Charles V and the Holy Roman Empire: Crash Course World History #219

In which John Green teaches you about the Holy Roman Empire by teaching you about Charles V. Charles Hapsburg was the Holy Roman Emperor, but he was also the King of Spain. And the King of Germany. And the King of Italy and the Lord of the Netherlands and Count Palatine of Burgundy. In short, Charles was runnin' thangs in much of the world during his reign. Charles ruled a lot of countries, and he was also known for encouraging intellectual discourse and even spoke out against slavery, in a limited way. So why did he consider himself a failure, and why did he break up the Empire when he abdicated in 1556? Mainly because the Holy Roman Empire didn't work very well. It was huge, and it didn't have any means of directly raising taxes. Plus, it was a pretty crazy time in Europe anyway, and Charles found himself in charge of the Catholic-Church-Endorsed Empire during the time of Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation. John will teach you a bit about how Charles put the Empire together, and how it fell apart, and even talk a bit about the Diet of Worms.

This episode was written by Neal Schulz, but we messed up the onscreen credits. Thanks, and great work, Neal.

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[TheSpearkan]

Exceptions in each continent:

Europe: Switzerland

Asia: The Mongols

The Americas: Brazil

Oceania: ???

Antarctica: Antarctica

[Sandouras]

Charles just needed more imperial authority to pass those reforms.

[keelyleilani]

I don't understand why the media makes such a big to do about Henry VIII, but you never hear anything about Charles V who lived and ruled at the same time and had one of the largest empires in history. This guy's life was far more interesting than Henry's in my opinion.

[ville]

I think he was awesome.
I tried ruling Holy Roman Empire in Crusader Kings 2 and failed.

[Raphtyr]

The ruler of Spain and Germany, which when united became Spermany.

[aliensinnoh]

2 things I got from this video.
1) that pesky Martin Luther is still causing trouble, sneakin' 'round the globe
2) Brazilians are the Mongols of America

[ExGavalonnj]

"I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men, and German to my horse."
Charles V

[aureliusnoble]

I thought I'd compile a list of all the errors in this video so that if anyone was interested they could see the accurate information and the debates around what much of what John says :)

 1. The Diet of Worms was in 1521, not 1523;

2. The only major medieval Siege of Pavia was in 733-34, the incident John means to refer to is the Battle of Pavia which took place entirely outside the city and lasted only four hours, so in no way could be considered a siege.

3. Charles was elected as Emperor in 1519 not in 1521

4. When comparing empire size he puts it behind the Mongol Empire which was not the largest empire, but the largest continuous land empire. However Charles' Empire was not a continuous land empire. So firstly it doesn't make sense comparing them, it should be compared with the British Empire and secondly when saying largest empire about the Mongols he needs to say continuous land otherwise he is plain wrong;

5. Filipino and English are the official languages in the Philippines, not Spanish and Spanish has never been the majority language in the Philippines.

6. Most modern scholarship does not agree that Charlemagne founded the Holy Roman Empire, he founded the Carolingian Empire and was crowned emperor, but the Carolingian Empire is not continuous chronologically with what is usually considered the Holy Roman Empire. The Holy Roman is usually considered a derivative of the Ottonian Empire and is seen to have been founded by Otto I, as this is the point at which it was continuous for 8 centuries. No emperors were crowned by the Pope again until Otto I in 963. (see more detailed explanation at the bottom).

7. On the same point as above there is another direct factual error in the video, which states that Charlesmagne was crowned Holy Roman Emperor when the text of the coronation never states this, it says only that he was crowned as Roman Emperor and Augustus of the Romans; "Karolus serenissimus Augustus" and "Imperator Romanorum".

8. The empire was only ever continuous for eight centuries not ten.

9. The Holy Roman Empire is an empire, an empire simply means "an extensive group of states or countries ruled over by a single monarch" - all of the different constituents of the HRE were sovereign states so by any normal definition of an empire the HRE would be considered one as Charles V exercised considerable power over other states in the Empire. There was an imperial taxation system and he had the power to levy troops from other states in the empire. Moreover in 1422 the HRE formed a standing army and while the Emperor did have limitations to his power, the same was true of other monarchs in the era.

