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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 April 2017
Few institutions have possessed as enduring importance in Europe's history as the Holy Roman Empire. Dating its foundation to Charlemagne's coronation in 800, it survived for a millennium, being dissolved only in 1806 in the face of the overwhelming threat from Napoleonic imperialism. Its geographical extent was equally remarkable: at its peak, imperial territory stretched eastward from the North Sea as far as Poland, and southward from the shores of the Baltic deep into the Italian Peninsula. Around 1800, shortly before its nemesis, the Empire was Europe's second largest polity, with a territorial area of around 687,000 square kilometers. It was eclipsed only by Russia, which during the later-seventeenth and eighteenth century had expanded spectacularly. Its population too was impressive: with around twenty-nine million inhabitants, its only rivals were France and Russia. Claiming descent from ancient Rome, the Empire long embodied the idea of a unified Christendom, while its defensive role against Ottoman expansion from the late fifteenth century onward sustained its religious mission even after the Protestant Reformation. Yet it is often squeezed out of accounts of Europe's past, an exclusion which is particularly evident for the early modern centuries.
1 I am grateful to Professor Thomas Munck for his helpful comments on a draft of this review essay, though the views expressed are entirely my own.
2 Schröder, Peter, “The Constitution of the Holy Roman Empire after 1648: Samuel Pufendorf's Assessment in his Monzambano ,” Historical Journal 42 (1999): 961–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
3 Aretin, Karl Otmar von, Heiliges Römisches Reich 1776–1806: Reichsverfassung und Staatssouveränität, 2 vols. (Wiesbaden, 1967)Google Scholar.
4 Press, Volker, Kriege und Krisen: Deutschland 1600–1725 (Munich, 1991)Google Scholar; Press, Volker and Stievermann, Dieter, eds., Alternativen zur Reichsverfassung in der Frühen Neuzeit (Munich, 1995)Google Scholar; together with two edited collections of Press's articles that were published after his early death: Das Alte Reich: Ausgewählte Aufsätze ed. Johannes Kunisch (Berlin, 1997) and Adel im Alten Reich: Gesammelte Vorträge und Aufsätze ed. Franz Brendle and Anton Schindling (Tübingen, 1998). An article published jointly by the influential historian of late medieval Germany, Peter Moraw, and Volker Press in 1975 provided a programmatic statement of this new approach: “Probleme der Sozial- und Verfassungsgeschichte des Heiligen Römischen Reiches im späten Mittelalter und in der frühen Neuzeit (13.–18. Jahrhundert): Zu einem Forschungsschwerpunkt,” Zeitschrift für Historische Forschung 2 (1975): 95–108; this is conveniently reprinted in Press, Das Alte Reich, 3–17.
5 Wilson, Peter H., “Still a Monstrosity?: Some Reflections on Early Modern German Statehood,” Historical Journal 49 (2006): 565–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar, is a helpful guide and the basis of this and the following paragraph; see also the same author's The Holy Roman Empire 1495–1806 (1999; repr. Basingstoke, 2011), esp. chapter 1.
6 An approach championed by Peter-Claus Hartmann in particular: see especially his Kulturgeschichte des Heiligen Römischen Reiches 1648–1806 (Vienna, 2001).
7 The most important advocate is Neuhaus, Helmut: see his “The Federal Principle and the Holy Roman Empire,” in German and American Constitutional Thought, ed. Wellenreuther, Hermann (New York, 1990), 27–49 Google Scholar; see also Umbach, Maiken, Federalism and Enlightenment in Germany, 1740–1806 (London, 2000)Google Scholar, and Umbach, ed., German Federalism: Past, Present and Future (Basingstoke, 2002).
8 The most extended statement of his views is Schmidt, Geschichte des Alten Reiches: Staat und Nation in der Frühen Neuzeit, 1495–1806 (Munich, 1999), though in more recent iterations of his thesis he has given even more emphasis to the national dimension. There is a recent English summary of his arguments in “The Old Reich: The State and Nation of the Germans,” in The Holy Roman Empire, 1495–1806, eds. R.J.W. Evans, Michael Schaich, and Peter H. Wilson (London and Oxford, 2011), 43–62.
9 Stollberg-Rilinger, Barbara, Des Kaisers alte Kleider: Verfassungsgeschichte und Symbolsprache des Alten Reiches (Munich, 2008)Google Scholar.
10 Heer, Friedrich, The Holy Roman Empire (London, 1968)Google Scholar; Bryce, James Viscount, The Holy Roman Empire (London, 1864; many subsequent editions; it was last reprinted as recently as 1968)Google Scholar.
11 Brady, Thomas A. Jr., German Histories in the Age of Reformations, 1400–1650 (Cambridge, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Scales, Len, The Shaping of German Identity: Authority and Crisis, 1245–1414 (Cambridge, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also earlier, Brady's Turning Swiss: Cities and Empire 1450–1550 (Cambridge, 1985)Google Scholar.
12 Whaley, Joachim, Germany and the Holy Roman Empire, vol. 1: Maximilian I to the Peace of Westphalia 1493–1648; vol. 2: The Peace of Westphalia to the Dissolution of the Reich 1648–1806 (2 vols.; Oxford, 2012)Google Scholar; Evans, Schaich, and Wilson, eds., The Holy Roman Empire, 1495–1806 (London, 2011); Evans, R.J.W. and Wilson, Peter H., eds., The Holy Roman Empire, 1495–1806; A European Perspective (Leiden, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar: these two collected volumes were reviewed ante 45 (2014), 244–46. See also Coy, Jason Philip, Marschke, Benjamin, and Sabean, David Warren, eds., The Holy Roman Empire, Reconsidered (New York and Oxford, 2010)Google Scholar, an important collection of essays by scholars based in Germany and the U.S.A., who champion a more purely cultural approach and view the Empire as a system of communication.
13 Notably in his War, State and Society in Württemberg, 1677–1793 (Cambridge, 1995); German Armies: War and German Politics, 1648–1806 (London, 1998); From Reich to Revolution: German History, 1558–1806 (2004; repr. London, 2011); and The Thirty Years War: Europe's Tragedy (Cambridge, 2009).
14 See also the fuller account by Wilson, Peter H., “Imperial Defence: Integration through Military Cooperation,” in Die deutsche Nation im frühneuzeitlichen Europa: Politische Ordnung und kulturelle Identität?, eds. Schmidt, Georg and Müller-Luckner, Elisabeth (Munich, 2010), 15–34 Google Scholar.
15 See esp. Wilson, “Imperial Defence” and German Armies.