Holy Roman Empire

The Holy Roman Empire was the strange, durable centre of medieval and early modern Europe — a loose federation of German-speaking principalities, free cities, and ecclesiastical territories nominally ruled by an elected emperor. Tracing its claim to Charlemagne’s coronation in 800, it lasted in some form for a millennium, never quite a unified state nor merely a collection of rivals. The Reformation split it along religious lines; the Thirty Years’ War devastated it. Its end came in 1806, when Napoleon’s victories forced Emperor Francis II to dissolve the empire rather than see the crown taken from him.