10. Saying that "the Holy Roman Empire never had the means of levying direct taxes, or directly raising an army from it's territory" makes no sense. During the period before the "medieval revolution" in Europe, where standing armies were established no state in Europe had the ability to directly raise a standing army; armies would be raised using a system of levies where feudal subjects sent some of their knights to their overlord, this system of alliances worked in the same (if more complex) manner in the HRE. In the period after this "military revolution" the HRE did have a standing army, with the establishment of the Imperial Army in 1422, it clearly did had a professional army to the same point as other European states and the point that it wasn't raised from the entire territory is null, that wasn't how professional armies worked in any states, they were recruited and trained by a centralised power but weren't levied from the entire nation.

11. After its establishment under Otto I the Empire was also holy, it had huge control over the church, and retained the right of confirmation on the selection of Popes for several centuries, also all the Emperors were directly crowned by the Pope. Whilst defining it as Roman might be a stretch it is very difficult to define what constitutes Roman at any rate, towards the end of the Roman empire there was a huge influx of immigrants from these barbarian states and Rome's adoption of Christianity mean there are cultural links. Rome didn't suddenly collapse due to invasion, these "barbarians" had been a part of the empire for a long time and so in a way could be termed Roman. At a practical level the HRE was also a Roman Catholic empire and this is another reason why it isn't unreasonable to call it a Roman empire.

12. The 1356 Papal Bull did not establish the electoral system of the Holy Roman Empire, it formed a new one the difference being the Emperor no longer needed the consent of all the electors but a simple majority, it had always been an electoral position;

13. Saying that Charles V troops 'managed' to sack  Rome in 1527 is rather misleading, as it implies it was something he wanted; this was actually done against his instructions by his mutineering troops.

14. Luther's New Testament was published in 1522, so he is correct it was after the Diet of Worms, but it is before the mistaken date he gave for the Diet of Worms;

15. It is usually spelled Habsburg, not Hapsburg;

16. When he says the states which the Holy Roman Empire constitutes today, he mentions Czechoslovakia, which ceased to be a nation in 1993. Furthermore the map doesn't actually show Czechoslovakia, it shows the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

17. Personally I would probably try to use words like Germanic rather than German for Charles cultural identity, because the concept of Germany didn't really exist (but that's more personal preference)

18. Points have also been made that Charles V did not see himself as the Holy Roman Emperor, but primarily as the King of the Spanish which was his primary title and where he resided for most of his life.

19. The video implies that Charlemagne wanted to be crowned by the Pope, but this is a matter of huge historical contention, as the coronation was in many ways a demonstration by the Pope of his power over Charlemagne and asserted his right to select the leader of Europe. Indeed Charlemagne and the Franks in many regards did not want to be associated with the Romans, who they saw as overly oppressive and were glad to claim heritage from those to overthrew them. It appears that Charlemagne was not aware of the Pope's intentions to crown him (though this is still debated) and after the coronation he disliked using the title directly bestowed upon him "Imperator Romanorum".

20. The counter-reformation really wasn't Charles response it was the Church's response to the Protestant reformation, it was Pope Paul III who initiated the first Council of Trent and while Charles V certainly played an important part  "make his response, the Catholic Counter-Reformation" is an over-statement that doesn't acknowledge the role of the Papacy and of holy orders.

21. The sack of Rome in 1527 certainly played an important role in illuminating the Church's failings and may well have influenced the desire to reform away from overly extravagant building works, but in no regard can it be seen as entirely responsible for ending the Italian Renaissance, which didn't end until around 1550 and was far more damaged by the Italian Wars

22. Prior to the Ottoman conquest of Hungary it was not Habsburg, it was ruled by a Hungarian king Louis II. Whilst the Habsburgs had an agreement with Louis to take control of Hungary on the event of his death without an heir (they were related through marriage), the dynasty preceeding Louis' death was not Hungarian. After the Ottoman conquest of the majority of Hungary the Habsburgs did take over the remaining Hungarian land so " over the formerly Hapsburg territory of Hungary." is incorrect, it should state that they gained control over an area which would have been Habsburg if the Ottomans had not won.

23. John says that football hadn't been invented in 1550, but there are actually detailed descriptions of the game of football being played in Europe as early as around 1174–1183 by William FitzStephen. There are numerous descriptions of the game football in the centuries that followed and there are even records stating that Henry VIII (Charles V contemporary) had a pair of football boots made for him.

