Holy Roman Empire

noun

1. a Germanic empire located chiefly in central Europe that began with the coronation of Charlemagne as Roman emperor in a.d. 800 (or, according to some historians, with the coronation of Otto the Great, king of Germany, in a.d. 962) and ended with the renunciation of the Roman imperial title by Francis II in 1806, and was regarded theoretically as the continuation of the Western Empire and as the temporal form of a universal dominion whose spiritual head was the pope.

Holy Roman Empire

noun

1. the complex of European territories under the rule of the Frankish or German king who bore the title of Roman emperor, beginning with the coronation of Charlemagne in 800 ad . The last emperor, Francis II, relinquished his crown in 1806

Holy Roman Empire

1. A major political institution in Europe that lasted from the ninth to the nineteenth centuries. It was loosely organized and modeled somewhat on the ancient Roman Empire . It included great amounts of territory in the central and western parts of Europe. Charlemagne was its first emperor. In later years, the emperors were Germans and Austrians. The empire declined greatly in power after the sixteenth century.

Notes

The eighteenth-century French author Voltaire once wrote that the Holy Roman Empire was “neither holy, Roman, nor an empire.”

Example Sentences

The Holy Roman Empire had seven electors: Three were members of the Catholic Church and four were significant members of the nobility.

From Salon

The Holy Roman Empire was a loose confederation of territories that existed in central Europe from 962 to 1806.

From Salon

James Madison, who was not fond of the Holy Roman Empire’s use of an electoral college, later recalled that the final decision on how to elect a U.S. president “was produced by fatigue and impatience.”

From Salon

As one example, during the 16th and 17th centuries the Free Imperial City of Nuremberg — the most powerful and culturally important city-state in the Holy Roman Empire — regularly experienced intense floods, one of the harshest aspects of life in a society otherwise flourishing due to the German Renaissance.

From Salon

In the spectacular Santa Maria dell’Anima, once the church of the Holy Roman Empire, he visited the relics of his distant relative Karl 1, the beatified Habsburg emperor, whom he reveres as the consummate family man and “really quite a star in our family.”

From New York Times