The Holy Roman Empire was an idealized re-establishment of the realm of Charlemagne, the Frankish ruler whose territories corresponded roughly to those of modern France and Germany. In the year 800, Charlemagne came to the aid of Pope Leo III, who had run afoul of the nobility in Rome. He convened a council in Rome that affirmed Leo’s papacy on December 1. In return Leo crowned Charlemagne “Emperor of the Romans” in Old St. Peter’s Basilica in a Mass on Christmas Day, reserving for Charlemagne (now Charles I) the role of defender of Rome and of the Church.
After Charlemagne’s death, disputes over power among his grandsons led to the precipitous decline of the dynasty. For nearly a century the title went unclaimed, but was revived in 962 when Otto I, the elected King of the Saxons, was once again crowned Emperor of the Romans by the Pope in Rome. Otto’s coronation forged a centuries-long special relationship between the Papacy, the memory of Ancient Rome, and the consolidated Germanic realm–a “Holy Roman Empire.”