6. (continued) Charlemagne did not exercise control over any of Italy except the small area from about Milan to Tuscany and his (carolingian) empire is not chronologically or geographically linked to the Holy Roman Empire talked about in this video, which extends far further east and included large swathes of Italian territory (at least initially) but does not include the French areas which comprised most of Charlemagne's empire. As I mentioned earlier it is not chronologically continous either, and neither is it politically or legally continous, Charlesmagne's empire used Agnatic Primogeniture whereas the Holy Roman Empire examined here used an elective succession system where all the Emperor's were crowned by the Papacy. Furthermore the culture of Charlesmagne's empire was far more Frankish, whereas the later Holy Roman Empi, vre consisted of a wide variety of cultures that arose from the so-called "Barbarian Kingdoms" and the initial emperors were all Saxon. Certainly you could use the speech to classify Charlemagne's empire as a Roman Empire, though doing purely on the basis of that coronation is still tenous and as I've shown it lacks many of the necessary qualifications. I think you would find it extremely difficult to claim that he is the founder of the Holy Roman Empire talked about in this video; which is rather different geographically, politically, chronologically, culturally and economically. While Charlemagne may certainly have been a Holy Roman Emperor, he in no manner can be seen as the founder of the Holy Roman Empire, which is what this video asserts.

Certainly there are many more points about things that ought to be included, but I tried to focus on things that were directly wrong and should been amended rather than topics that can easily be covered by new videos.

[flider]

Charles was actually a very successful monarch in Spain. He expanded Spain so it became the biggest empire in Europe, had huge quantities of bullion shipped in which helped him fund his foreign policy, Protestantism was literally destroyed in Spain and remained that way for Philip's reign, and his political authority was almost absolute.



His only problems were that the Holy Roman Empire was a black hole for resources (for which Spain suffered) and his attention, being absent for more years than he was present as the king of Spain, and the problems of inflation (and the latter was not even recognised/known of at the time!)

[Iuiscgs]

Phillip II of Spain (Charles V' son) was a bigger emperor than his dad. The expression, "the empire on which the sun never sets, " was coined during Philip's time to reflect the extent of his dominion.

[bunney]

His most important realm was not the HRE, the Archduchy of Austria, the Duchy of Burgundy, or the Italian realms of Milan, Naples, Sicily or Sardinia. It was SPAIN. He was born in Ghent but lived most of his adult life in Spain. He died there and he allowed his son Felipe to grow up in Spain not the HRE

[halocemagnum]

Charles probably wanted to be Holy Roman Emperor for the increased force limit.

[angussclater]

Charles probably wanted to be Holy Roman Emperor just for the extra taxes, force limit and diplomatic relation

[Tomato]

John, Czechoslovakia hasn't existed for over 20 years now...

[nicodemusedwards]

I can’t find anybody who’s said it yet, so I will.


12:10 PLUS

[anotherdaystochangethis]

"I speak Spanish to God, Italian to Women, French to Men, and German to my Horse."

[Guderian]

Czechoslovakia? The Cold War called, they want their country back

[HisCarlnessI]

All I could think is Eu4... And yes I know this is probably one of many comments saying that.

[NickSheridanVids]

Charles II of Spain is one of my favourite historical monarchs. You can have as many as 64 great, great, great, great, great grandparents. Charles II had two.

[johnnonamegibbon]

I like how he just skips over the fact that Charles was first and foremost, King of Castile(Spain). Holy Roman Emperor was just one of his many additional titles, not his main one. He's not a Habsburg. He's a Spanish Habsurg which were separate from the Austrian line, not to mention far more powerful due to the global hegemony of the Spanish Army. 


How's Charles of Spain not Spanish? This guy was half Spanish. He had more Spanish ancestry than Queen Victoria(of Hanover) had English. He inherited the title of King of Castile through his Spanish ancestry. The title of Holy Roman Emperor, on the other hand, was simply something he bought. 


And the part where he generalized Spaniards as cruel to Indians is another double standard considering the fact that the British policy towards American Indians was outright extermination and Queen Isabella before Charles tried to improve the treatment of natives.