At the time of its dissolution it consisted of its core German territories and smaller parts of France, Italy, Poland, Croatia, Belgium, and the Netherlands. No law required him to be a Catholic, but as the majority of the Electors adhered to this faith, no Protestant was ever elected. In 1282, Rudolf I thus lent Austria and Styria to his own sons. Was the King of Bohemia entitled to change his vote, or was the election complete when four electors had chosen a king?

Pepin's son, Charlemagne, made a number of expeditions to Italy to protect papal interests. Emperors continued to be crowned by the pope until after the coronation (1530) of Charles V. Thereafter, following the precedent (1508) of Maximilian I, they were crowned at Frankfurt. In a reign of thirty-eight years Frederick, known also as Frederick Barbarossa, asserts his authority throughout Germany and extends imperial power into Bohemia, Poland and Hungary.

As part of the Imperial Reform, six Imperial Circles were established in 1500; four more were established in 1512. The death (1740) of Charles VICharles VI,1685–1740, Holy Roman emperor (1711–40), king of Bohemia (1711–40) and, as Charles III, king of Hungary (1712–40); brother and successor of Holy Roman Emperor Joseph I. Charles was the last Holy Roman emperor of the direct Hapsburg line...... Click the link for more information. At the end of the 15th and beginning of the 16th centuries, an imperial tax was introduced, and more effectual central institutions were formed, but all attempts at imperial reform were ultimately in vain. Adolf Hitler called his regime the Third Reich. The 1232 document marked the first time that the German dukes were called domini terræ, owners of their lands, a remarkable change in terminology as well. Frederick, the builder of the castle, is a faithful follower of the emperor Henry IV. He is considered the first non-Roman to ever have ruled all of Italy). From the East Franks to the Investiture Controversy, Rise of the territories after the Staufen, thus, the spiritual and the temporal were equal and symbolically the Caliph represented both, The Pope claimed to be temporal and spiritual leader, delegating temporal leadership to the Emperor, spiritual to the Bishops as Lords-spiritual.

The coronation of Otto I by Pope John XII in 962 marks a revival of the concept of a Christian emperor in the west. Futile armed intervention against the French Revolution constituted the last important venture of the empire in European politics.

He summons a council which deposes the pope and elects in his place the archbishop of Ravenna (as pope Clement III). General Character of the WarThere were many territorial, dynastic, and religious issues that figured in the outbreak and conduct of the war...... Click the link for more information. He failed to come and the nobles thereupon declared him guilty and took from him everything that he had, except the lands he had inherited from his father. At this time, many local dukes saw it as a chance to oppose the hegemony of Emperor Charles V. The empire then became fatally divided along religious lines, with the north, the east, and many of the major cities – Strasbourg, Frankfurt, and Nuremberg – becoming Protestant while the southern and western regions largely remained Catholic. This process began in the twelfth century and was more or less concluded with the 1648 Peace of Westphalia. But he dies shortly afterwards, in 1197, when his son Frederick is just three years old. Henry added the Norman kingdom of Sicily to his domains, held English king Richard the Lionheart captive, and aimed to establish a hereditary monarchy when he died in 1197. After Charlemagne died in 814, the imperial crown passed to his son, Louis the Pious. Constance of Sicily had been in her own right queen of Sicily; she had Frederick made King of Sicily and established herself as regent. After the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, which gave the territories almost complete sovereignty, even allowing them to form independent alliances with other states, the Empire was only a mere conglomeration of largely independent states. The nearest kinsmen of Henry V were his Hohenstaufen nephews—Frederick, duke of Swabia, and his younger brother Conrad—the sons of Henry’s sister Agnes and Frederick, the first Hohenstaufen duke of Swabia. In 1806 Francis formally abolishes the Holy Roman Empire.

But he dies shortly afterwards, in 1197, when his son Frederick is just three years old. The glory of the Empire almost collapsed in the Investiture Controversy, in which Pope Gregory VII declared a ban on King Henry IV (king 1056, Emperor 1084–1106). He lavishly spread French money in the hope of bribing the German electors. The title was revived again in 962 when Otto I, King of Germany, was crowned emperor, fashioning himself as the successor of Charlemagne[10] and beginning a continuous existence of the empire for over eight centuries. Contradicting the traditional view concerning that designation, Hermann Weisert has argued in a study on imperial titulature that, despite the claims of many textbooks, the name "Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation" never had an official status and points out that documents were thirty times as likely to omit the national suffix as include it. The founder of the line was the count Frederick (died 1105), who built Staufen Castle in the Swabian Jura Mountains and was rewarded for his fidelity to Emperor Henry IV by being appointed duke of Swabia as Frederick I in 1079. Instead, Henry VII, of the House of Luxembourg, was elected with six votes at Frankfurt on 27 November 1308.