Talk:List of Holy Roman Emperors

Unlike List of German Kings and Emperors, this list follows strictly on the crown of Holy Roman Emperor. This is free from geographic restriction but pre-Maximilian entrants must be crowned by the pope to qualify on this list so no pretenders/rivals etc. ArticleCreator67.49.149.91 6 July 2005 13:38 (UTC)


 * Thank you for doing this, and for adding articles for those 10th century emperors (like Guy of Spoleto) who have been gaps in the sequence. This has been on my wikipedia to-do list for some time, but I've never had a chance to do it -- glad to see the work done so skillfully! --Jfruh 7 July 2005 13:49 (UTC)

Text from deleted Category:Holy Roman Emperors has been merged here per pCategories for deletion/Log/2006 May 22. Authors: Mapgaret, ProveIt, CmdrObot. Conscious 05:54, 31 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Uh, it would have been nice to invite people intereseted in this page into the discussion aabove. As it is, I don't see how this enormous and laregely unintelligible geneaology belongs in a list of Holy Roman Emperors. --Jfruh (talk) 12:25, 31 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I've removed it. It was originally added to the Category page by User:Mapgaret, who appears to be a newbie. Choess 21:44, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Emperor-elect
Str, do you have anything to back up the claim that Charles was not called Emperor elect from 1519-1530? I'm pretty sure I've seen that he was so-called, and my understanding was that the pope granted the right to use this title on Maximilian and his successors, not just as a personal title for Maximilian. Why would Charles accept a lesser title than that held by his grandfather? I've certainly never heard him referred to as "king" during this period - he is always "the Emperor."

Here's what François Velde's normally reliable Heraldica site has to say on the matter:


 * Throughout the Middle Ages, the convention was that the (elected) king of Germany (a kingdom formed by the division of the empire in 843 and the separation of the western Franconian kingdom in 888) was also Emperor of the Romans. His title was royal (king of the Germans, or from 1237 king of the Romans) from his election to his coronation in Rome by the pope; thereafter, he was emperor. After the death of Frederic II in 1250, however, formal coronation by the pope happened less frequently: Henry VII in 1312, Charles IV in 1355, Sigismund in 1433, Frederick III in 1452, Charles V in 1530. The title of "king of the Romans" became less and less reserved for the emperor-elect but uncrowned in Rome; the emperor-elect was either known as German king or simply styled himself "imperator" (see the example of Ludwig IV below). The reign was dated to begin either from the day of election (Philipp, Rudolf of Habsburg) or the day of the coronation (Otto IV, Heinrich VII, Ludwig IV, Karl IV). The election day became the starting date permanently with Siegmund.


 * Ultimately, Maximilian I changed the style of the emperor in 1508, with papal approval: after his German coronation, his style was Dei gratia Romanorum imperator electus semper augustus. That is, he was "emperor elect": a term that did not imply that he was emperor-in-waiting or not yet fully emperor, but only that he was emperor by virtue of the election rather than papal coronation (by tradition, the style of rex Romanorum electus was retained between the election and the German coronation). At the same time,  the custom of having the heir-apparent elected as king of the Romans in the emperor's lifetime resumed. For this reason, the title king of the Romans (Rex Romanorum, sometimes king of the Germans or Rex Teutonicorum) came to mean heir-apparent, the successor elected while the emperor was still alive. 

This rather strongly suggests that Charles V was always called Emperor, which jibes with everything I've ever read on the subject. Do you have any evidence to suggest otherwise? john k 23:23, 12 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Actually, I question whether the "Emperor elect" parentheticals are necessary at all. We discuss the situation in fair depth in the intro. --Jfruh (talk) 03:51, 13 July 2006 (UTC)


