Roman Empire.

Roman Empire. HOLY (more fully in German, Heiliges Römisches Reich Deutscher Nation), the official denomination of the German empire from 962 down to 1806, when Francis II. of Hapsburg resigned the imperial title. The Western Roman empire came to an end in 476 A.D.; Charlemagne sought to reconstitute it when he was crowned emperor at Rome by Pope Leo III. in 800. But the reconstituted empire fell again into fragments and chaos, till Otho the Great succeeded in making a great monarchy again, and was crowned emperor by Pope John XII. at Rome in 962. Thenceforward for more than eight centuries there was an unbroken succession of German princes claiming and in a measure exercising the powers and privileges of Roman emperors. The name of 'Roman emperor' was carefully retained; 'Holy' was added to signify that the empire was now Christian; and 'of the German nation' was sometimes appended to indicate the new nationality that dominated over the old imperial realms. The emperor was the official head of the Christian world, the temporal colleague and rival of the pope. The new German empire (since 1871) calls itself simply German, and has dropped all claim to be either 'Roman' or 'Holy.' See GERMANY, Vol. V. p. 180; CHURCH HISTORY; and Bryce's great monograph, The Holy Roman Empire (new ed. 1889).