What if the Holy Roman Empire was formed and Centered around Italy and not Germany? (This might work better in a No Papal States TL)
Hermanubis said:What if the Holy Roman Empire was formed and Centered around Italy and not Germany? (This might work better in a No Papal States TL)
Hermanubis said:^I was thinking something a little more along the lines of the OTL HRE, formed in the west (By Italians, perhaps Lombard’s, or Ostrogoths) whilst I figure the Byzantines would be in a position more or less like OTL…
Hermanubis said:Do you think it’s too much to ask for the Italian HRE to have its Capital in Rome? Seems Ravenna or Milan would have been a favorite around the time were talking about, but…
Hermanubis said:^Hmm, Possibly… thou I think it might be just as likely that some secular ruler might take the Title of Pope (Pontifex Maximus) In the Ultimate Victory of Empire over Church… (The Laws of Celibacy would have to go in either case thou, I think)
Hermanubis said:Do you think it’s too much to ask for the Italian HRE to have its Capital in Rome? Seems Ravenna or Milan would have been a favorite around the time were talking about, but…
That Might work… thou, We’d need to have the HRE absorb the Papal States somehow, and assert more power over at least Northern Italy…Abdul Hadi Pasha said:Why not Sicily? Under Frederick II the center of gravity of the HRE was in Sicily & Southern Italy. Just have frederick live longer, beat back the Pope, then be suceeded by his son Conrad as an adult rather than a minor.
Hermanubis said:That Might work… thou, We’d need to have the HRE absorb the Papal States somehow, and assert more power over at least Northern Italy…
Hermanubis said:Hmm, interesting… Do you think that its possible that Germany might try to break away from the HRE after the center of it had shifted away to Italy after a few generations?
I'm of the opinion (and I'm probably wrong) that the reason there was such an extreme amount of 'fragmentation' in Germany and to a lesser extent France was because of all the dozens of interacting ethnicities (ie barbarian tribes) mixing with Roman and Gaulish descendents, which created all these semi-independent polities.Imajin said:If the HRE has power throughout Italy, does Italy, including the south, see the same level of fragmentation that occured across OTL Germany, or will fragmentation still only exist in the north?
Nice thought, shared by people like Petrarca and Machiavelli, in their days.Diamond said:In Italy, there was a more ancient common history (the Romans) to bond people together as Italians a little more, as well as less new peoples settling in the peninsula as opposed to north of the Alps.
LordKalvan said:N
Maybe the chance came with Frederick 2nd: if he had concentrated more on his Italian possession, and in particular on the Norman kingdom, history might have been different. The titular capital of this "other" HRE would have been Rome for sure (but in that age kings and emperors were required to move from city to city, to keep things under control). The pope would have been subservient to the emperor, at least for a time. Later on, it would be quite possible for an emperor confronted by a difficult pope (or just in need of funds) to create an Imperial Church, Anglican style.