 * John,
 * my reasoníng behind removing the EE in Charles' case was that Charles was the last "old style" Emperor and the EE had not yet achieved the standard usage it acquired later. In Maximilian's case it was a title born out of need, as he couldn't reach Rome for his coronation. In Charles' case, EE is not so much a title but a description of where he's going - just as we have "Imperator futurus" in other cases (e.g. Henry IV). Nevertheless I will accept it now, if we do not merge the EE with the actual Emperor - so Charles was EE until 1530, and Emperor after 1530.
 * And no, Jfruh, I think for accuracy's sake we should include the EE notes. Str1977 (smile back) 06:25, 13 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Can you explain how having EE notes for each emperor to which the term applies makes things more "accurate"? Is the text at the beginning of the article "innaccurate"?  To my eye it says exactly what the parenthetical does -- that all the emperors after Charles V were EE.  I just think the parenthteticals make the list cluttered and messy looking.  If nothing else, maybe the note on Ferdinand I should say "this and all other emperors were emperors-elect" or some such. --Jfruh (talk) 12:30, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * It makes it more accurate as it shows that these were not crowned Emperor, but strictly speaking only Emperor Elect. And I don't think it clutters the list that much. Str1977 (smile back) 12:38, 13 July 2006 (UTC)


 * It makes it more explicit. And cluttered.  All of this information is covered, accurately, in the info.  There was nothing inaccurate about the pre-parenthetical version of the list. --Jfruh (talk) 12:50, 13 July 2006 (UTC)


 * We could also create a sort of footnote giving that info, which we could append to every ruler concerned.
 * In fact, I would suggest the same method in regard to the "numbering problem" (see the Henry II, Lothair III, Rudolf II. The note appended in the current version I think much more cluttering. Str1977 (smile back) 13:08, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I think using footnotes for both numbering gaps and emeperors-elect is an excellent idea. Do you know how to do the wikicode for footnotes? I don't... --Jfruh (talk) 13:59, 13 July 2006 (UTC)


 * To explain a bit further:
 * "Maximilian I changed the style of the emperor in 1508, with papal approval" is a bit misleading. With papal approval, Maximilian assumed the title of Emperor in the form EE because all his attempts of coming to Rome were cut short. However, that doesn't change the principle that an Emperor must be crowned in Rome in the least.
 * Charles' coronation also was not 100% according to the rule, as he was crowned in Bologna by the Pope.
 * The quoted author also ommits that Louis IV was in fact crowned Emperor in Rome, albeit not by the legitimate Pope.
 * Only after the Reformation's victory over Charles was the difference between EE and Emperor blurred. Kings didn't seek the papal coronation anymore in order not to upset the fragile balanc in the HRE (may I note that such cares were only held on one side of the fence) and because Imperial rule in Italy finally had vanished (Charles glossed over this fact by the Spanish possessions in Italy). Also, the process of nationalisation of the Imperial title and the Empire moved on (leading in the end to such absurdities as a "Deutscher Kaiser", but I digress) but we cannot transport the outcome at the beginning of the process. The election of the son during the father's lifetime was indeed an irregularity, but as the example of Otto II shows, there have been irregularities before. Str1977 (smile back) 10:43, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

The term "Holy Roman Emperor"
This has come up obliquely before, and I took the other position, but it seems as though the term "Holy Roman Emperor" is more or less technically incorrect. Certainly in German, the word for Empire (Reich) and the word for Emperor (Kaiser) are unrelated, and the Emperor was called Kaiser des Heiligen Römisches Reich (the term used in the German wikipedia, for instance.)  I'm less sure of the Latin, but I believe the title was "Imperator Romanorum" (Emperor of the Romans). Most other European language versions of wikipedia that I can more or less parse use the same phrasing as German - "Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire." For most of the job's existence, there was only one emperor in the west, so there was no need to distinguish - the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire was just "the Emperor." The Byzantine Emperor (or the Latin Emperor of Constantinople) would be distinguished as the "Greek Emperor" or the "Emperor of Constantinople," and later on you get Russian emperors who are called "Russian Emperors" or "Tsars." But the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire is just the "Emperor." There's no need to call him the "Holy Roman Emperor".

