Why The Holy Roman Empire Was The WEIRDEST Country Ever

The Holy Roman Empire is not only an ironic concept, it's also weirdly complicated. Learn how many titles the rulers needed to see how cool they were trying to be or why the Emperor's rule was only semi-optional.

[hereLiesThisTroper]

Weirdest country? Try Democratic People's Republic of Korea

It's not Democratic
It's not for the People
It's not a Republic
It's not even the whole Korea!

So the real name of North Korea is just 'of'

[colorado]

You're not an emperor, not a tiger and not a star

[Chris-hpbe]

“Habsburgs won election for 200 years” Putin: “interesting”

[polandballhistorian]

Germans: *_destroy rome_*
Germans: *_try to recreate rome_*
Pope: *_declares the new german rome that doesn't even control rome the true successors to rome_*
Eastern Rome: Um... I'm right HERE?

[GlenKStraughn]

So a cat wearing what I can only assume is some sort of mid-to-late nineteenth century Prussian military uniform just taught me about the bizarre politics of the Holy Roman Empire...

God bless the internet.

[vanders]

You say that feudalism made the map dumb; I say that feudalism made the map interesting.

[richardschiffman]

You know, for such a "dumb, weird" country, the Holy Roman Empire lasted a very long time and quite frankly there was a lot of method to this madness.

[cvanvslivs]

"No one to represent the true successor of Rome"

Byzantine Empire: Am I a joke to you???

[FaithRox]

Shoutout to Bismark who made life so much fucking easier for us history nerds.

[Maddog]

Meanwhile New Rome (Byzantium) was fighting the Arabs and bein' all old school Roman Imperialism with Greek overtones.

[LuckasMS]

Feudalism is what makes medieval history so interesting, in my opinion.

[evolvedape]

But the HRE does make playing in Europe in EU4 so much more entertaining... one good thing.

[leonverbakel]

Napoleon dreamed of being as great as Charlemagne, but Charlemagne started feudalism and Napoleon ended it...

[MrSonyChaos]

Every time I steal land from the HRE in EU4, I get a coalition in my face because some province that no one knows about declared war on me.

[andyjay]

"The Thirty Years War...the war to end all wars between Catholics and Protestants in Europe."


Northern Ireland: Ahem...

[PetraRocks]

Napoleon clicked the Dismantle the HRE button....kudos to him ;)

[MrRodnac]

Well give them some credit they lasted for almost a thousand years. Very few empires lasted longer than the HRE.

[juancholo]

Yet despite being "Stupid/Dumb" it survived for about 1, 000 years & provided relative stability for that time. It ruled over a multi ethinc & eventual multi religious people more successfully than any other European power at that time except maybe the Eastern Roman Empire.

For what it is worth, Before Napolean invaded the Holy Roman Empire he first tried to lure away Prussia & then Austria with recognizing them as separate countries, but at the time they said no, we like being a part of the empire.

[ALEXANDER]

In wasn't because of feudalism that Charlemagne's empire split in three; it was because of gavelkind succession (he had three grandsons) and a desire to create three equal realms that were easier to rule.

[FantadiRienzo]

What was so complicated about it? It was like the medieval version of the EU. And the EU is pretty simple, it's, uhm, well... You know, there is an EU parliament... Or several... Well, there are the non-democratically elected commissions and then some courts and the parliaments of the EU, who are democratically elected but basically meaningless, and then the parliaments of the states, who decide themselves if they want to acknowledge some EU decision or not, and the EU has several presidents that most EU citizens don't know, which might sound complicated, but the head of that state is... wait, let me look up wikipedia.... the head of the state is.... I think some Van Rompoy-guy from the netherlands... or belgium... I mean, flanders.... if he's still alive... Ok, another attempt: the official currency of the EU is the Euro, but not every EU-country uses it, because.... Of a decision by.... Someone. And most of it is in the Nato, except for Austria, Finnland, Sweden, while Norway, which is not in the EU, is in the Nato... so... The EU is... That's going to give future history nerds a headache