Origins of the Holy Roman Empire: Part 1

The first part of this series briefly explores the dissolution of the Western Roman imperial jurisdiction until the inception of the Carolingian period.

The Great Lie regarding the Holy Roman Empire (HRE)

The HRE is often, though erroneously, taught as having been established by Charlemagne upon his coronation as emperor on Christmas Day 800 AD. Furthermore, the concept of a translatio imperii—the continuation of Western Rome throughout the Middle Ages—is thoroughly dismissed as medieval propaganda by modern scholars. The notion that Western Rome continued until Charlemagne and beyond is deemed preposterous, given the assumption that Rome went down in flames, whose ruins were then occupied by barbaric tribes wandering about, feeding upon the ashes like criminals in a Babylonian afterlife. More recently, some scholars have entertained the idea that Rome’s jurisdiction imploded due to their own miscalculations, and was not so destructive as previously thought. Although closer to the truth, this view is, unfortunately, too often paired with the narrative of savage, post-apocalyptic barbarians who only much later ‘rediscovered’ Roman culture. This ‘concept’ is commonly parroted in schools and universities, casting a shroud upon a fascinating period of history, branded as the Dark Ages. The rise of Western European kingdoms between the years 500 and 800 AD are generally ignored as confusing and poorly documented until Charlemagne’s reformation of the educational systems. Charlemagne himself is typically described as a sort of medieval Prometheus, whose flame was extinguished by his grandsons. His Frankish Empire is characterized as entirely different from the Romans, and bundled together with the HRE—seen as a sort of ‘knock-off’ Roman empire akin to a poorly written sequel. On the one hand, this origin story of the HRE makes things considerably easier to tell. Whereas on the other hand, simplicities lead to misinformation—told either willfully or ignorantly—and misinformation leads to a loss of knowledge. Therefore, we will explore a more detailed origin story.

What really happened to Western Rome?

Much has been told about the dissolution of the Western Roman Jurisdiction. Why not simply say the Fall of the Western Roman Empire? Because until the ousting of Romulus Augustus (465 – 511 AD) in 476 AD, both the eastern and western halves of the Roman Empire were inextricably bound to one another and neither experienced a cataclysmic collapse. The separation of the two began under the Roman Emperor Diocletian (early 240s – 311 AD) nearly 200 years earlier as a political adaptation to rule the empire more effectively. That meant: two jurisdictions ruled by co-emperors. As the case sometimes is when two monarchs were meant to share, the result was a brutal civil war ending in 312 AD at the Battle of Milvian Bridge, when Emperor Constantine I defeated Emperor Maxentius. Afterwards, Constantine continued as emperor alongside his co-emperor, Lucinius who later revolted in the early 320s, only to be defeated by Constantine’s legions with the support of his Frankish auxiliaries. However, before we continue this talk about emperors, co-emperors, Franks and so on, let us define some terms. Emperor is derived from the Latin imperator, meaning commander, or more fittingly, commander-in-chief. In German, the title is translated as Kaiser, derived from the name Caesar, in honor of Julius Caesar whose actions paved the way for Augustus, the first Roman Emperor in 27 BC. In classical Latin, Caesar would have been pronounced much like the German Kaiser, but with a shorter ‘s’. The German pronunciation is of some importance, because the Franks, as well as a host of other groups served Rome as auxiliaries, were Germanic people.

Now, without treading too deep into the weeds, it ought to be mentioned that the name germani was applied to the entirety of the peoples east of the Rhine River by teh Romans, even though it was the name of a single tribe—and a Celtic one at that. Thus, the term Germanic refers to the people east of the Rhine who were, in fact, practitioners of a Celtic culture belonging to what is known as the Oppidum period of the Late La Tène culture (450 – 1 BC). Despite the linguistic gymnastics and inaccuracies that the Romans so often enjoyed when referring to non-Latin people, it has remained a categorization until this day. However, the actual groups belonging to these Germanic tribes referred to themselves by other names such as the Chatti (later the Saxons), Cherusci, Batavi, or Marcomanni. Some of the groups were confederations of smaller tribes, such as the Alemanni and Franks—both of whom lived along the Rhine River to the south and north (respectively).

