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Roman Empire: Western Roman Empire
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The Holy Roman Empire was a political entity in western Europe from 800 to 1806. It was initially known as the Empire in the West. In the 11th century it was called the Roman Empire and in the 12th century the Holy Empire. The title Holy Roman Empire was adopted in the 13th century. Although the borders of the empire shifted greatly throughout its history, its principal area was always that of the German states. From the 10th century its rulers were elected German kings, who usually sought, but did not always receive, imperial coronation by the popes in Rome.
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The most important legacy of the Western Roman Empire is the Roman Catholic Church. The Church slowly began to replace Roman institutions in the West, even helping to negotiate the safety of Rome during the late 5th Century. As the barbarians invaded, many converted, and by the middle of the medieval period (ca. 9th and 10th centuries) the central, western and northern parts of Europe had been largely converted to the Roman Catholic Faith and acknowledged the Pope as the Vicar of Christ.
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Echoes of the tradition of the Roman Empire are found in cities throughout the western world. Nations and leaders to give visual testament to their authority and power have emulated the distinct forms of Roman architecture. Particularly good examples can be found in Paris. After Napoleon was crowned emperor in 1804, he set out to make Paris a new Rome. The Arc de Triomphe, commissioned by Napoleon in 1806 but not completed until 1836, is the most famous example of the French borrowing of Roman formulas. For the Place Vendôme in Paris, Napoleon commissioned a monumental free-standing column that was directly based on the Column of Trajan from the early second century.
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The Latin term Imperium Romanum (Roman Empire), probably the best-known Latin expression where the word "imperium" denotes a territory, indicates the part of the world under Roman rule. From the time of Augustus to the Fall of the Western Empire, Rome's dominion covered all of the following: England and Wales; most of Europe (west of the Rhine and south of the Alps); coastal northern Africa, together with the adjacent province of Egypt; the Balkans, the Black Sea, and Asia Minor; and ... much of the Levant. Hence the Imperium Romanum subsumed, west-to-east, modern day Portugal, Spain, England and France, Italy, Albania and Greece, the Balkans, and Turkey; southward it embraced parts of the Middle East: present day Syria, Lebanon, and more; thence southwestward it included the whole of ancient Egypt, then swept westward to contain the coastal regions of what are today Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco, out to the longitudes just west of Gibraltar. Most of the people living there called themselves Romans, and lived under Roman law. Roman expansion began long before the state was changed into a monarchy and reached its zenith under Emperor Trajan with the conquest of Dacia (i.e., modern Romania and Moldova, as well as parts of Hungary, Bulgaria and Ukraine), in AD 106, and Mesopotamia in 116 (subsequently returned by Hadrian). At this territorial peak, the Roman Empire controlled approximately 5 900 000 km² (2,300,000 sq.mi.) of land surface, and so encompassed the Mediterranean Sea that the Romans called it "mare nostrum" - Latin for "our sea". Rome's influence upon the culture, law, technology, arts, language, religion, government, military, and architecture of the civilizations that arose from this ancient ancestor continues to this day.
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The Holy Roman Empire was an attempt to revive the Western Roman Empire, whose legal and political structure deteriorated during the 5th and 6th centuries, to be replaced by independent kingdoms ruled by Germanic nobles. The Roman imperial office was vacant after the deposition of Romulus Augustulus in 476. During the turbulent early Middle Ages the traditional concept of a temporal realm coextensive with the spiritual realm of the church had been kept alive by the popes in Rome. The Byzantine Empire, which controlled the provinces of the Eastern Roman Empire from its capital, Constantinople (now ?stanbul, Turkey), retained nominal sovereignty over the territories formerly controlled by the Western Empire, and many of the Germanic tribes that had seized these territories formally recognized the Byzantine emperor as overlord. Partly because of this and ... for other reasons, including dependence on Byzantine protection against the Lombards, the popes also recognized the sovereignty of the Eastern Empire for an extended period after the enforced abdication of Romulus Augustulus.
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As the Western Roman Empire crumbled, the barbarian warlords who had conquered the provinces felt compelled to uphold many Roman laws and traditions. These "barbarians" were already Christians, but most of them were followers of Arianism. Wisely, they quickly converted to the Roman Catholic faith, gaining more loyalty by the local Romanized population and at the same time recognition and support by the powerful Roman Catholic Church. Although they initially continued to obey tribal laws, they were more and more influenced by Roman Law and began gradually to use it.
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Western Roman Empire