"Before 1157, the [Holy Roman Empire] was merely referred to as the Roman Empire."
But didn't the Byzantines also call themselves the Roman Empire and exist at the same time? So did people just accept that there were two Roman Empires simultaneously with no distinction between the two?
They called the Byzantine empire the Greek empire at the time and the Roman emperor the Greek emperor.
the Greek terminology came when the byzantine papacy was waning and the holy roman empire was the new western Roman empire and the successor of the Romans.
Like edgy memes on this board yes that is where the
>Byzantines were Greek
meme originated.
>"GERMANS?!?!"
>"The EU?!?!"
Is anyone still not astounded by the irony of the fate of the "Roman empire" during the middle ages, also Germany and Italy in modern times?
No one is astounded because they're two completely different situations to the point where it's ridiculous to compare them.
So a loose confederation of German principalities was the Roman Empire but the actual political continuation of the Roman Empire in the East wasn't. Got it.
Who said I was talking about situations?
Holy Roman Empire was referred to as the Roman Empire. The claim was actually accepted by Byzantium (though they considered the HRE as "West Rome" and themselves as "East Rome"). However, the west did not accept Byzantium's claim and referred to them as (essentially) "Roman Province"
>They called the Byzantine empire the Greek empire
The west would refer to the ERE as the "Greek Empire" to disparage them and the "Empire of Romania" when they wanted to flatter them but not insult the HRE.
WE WUZ ROMANZ N SHIIEEETT
Wasn't the "Holy" "Roman" "Emperor" called King of Germany or something of the sort by the Byzantines at the time as well?
>H
>"R"
>E
>E
>"R"
>E
Generally, the Holy Roman Empire was known simply as "The Empire" and the Byzantines were called the Romans, Romanians, Greeks, and other things a variety of times. States didn't really have official names, and a lot of the ones we use today are rather informal.
>citation needed
It's like the two Chinas today. Both claim to be the only one.
Westeners called the HRE "The Empire" and the byzantines were called the greeks and similar names.
Politics user, that's how they work.
And for the rest of the fucking thread that says basically the same several times citation is not needed?
Yup. There was also the perception for much of the HRE's history that there could only ever be one "Empire" at a time, so it led to some weird dealings with other major powers of the time that considered themselves "empires."
Russia in particular was weird because they claimed to be the rightful successors of Rome after Constantinople fell and declared themselves an empire. Though normally they didn't really interact all that much, there were a couple times where the HRE and Russians had to cooperate, and all of their dealings had to tactfully avoid the fact that they were disputing the title of Emperor. Forget exactly how it went, but it was something like neither addressing the actual position of Emperor in official dealings, but rather addressing lesser titles the respective Emperors held like "king of Austria" and whatnot.
Pretty sure this happened when the HRE and the ERE had to interact too.
Yup. Everyone trying to avoid directly acknowledging the other guy's claim to the title while still maintaining relatively good relations. Hell, there was at least one Emperor who married the niece of a Byzantine emperor, so it's not like these interactions were all that rare either.
The emperor of the HRE was Kaiser/Imperator/Emperor, the Byzantine Emperor called himself Basileus
>It's not like I acknowledge you as emperor or anything
That's fucking kawai.
That's in their own languages and I seriously doubt it was common at all for westeners to write "basileus" when referring to the eastern roman emperor.
Yes, The Byzantines took it as a grave insult whenever a diplomat referred to them as the "Empire of the Greeks"
By the way, Byzantine women were looked down on by Westerners because they would dress fashionably and eat their food with utensils.