THE GERMAN EMPIRE.
After "the great interregnum" when might was right,2 the Swiss count Rudolf of Hapsburg (a castle in the Swiss canton of Aargau) was elected emperor by the seven electors, and crowned at Aachen (1273-1291). lie restored peace and order, never visited Italy, escaped the ruinous quarrels with the pope, built up a Gorman kingdom, and laid the foundation of the conserva tive, orthodox, tenacious, and selfish house of Austria.
The empire continued to live for more than five centuries with varying fortunes, in nominal connection with Rome and at the head of the secular powers in Christendom, but without control ling influence over the fortunes of the papacy and the course of Europe. Occasionally it sent forth a gleam of its universal aim, as under Henry VII., who was crowned in Rome and hailed by Dante as the saviour of Italy, but died of fever (if not of poison administered by a Dominican monk in the sacramental cup) in Tuscany (1313) ; under Sigismund, the convener and protector of the oecumenical Council at Constance which deposed popes and burned Hus (1414), a much better man than either the emperor or the contemporary popes; under Charles V. (1519— 1558), who wore the crown of Spain and Austria as well as of
1 He alone, of all the emperors, is consigned to hell by Dante (Inferno, x. 119) :
" Within here is the second Frederick." 3 Schiller calls it " die kaiserlose, die schreckliche Zeit"
260 FOUKTH PEEIOD. A. D. 590-1049.
Germany, and on whose dominions the sun never set ; and under Joseph II. (1765-1790), who renounced the intolerant policy of his ancestors, unmindful of the pope's protest, and narrowly escaped greatness.1 But the emperors after Rudolf, with a few exceptions, were no more crowned in Rome, and withdrew from Italy.2 They were chosen at Frankfort by the Seven Electors, three spiritual, and four temporal : the archbishops of Mentz, Treves, and Cologne, the king of Bohemia, and the Electors of the Palatinate, Saxony, and Brandenburg (afterwards enlarged to nine). The competition, however, was confined to a few power ful houses, until in the 15th century the Hapsburgs grasped the crown and held it tenaciously, with one exception, till the dis solution. The Hapsburg emperors always cared more for their hereditary dominions, which they steadily increased by fortunate marriages, than for Germany and the papacy.
THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE EMPIRE.
Many causes contributed to the gradual downfall of the Ger man empire: the successful revolt of the Swiss mountaineers, the growth of the independent kingdoms of Spain, France, and England, the jealousies of the electors and the minor German princes, the discovery of a new Continent in the West, the inva sion of the Turks from the East, the Reformation which divided the German people into two hostile religions, the fearful devasta tions of the thirty years' war, the rise of the house of Hohenzollern and the kingdom of Prussia on German soil with the
1 The pope Pius VI. even made a journey to Vienna, but when he extended his hand to the minister Kaunitz to kiss, the minister took it and shook it. Joseph in turn visited Rome, and was received by the people with the shout: " Evviva il nostro imperatore ! "
2 Dante (Pur gat. VII. 94) represents Eudolf of Hapsburg as seated gloomily apart in purgatory, and mourning his sin of neglecting
" To heal the wounds that Italy have slain."
Weary of the endless strife of domestic tyrants and factions in every city, Dante longed for some controlling power that should restore unity and peace to his beloved but unfortunate Italy. He expounded his political ideas in his work De Monarchies.
5 58. SURVEY OF THE HISTORY OF THE EMPIRE. 2G1
brilliant genius of Frederick II., and the wars growing out of the French Revolution. In its last stages it became a mere shadow, and justified the satirical description (traced to Voltaire), that the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire. The last of the emperors, Francis II., in August 6th, 1800, abdicated the elective crown of Germany and substi tuted for it the hereditary crown of Austria as Francis I. (d. 1835).
Thus the holy Roman empire died in peace at the venerable age of one thousand and six years.