What role did these ‘Germanic’ groups play?

The extent of the Roman Transalpine conquest was demarcated by a massive series of walls known as the Limes, featuring a number of cities along its boundaries, separating the Roman Empire from other lands. Many of those cities have continued to this day as some of the oldest cities in Germany. They include: Augusta Treverorum (Trier), Mongontiacum (Mainz), Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium (Cologne), Augusta Vendelicorum (Augsburg), Sumelocenna (Rottenberg am Neckar), Lopodunum (Ladenburg), and Aquisgrana (Aachen)—among many others. These Roman cities existed alongside Germanic/Celtic towns where the indigenous folk lived, serving as key trading sites along Rome’s northern border. There were, of course, incursions by various dissident tribes seeking to curtail Rome’s influence, but these were largely unsuccessful, save the ambush at Teutoburg (9 AD) by the Cherusci and a few other occasions out of scope for this article. However, the lack of success that the tribes experienced was not so much a factor of poor tactics, but rather that the Romans preferred to hire these tribesmen as auxiliaries, than to slaughter them. Thus, the Frankish auxiliaries were created, for example, whose leaders served Rome with the title rex francorum—meaning, Leader of the Franks and later, King of the Franks.

The Porta Nigra of Trier, Germany. A monumental northern gate of the once Roman city.

The Franks dutifully served Rome, adopting Roman habits and culture, the Latin language, and even Roman dress, yet maintained their identity as a distinct group in the same way that the Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Suevi, Saxons, and Lombards had done. Their religion remained Germanic paganism until the baptism of their leader, Clovis I, in 508 AD by St. Remigius, around the same time that the other auxiliaries were Christianizing. As with the other groups, the leaders of the auxiliaries were elevated to the status of foederatus (pl. foederati) at the turn of the 5^th century AD in which Rome had brokered a deal with them granting more access to the Roman political and economic systems. More importantly this Roman strategy functioned as an incentive to maintain close, and hopefully peaceful, ties between the powerful foederati and the Roman political leaders.

A reconstructed outpost of the Limes Germanicus near the Swabian city of Lorch, Germany.

However, the Western Roman Jurisdiction collapsed in 476 AD following the usurpation of the emperor by the foederatus of the Scririans, named Odoacer, who had gained the support of the Roman Senate in order to do so. He also acted in accordance to the will of Eastern Rome—known as Byzantium. Following the collapse of the jurisdiction, the provinces located in Western Europe fell to the charge of other foederati, who ruled as governors in the same manner as their Roman predecessors heralding from senatorial families. Most of the foederati maintained amiable relations with Byzantium, except for the Ostrogoths who had taken over Italy as a final act in a series of dramas in which they became a foremost nemesis of Constantinople. Over time, cultural changes were adopted and the Latin-based languages spoken in the various provinces took on their own character, from which the differences in French, Spanish, Romanian, and Italian can be attributed. Nevertheless, the dominant culture of Western Europe was the Roman one, even though its epicenter was now Constantinople. Soon thereafter, some of the foederati guided their respective provinces as separate kingdoms, but none of them ever claimed the title of emperor. A good example of this would be Childerich, the father of Clovis I, and son of Merovech—from whom the name Merovingian is derived—who ruled simply as rex francorum. That is not to say that some did not harbor imperial aspirations, but that none were successful claimants. The new rulers of Western Europe maintained the former Roman cities (to a degree), though some resources were no longer as widely available due to privatization of the logistics in accordance to the numerous new territories and jurisdictions. However, when the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I (482 – 565 AD) campaigned to reestablish the Western Roman Jurisdiction as an extension of Eastern Rome by waging war against the Ostrogoths in from 535 – 554 AD, the foederati were divided upon which side they ought to support. The Lombards assisted Justinian, fighting once again side-by-side with the Roman legions, and were rewarded with the Pannonia (modern-day Austria and Hungary), whereas the Franks and Burgundians joined the Goths, but were ultimately defeated by Byzantium’s Thracian general, Belisarius (died 565 AD).

