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xvii Introduction Let’s start, right at the beginning, with the famous quip by the 18th-­century writer Vol- taire (1694–1778), which is what most ­people have heard (if anything) about the Holy Roman Empire. He wrote, “This body which called itself and which still calls itself the Holy Roman Empire was in no manner holy, nor Roman, nor an empire” (Voltaire 1785, 267). A pithy quote indeed, but an epigram does not an argument make. The ­ actual point of Voltaire’s quote, which he made as an aside in a massive history of the world that he wrote, is that the Holy Roman Empire was inferior to France. Should we accept that opinion? First look at the word “holy.” As an adjective, it says that something is sacred, con- nected in a good way to divine power, most closely associated with the teachings of Chris­tian­ity, whose intent is to bring believers to an afterlife in heaven. How can a po­liti­cal state do that? Such an impossibility, though, has not ­ stopped many po­liti­cal states throughout history from endorsing and enforcing the Christian faith. Most West- ern monarchs claimed to rule “by the Grace of God” to make a realm that conformed to God’s ­will, as they saw it. That includes the France of Voltaire’s time, whose king claimed to be anointed with oil that had come direct from heaven. Surely Voltaire would have been skeptical about that claim, too, as he was with most of the religious doctrines of his day. But ­ people in their patriotism usually ascribe goodness to po­liti­cal states, and display passionate loyalty to, and willingness to fight and kill and die for the state that enjoys God’s ­ favor. ­ People ­ were willing to do so for the Holy Roman Empire. Per- haps with less enthusiasm than for other states, but the empire did effectively function as a placeholder for ­ people’s aspirations ­ until it failed as a state. As a result, it was about as “holy” as other con­temporary (and subsequent) states. Second, the issue of “Roman” touches not only on the fundamental po­liti­cal ideol- ogy of the empire but of ­ every state in Eu­rope. All of them recognized that the ancient Roman Empire had dominated Eu­rope and the ­Middle East and North Africa for cen- turies. All the subsequent po­liti­cal structures in Eu­rope, except in the far north and east, ­were actually built on the ruins and remains of that empire. The Holy Roman Empire merely acknowledged that heritage more explic­itly than ­ others. The po­liti­cal attempt to incorporate the ancient imperial capital of the city of Rome into the empire’s structures further supported that effort. Although by Voltaire’s time, the popes and vari­ous Italians had pushed the borders of the empire to the far north of the Italian