Now, in English, use of "Holy Roman Emperor" appears to be common - Columbia Encyclopedia uses it, for instance - but it still seems arguably to be technically incorrect. Does anyone have an opinion on this? john k 01:58, 8 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Part of the problem of course is that there is no one term in any language that would have been used by all of these guys in their lifetimes. "Holy Roman Emperor" is the usual term (in English) that describes the category that they all fall into, even if it isn't a direct translation of a term that any of them would have used.  In fact, that'd be away to keep using the common sense English article title without being technicaly inaccurate -- "Holy Roman Emperor is the term used in English-language historiography to describe a sequence of rulers ..." etc.


 * The pre-list section is actually getting pretty long. Maybe the content should be merged with Holy Roman Emperor, with detailed description there of the actual contemporary title used by these rulers, and virtually no explanation here.  As it is, the two articles are starting to overlap. --Jfruh (talk) 02:43, 8 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Don't forget further overlap with List of German monarchs. john k 12:18, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

I always considered the "Holy Roman Emperor" term to be a bit awkward, as it makes the Emperor "holy". However, it is better than "Emperor of the HRE" and the plain "Roman Emperor" will probably be objected to by those that dispute the Romaness of the HRE. It is strange that the "Holy" bit stuck with the Western entity, when the Byzantine Empire did use styles not less grand in their titulatur. Str1977 (smile back) 13:31, 8 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Classic anti-Byzantinism in the west, I should think. Str, am I correct that Kaiser des Heiliges Römisches Reich is the German term? john k 15:19, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
 * No, the correct Title was Römischer Kaiser - remember that the official language of the HRE was Latin, in which Kaiser des HRE would result in Imperator Imperii. It's bad enough that we have "King of the Unite Kingdom". Str1977 (smile back) 08:22, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Conrad III
Why isn't Conrad III on the list? 83.176.96.190 12:41, 22 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Because he was never crowned emperor. From the Conrad III article: He was never crowned emperor and continued to style himself King of the Romans until his death.  --Jfruh (talk) 23:03, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Typographical suggestion
Why not have Emperors in bold, Emperors-elect in normal Roman, German kings in italic (at least from Conrad I); that way the numbering becomes (mostly) obvious. We can doubly indent the kings, if it makes it clearer that they are framework for the list, rather than part of it. JCScaliger 20:38, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
 * ''Albert II 1438-9
 * '''Frederick III, 1452-1493
 * Maximilian I, 1508-1519
 * Charles V, 1519-1530 (crowned 1530)
 * '''Charles V, 1530-1556
 * Ferdinand I, 1556-1564
 * Maximilian II, 1564-1576
 * Rudolf II, 1576-1612
 * Matthias, 1612-1619
 * Ferdinand II, 1619-1637
 * Ferdinand III, 1637-1657
 * Leopold I, 1658-1705
 * Joseph I, 1705-1711
 * Charles VI, 1711-1740

There are several solutions to Charles V; this is a sample. JCScaliger 20:51, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
 * This list really ought to stay just a list of Emperors, in my opinion. There's already a List of German monarchs that includes emperors and kings both.   I think adding the kings just confuses the situation.  If there's no value in having just a list of emperors, then we should just collapse it into the List of German monarchs. --Jfruh (talk) 20:46, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
 * As you can see, this would include the German kings only as a framework; clearly distinguishing them. Also, it would not include the anti-kings, since they're not numbered. JCScaliger 20:51, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry, I just don't see the need for it. This is a list of Emperors.  Even with the indentation it seems like we'd be adding non-emperors to the list.  We discuss in some detail in the introductory material the reasons for the gaps in the ordinals, and if someone wants to see a complete list, with non-emperors, there's another page, which we provide a link to. --Jfruh (talk) 23:03, 24 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I do see the value of adding anti-Emperors (weren't a few of the anti-Kings crowned by either poper or anti-popes?). --Jfruh (talk) 23:05, 24 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree with Jfruh that we shouldn't add the kings to this list - there's already another list dealing with that. I don't believe there were any anti-Emperors - no anti-kings ever managed to get to Rome to be crowned, that I am aware of.  john k 23:49, 24 September 2006 (UTC)