all held the same title as Charlemagne, Imperator Romanorum (“Emperor of the Romans”).
This can be confusing, although the Carolingian Empire and the Holy Roman Empire were technically different states, the monarchs of each realm held the exact same title.