Holy Roman Empire Research Paper

Turning back the clocks four hundred years ago and zoom into Europe, there can be found many different small, crowded and somewhat unorganized states and civilizations running about. Some are kingdoms, some are dukedoms, some are neither. A few of these states include Saxony, Franconia, Burgundy, Bavaria, and Austria. These, though, were all vassals of Germanic lands and formed something even greater, and that was the Holy Roman Empire. Though most historians don’t consider it to be very holy, roman, nor an empire, the Holy Roman Empire grew to be one of the most powerful civilizations in Europe during the Middle Ages. The first of the emperors that ruled this vast land was someone named Charlemagne, who was crowned in 800. Charlemagne was originally born into Franconia royalty. His two most wishes were to bring together all estates of Germanic origin into one union and to convert all of Europe to Christianity. When he was crowned king, quoted by History.com, “he conquered the Lombards (in present-day northern Italy), the Avars (in modern-day Austria and Hungary), and Bavaria, among others”. He was crowned the first emperor of the Holy Roman Empire in 800 by Pope Leo III. Over time, Charlemagne was successful in converting all but Saxony over to his kingdom. Saxony was a land of Pagan religion, and they continued to refuse for thirty years. During
The French Revolution was on the rise and the Holy Roman Empire’s government was already failing by the time of the 18th century. Because of the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, it gave the regions of the empire even greater power than it did in the past few centuries. Which this lead to a few states to leave the union, and like mentioned, most politics had given up or just didn’t do their part. This is exactly what happened to emperor Francis II, and was defeated by Napoleon Bonaparte in battle. Officially, the country was dissolved on August 6th,