Review by Choice Review
Wilson (Oxford) has written a monumental, groundbreaking study of the Holy Roman Empire. He unearthed large, multilingual, archival sources that trace the empire back before its Carolingian origins under Charlemagne (800 CE), when the pope crowned him emperor. When Rome was sacked in 476 CE and the Byzantine Empire took predominance, the Western Empire increasingly had to exist under protectors such as the Gauls and the Franks. Eventually, the papacy became stronger, and after the crowning of Charlemagne, several centuries of "dispute" arose between popes, anti-popes, emperors, kings, and anti-kings until the Habsburgs became predominant in 1519. Wilson details various aspects of the empire in chapters devoted to nation, dynasty, authority, associations, and justice, among others. The Habsburgs, even when controlling Spain and the German lands, always competed with what was happening in France and England, the Italian states, and the papacy. Finally, Wilson puts to rest the idea that Napoleon's eventual dissolution of the empire led to a vacuum of power later controlled by Prussian and Nazi authority. He sees the "German problem" that developed after the Congress of Vienna as separate from the nature of the Holy Roman Empire during its centuries of existence. Summing Up: Essential. Faculty, specialists. --Andrew Mark Mayer, College of Staten Island
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Wilson (History/Univ. of Hull; The Thirty Years War: Europe's Tragedy, 2009, etc.) delves into the makeup, structure, and lands of the Holy Roman Empire, which lasted "more than a millennium, well over twice as long as imperial Rome itself." Beginning with the coronation of Charlemagne in 800, the empire lasted until the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars brought about its dissolution. The author takes Voltaire to task with his comment that it was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire, and he meticulously explains how it was structured and ruled. The Holy Roman Empire was unlike any other, defined by countless autonomous kingdoms led by an emperor with a divine mission. The emperor combined secular and ecclesiastical roles, and he existed as a protector of the papacybut not a master. The empire lacked the things that constituted a single political core, such as a stable heartland, a capital city, central political institutions, or even a single "nation." The Reichstag, representing the imperial estates, not the general population, had a broader remit than other countries, enacting law codes, military regulations, and policy implementation. The author avoids chronological narration, arguing that the empire never had a linear development. He traces the power and influence of the imperial church system and the educated clergy as well as the lords' power over clerical appointments. As princes gained power, structure switched to a status hierarchy, persistent and increasingly rigid. To explain the details of this nebulous empire ruled by autonomous princes, Wilson takes thoroughness to a painful threshold. Many aspects can only be pinpointed with semantics. The author's scholarship is unassailable, and his writing ability is clean and readable, but the subject is just too convoluted and even tedious to readers without deep historical background knowledge of this enormous federation. An encyclopedic reference work to be consulted but likely not completely read by anyone other than fellow academics. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
