Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation
The Thuringian landscape of royal residences has its roots in the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. The Empire, which shaped a political culture of balance and peacekeeping, was a multi-tiered political system with a federal structure. This federalism has endured to this day. At the same time, this Empire can be seen as a forerunner of other federal systems.
The Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation
The Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, whose foundations date back to the early Middle Ages, formed the political framework of Germany from the early modern period until its dissolution in 1806. Around 1500, the Empire developed a new, more modern structure as a political organisation. Its central institutions and political mechanisms took shape during the so-called Imperial Reform. This German Empire of the early modern period was neither expansionist nor an imperial power; structurally, it was incapable of waging war. Voltaire quipped that it was ‘neither holy nor Roman nor an empire’. It constituted a political unity whilst, at the same time, being polycentric in nature due to its multitude of non-sovereign, heterogeneous territories. This is why Montesquieu spoke of a federal state, a ‘république fédérative d’Allemagne’. It was through him that the idea of the vertical separation of powers, modelled on the Empire, found its way into the American constitutional debate and into the Constitution of the United States of America.
In the government of the Empire, the Emperor and the Imperial Estates worked together – the phrase ‘Emperor and Empire’ captures this. Political decisions had to be negotiated. In this elective monarchy, the Emperor had only limited powers; he was kept in check by the Imperial Estates, the Electors (the most distinguished princes of the Empire), the princes and the Imperial cities. They all had a say in matters of state. Various institutions also held the Empire together: the Imperial Diet, the two supreme imperial courts with equal status, and the Imperial Circles, an executive organisation. The Empire protected the existence and governance of the Imperial Estates, whilst at the same time keeping them within the framework of imperial law; sovereign rule and imperial authority were intertwined. Although the territories increasingly sought to become more independent, only the larger ones, such as Austria and Brandenburg-Prussia, succeeded in doing so over time.
The Empire thus made a decisive contribution to the maintenance of peace – both internally and externally. Maintaining peace throughout the realm was regarded as a central shared responsibility. The legal basis was laid by the fundamental laws of the Empire, which had already been established with the Golden Bull of 1356. The Empire’s judicial system became a European model alongside that of France. According to contemporary thinking, this ensured far-reaching freedoms. The Enlightenment thinker and tutor to the princes of Weimar, Christoph Martin Wieland, praised the Imperial Constitution because, through the balance of powers, the inhabitants of the Empire ‘enjoy a particularly high degree of human and civil liberty’ and were, more than elsewhere, ‘safer from general external and internal, political and ecclesiastical subjugation and slavery’.
The inhabitants of the Empire were able to experience this in various ways: through symbols such as the double-headed imperial eagle, the imperial postal service, media reports, or even through recourse to the imperial courts. Looking back, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe emphasised how, at the coronation of Joseph II in Frankfurt am Main in 1763, a sense of participation in the Empire became tangible: ‘With so many sovereigns and their representatives in attendance, the Imperial City of Frankfurt also appeared as a minor sovereign … We delighted in the shared sense of honour and in that hundred-thousandth fraction of sovereignty, which at that moment appeared in all its splendour.’ Not least, the press – which was highly developed within the Empire but virtually impossible to control due to its territorial diversity – created a political public sphere in which events within the Empire, as well as those from other parts of Europe and the world, quickly found an echo.
The Thuringian Royal Residences in the Holy Roman Empire
The density of Thuringia’s network of royal residences, the small territories of Thuringia and their frequent boundary changes were typical of the Holy Roman Empire. After all, it consisted predominantly of medium-sized and small political units and actors. Likewise, the Empire was characterised by pluralism in many respects – in its culture, its legal system and its religion – and this polycentrism led to the emergence of a multitude of cultural centres. These centres engaged in productive competition with one another. Thuringia is a prime example of this as well.
Astrid Ackermann