Western Europe at the turn of the 6th century, on the eve of Justinian’s conquest.

The conquest was largely successful in ousting the Ostrogoths from the Italian peninsula and cumulatively destroying their influence. More importantly it forced the other groups to submit to Justinian’s rule. However, his successors failed to maintain the reformed empire, resulting in a reshuffling of the cards, so to speak. The Lombards quickly shifted west, seizing the entirety of northern Italy in 568 AD, the same year that the new king of the Visigoths, Liuvigild, managed to stabilize the kingdom after the civil war caused by the Byzantine invasion. Meanwhile, the Frankish rulers of the former province of Gallia—which had been partitioned into the Merovingian territories of Austrasia, Aquitaine, Burgundy, and Neustria—continued to battle one another without pause in an effort to consolidate power. On the rare occasion that this was successful, the death of the king who had clawed his way to the top would immediately result in a new partition amongst his sons, or whoever else thought they should inherit land. Thus, the cycle of conflict in Merovingian Gallia would constantly renew, making the certainty of disunity a foregone conclusion.

The core of the Merovingian power was the kingdom of Austrasia, which encapsulated the Western European Low Countries along the Rhine, the Westphalian lands east to Fulda, and south beyond Metz. A capital had never truly been set, but a series of cities were vital: Paris, Soissons, Reims, and Orleans. It should be underlined that the Byzantine conquest marked the last time in which vast armies of tens or even hundreds of thousands under one banner campaigned through Europe until after 1500 AD. Instead, a new form of military strategy emerged in smaller, and more elite armies that would fight with the lord whom they served. This was the foundation of medieval warfare in which large armies actually consisted of many smaller cohorts clustered around the crest of their leader. This meant that raising a large army was incredibly difficult, as every lord had to be pleased by offering numerous concessions. It also meant that scorched earth tactics were essentially impossible to implement as there simply were not enough warriors to conduct it. Furthermore, the destruction of an estate meant the loss of a potential income—the true prize sought by the various lords engaged on the battlefield. This is not to say that warfare was more civil, but the scale was massively reduced when compared to Roman Antiquity. These Early Middle Ages largely began to restrict warfare to the realm of the elites, who battled and slaughtered one another either on the field or in court.

The Christianization of the elites was somewhat of a rocky road as well, as many foederati of the 6^th and 7^th centuries ascribed to Arianism—a belief denying the divinity of Jesus Christ. Even though the belief had been dismissed as heretical by the Ecumenical Council of Nicaea in 325 AD, many of the military elite throughout Europe remained adherers of the heresy. By the dawn of the 8^th century, Arianism had disappeared in Europe, but the new threat was the northward expansion of Islam. The Islamic conquest of the 7^th and 8^th centuries swept across northern Africa and well into Spain, wiping out the Vandal and Visigothic kingdoms (respectively) by the 720s AD. The ferocious pace came to a sudden halt, however, just outside the Frankish city of Tours in 732 AD where Charles Martel, the palatial mayor of the Merovingian court, united the Franks and defeated the Umayyad invasion. Relying upon both the superior technology, large shields of his infantry, more armored cavalry, and the cold weather, Charles outmaneuvered the invaders and devastatingly crushed their superior numbers in such fashion that the Umayyads never again ventured so far into Frankish territory. This act solidified Charles’ perception among his peers as the effective ruler of the Franks, laying the foundation of a dynasty that was soon to follow.

In the next part of this series, we will explore the political structure of the Late Merovingian and Early Carolingian periods, highlighting key differences between them and the later HRE. Stay tuned!