Holy Roman Empire

American  

noun

1. a Germanic empire located chiefly in central Europe that began with the coronation of Charlemagne as Roman emperor in a.d. 800 (or, according to some historians, with the coronation of Otto the Great, king of Germany, in a.d. 962) and ended with the renunciation of the Roman imperial title by Francis II in 1806, and was regarded theoretically as the continuation of the Western Empire and as the temporal form of a universal dominion whose spiritual head was the pope.

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Holy Roman Empire British  

noun

1. the complex of European territories under the rule of the Frankish or German king who bore the title of Roman emperor, beginning with the coronation of Charlemagne in 800 _ad . The last emperor, Francis II, relinquished his crown in 1806

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Holy Roman Empire Cultural  

1. A major political institution in Europe that lasted from the ninth to the nineteenth centuries. It was loosely organized and modeled somewhat on the ancient Roman Empire. It included great amounts of territory in the central and western parts of Europe. Charlemagne was its first emperor. In later years, the emperors were Germans and Austrians. The empire declined greatly in power after the sixteenth century.

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The eighteenth-century French author Voltaire once wrote that the Holy Roman Empire was “neither holy, Roman, nor an empire.”

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How does holy-roman-empire compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:

• Roman Empire vs. Holy Roman Empire

Example Sentences

The exhibition encompasses more than 40 religious objects sent to it as gifts by Catholic monarchs in Europe and the Holy Roman Empire in the 17th and 18th centuries.

From The Wall Street Journal

The Habsburg rulers who joined Spain and its colonies with the Holy Roman Empire in Central Europe threw 16th-century France on the defensive.

From The Wall Street Journal

The Holy Roman Empire had seven electors: Three were members of the Catholic Church and four were significant members of the nobility.

From Salon

Lohengrin comes, as well, from a more divine realm to save Elsa from persecution amid conflict and mercurial alliances — between paganism and monotheism, between the Holy Roman Empire and opposing forces.

From New York Times

His code name for the invasion was “Operation Barbarossa,” after the great twelfth-century tactician and emperor Frederick Barbarossa, who unified many European kingdoms under German rule as leader of the Holy Roman Empire.

From Literature