Evening Republican, Volume 59, Number 60, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 April 1917 — Holy Roman Empire and Germany. [ARTICLE]

Holy Roman Empire and Germany.

The holy Roman empire, which, in the eighteenth century, Voltaire said, was “neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire," is usually dated from the coronation of Charlemagne at Rome by Pope Leo IH in 800, or, more technically, from the revival of this empire by Otho the Great, 962. In theory, it was a continuation of the western empire, overthrown by the invasions of the barbarians in 476, and Charlemagne and his immediate successors thought of themselves as successors of Augustus, Trajan, and Marcus Aurelius, and were crowned as Roman emperors. The disruptio'n of the Frankish empire followed the deposition of Charles the Fat in 887, and, although a few princes held the Imperial title in the Interim, it remained for Otho the Great, crowned emperor of the Romans by Pope John XII, to inaugurate the medieval “Roman empire” of the German nation. ■ .<■: