Why do people here meme about HRE and yet have a hard one for Byzantine Empire?

Why do people here meme about HRE and yet have a hard one for Byzantine Empire?
For all its flaws, Holy Roman Empire was actually the dominant military powerhouse of Europe for a few centuries.
Meanwhile, Bynzantie was a shitty "Empire" that couldn't defend itself neither against arabs nor europeans, it couldnt even take up with italian city states.

This post is a disgrace to the study of history. It clearly has a bias, and treats historical nations as either good or bad, a flawed concept in regards to historical countries.

People like you are who are ruining Veeky Forums. You can't seem to understand that history doesn't give a shit what you think. I don't even like the Byzantine Empire. I'm just pissed off that people like you think you can talk about history

I am sorry that I am runing your browsing experience.
But an anonymous imageboard like Veeky Forums is bound to attract a lot of shitposting. I browse Veeky Forums for lighthearted and tongue-in-cheek historical discussions.

There are discussion formats far more suited for the sort of biasless study of history you desire. Maybe you should try /r/AskHistorians?

Quality post OP

> I browse Veeky Forums for lighthearted and tongue-in-cheek historical discussions

I do, too.

Not even a Byzaboo but I get tired of people claiming how Byzantines "couldn't defend themselves". The fact that the empire was a thing for a thousand fucking years refutes that.

On the other hand you have people masturbating to meme empires like Nazi Germany that survived for only little over a decade.

I would say it took them 1000 years to slowly died.
Sure, the Byzantine Empire "existed" for all that time, but it never really lived

>Byzantine Empire never really lived

you what

He could've reunited the Roman Empire

I think the primary grace of HRE isn't really militarily or whatever, but in terms of civics. Individual rights mattered there more than any place in Europe, possibly barring Italy.

When the French revolted and claimed to spread "liberalism" across the continent with Napoops, the HREniggers were far more civic & liberally-oriented than the French were.

history isn't crusader kings 2

he already lead the roman empire

>holy
>Roman
>EMPIRE

The fact that Constantinople successfully repelled the Arabs while Persia got BTFO'd should be enough evidence that they could defend themselves.

>crowned by the leader of Rome
>still not emperor

explain this

>an empire made up of Protestant kingdoms and duchies is holy because the pope crowned the emperor

It was a shit federation

Great Thread OP!

>An empire founded 600 years before Martin Luther was born isn't Catholic

A shame isn't it, losing all meaning to your name, losing a war to your "subjects"

>What is civil war

that didn't respond to my argument. How was the Holy Roman Empire not ruled by an Emperor?

Holy Roman Empire was a huge clusterfuck that was never truly united.

And the Italian military adventures of Otto I and Frederick Barbarossa for expansion don't count, they were feudal conflicts or dick waving competitions against the pope. Collectively the HRE was more powerful and influential during teh high middle ages than the Byzantine Empire, but the thing was that it wasn't really an empire with a common foreign and internal policy. Labeling it a feudal commonwealth would be more accurate.

The Byzantine Empire on the other hand was a unified state, with a centralized bureaucracy, one military, one ruler and one common law.

Also the Holy Roman Empire died in 1648 after the 30 years war. After that it was just a royal tittle with no real meaning. And even then it was a mercy in killing this clusterfuck.

>but it never really lived
Constantinople was probably the greatest city in the western world until the Turkening. I guess they didn't expand too vigorously if that's how you judge the glory of a state.

The HRE's localism is what made it such a wealthy and powerful state. Hundreds of feudal lords attempting to grow their local economies in comparison to autocratic depots throwing all of their wealth away on pointless personal priorities.

and how long could they hold those territores?
hmm....

no empire was truly united in the early middle ages.
The technological limits of that time period simply didnt allow an unification similar to the later national states

Byzantine Empire was the only Medieval state to the west of China and perhaps India to maintain a bureaucracy and complex administrative framework, as well as an urban culture that no else managed to retain after the fall of the Roman Empire.

It sounds trivial to you, but Byzantium was one of the few states that could coordinate logistics and handle prolonged warfare outside its borders, as well as tax much more efficiently and create a middle-class of tradesmen, bureaucrats, and wage laborers, unlike feudal states that quickly devolved into a rigid caste-system.

It's a very impressive achievement. The >H>R>E did not have any sort of centralized bureaucracy or urban culture, and thus, not particularly Roman.

>calling the 30 years war a civil war

m8 happily fuck off

>we must restore the glory of Rome
>destroy it in the process

JUSTinian

dare i say it?

During most of it's history, the Holy Roman Empire was nominal at best.

...

>For all its flaws, Holy Roman Empire was actually the dominant military powerhouse of Europe for a few centuries.

So was The Empire until Manzikert. It literally held off half of the middle-east for 6 centuries alone.

Even at its height in the high middle ages, when it was the closer they ever got to be an actual Empire with an actual Emperor with actual authority in foreign policy and military, the HRE was cucked by the French ('French' as in actually only half of present day France) and the north italian city-states allied in the Lombard league.

I'm not even a Byzaboo but comparing the HRE's role in world history to that of the ERE/Byzantine Empire is fucking ridicoulous.

Pretty much

Whenever an Emperor tried to assert himself and exercise authority either:

Northern Italian city states rebelled agisnt him

Pope excommunicated him

Bohemia back-stabbed him

France attacked him.

>not having complete authority
>means the state doesn't exist
What is this meme?
Holy Roman Empire existed for 1,000 years, from the 800-1800, the founders of the USA existed when HRE existed.

>HOLY
>ROMAN
>EMPIRE

get outmemed kek t.frfgh

If >H >R >E was anything but a meme before its death, then EU is a fucking country, since Brussels has more authority than the >Emperor past 1648

Anything even approaching a Holy Roman Empire only existed from the 11th century until the 15th.

>urban culture
The free cities of the Empire and its vicinity were important centres of commerce and craftsmanship and families like the Fugger, Welser or Medici that significantly influenced European history emerged from them.

He said "maintained" for a good reason

>It sounds trivial to you, but Byzantium was one of the few states that could coordinate logistics and handle prolonged warfare outside its borders
Then how comes it was no match to the military of HRE?
Even some italian city states and a few french knights could beat the oh so mighty Byzantine "Empire"

>dominant military powerhouse

Nice way to spell France !

>The >H>R>E did not have any sort of centralized bureaucracy.

False, centralised peasant courts to stop abuse of servs and a weirdass voting system to coordinate the 6 million states were a thing later on.

>The >H>R>E did not have any sort of centralized bureaucracy or urban culture
>Free Cities.
Ok bro.

Christcucks.

MY EYES

Who puked on the map

Now to just add a pinch of Liberum Veto in the concoction.

This triggers /gsg/

>dominant military powerhouse
No it wasn't. It was a patchwork of feudal domains that slowly but surely slipped out of Emperor's control. For most of history HRE was not a thing, in the sense of a centralized state that could effectively control most of it's claimed territory. It was totally wrecked when Protestant reformation happened.
>couldn't defend itself
They defended themselves against a succession of enemies for around 1000 years, more or less succesfully for the first 700.

Byzantine Empire was until the 13th century the only state in Europe that had relatively centralized government, standing armies, urban culture, developed economy, developed legal system, and so on.
When Paris had 20,000 people, Constantinople had ten times that under lowest estimates.
This is a shit thread.

>all these different opinion
Republic era Rome or nothing

>that subtle go back 2 reddit

>be the first line of defense of europe for 800 years
>create a greenhouse situation for northern europeans who dont have to constantly face potential ruin by the hand of a religion that makes orcs out of man
>preserve ancient knowledge that sparks the renaissance once the empire eventually goes down
>be called a shitty "empire" by some autistic neet

That feel when my ancestor fought for this dude and subsequently rewarded for his actions in battle with a title.

That feel when you will never be a Byzantine soldier

why do the Byzantines just have such awesome asethics

Because their culture hailed from a whole succession of many other cultures with awesome aesthetics.

>When Paris had 20,000 people, Constantinople had ten times that under lowest estimates.

Not all urban cultures are created the same. A Classical style imperial capital with urban aristocrats profiting off the centralized bureaucracy while supporting unproductive throngs of urban poor fed mostly by the dole and prone to factional riots every other year is inferior to a mercantile city-state populated mostly by artisan guilds, merchants, and paid laborers even if the former dwarfs the latter in population.

There's a reason Venice was able to economically, then militarily, dominate Constantinople. That kind of centralization and urbanization is only good on paper when falsely compared to modern benefits and attitudes only.

Both were cool.

>A Classical style imperial capital with urban aristocrats profiting off the centralized bureaucracy while supporting unproductive throngs of urban poor fed mostly by the dole and prone to factional riots every other year
So....like Paris has been for most of its history?

No, because that has only applied to Paris for about the last 3 centuries or so. The difference is, unlike Constantinople, Paris made up for it by actually managing to run a centralized state that could defend its other productive cities.

>>be the first line of defense of europe for 800 years
Byzantium only ever cared for itself, and wasn't any sort of defense. In order to save itself it sent the Huns west. It did nothing against the Slavs and Magyars who invaded the Balkans and Central Europe as they pleased until the Franks stepped in, and the Saracens reached France and Italy with almost no effective Byzantine resistance outside of Anatolia. Damascus-Baghdad only ever cared about the Syria-Anatolia border anyway as Europe dealt with independent governors and adventurers in Spain and Sicily. Meanwhile the Turks for some 400 years also only cared about Anatolia, and it was only with Byzantine connivance that they even entered the Balkans.

>>create a greenhouse situation for northern europeans who dont have to constantly face potential ruin by the hand of a religion that makes orcs out of man
Bullshit. Fortress Europe was literally forged out of a siege mentality against marauding Avars, Hungarians, Vikings, and Moors. If by 'orcs' you mean the Muslims, then at least these so-called orcs managed to leave Europe advanced cities and agriculture, while forging the free cities from the ashes the Byzantines had left them since the Lombard Wars.

>>preserve ancient knowledge that sparks the renaissance once the empire eventually goes down
That's funny, since that 'ancient knowledge' mostly came from Europe's own monasteries or the 'orcs' themselves centuries before the Byzantines went down and the West had to take pity on refugees only good for teaching rich kids how to read Greek poetry while all the Latin STEMlords and philosophers got actual work done before and after the Renaissance.

>>be called a shitty "empire" by some autistic neet
It was called a shitty empire by dozens of perceptive thinkers through the centuries, and for good reason. The only ones who don't think so are the actual, autistic NEETs here, or LARPing Slavs dreaming about gaudy dresses and jewelry while high on WEWUZ.

At the year 1000, the byzantine empire was the superpower in mediterranean sea. They had inherited roman's techs and knowledge, had the greek fire and so on. Afterwards it went to shit but you have to understand that when people talk about a civilization it's often related to its apex. Otherwise I can just say how HRE was shit just because Napoléon destroyed it

At the year 1000 the Byzantine Empire was well put together for a state, but a superpower it was not. It could not project power very far due to its own unstable politics, however talented its bureaucrats and generals were in the early 11th century. Plus, Roman technology and knowledge meant little by this period as most of its neighbors sans the Bulgarians and Slavs had the same or even better,

>concentration of cultural, scientific, military and economic power
>not a superpower

They were rich as fuck thanks to the trade routes with the east and had a modern and competent army. It was the superpower of the area for a while

That's just a regional power, no different than another. A superpower would be able to project its culture, science, economy, and military far beyond its borders with impunity beyond the capabilities of its neighbors. It was stronger than, say, Ireland, but about on par with the Franks and Arabs, and regularly threatened culturally, economically, or militarily by the likes of the Bulgars, Russians, Italians, and Turks.

What would be a superpower according to you at that time then ?

>pope
>legitimate leader of Rome

There wouldn't be, because there were no states that overwhelming back then that it didn't have rivals and threats not just in the next region over, but in local neighbors as well.

Why do some historians frequently refer to rhat term when talking about states such as Rome, China or the byzantine empire then

Not every historian is a political scientist or an expert at phrasing metaphors and prose, especially not those who use the term superpower for the Byzantine Empire. A much better argument could be made for Classical Rome and China though it'd still be an exaggeration all the same.

>HRE
>state

I see. There seems to be a problem with the definition though, some lean to your direction, with the projection being the most important and some other tend to give more importance to the cumulation of powers and influence. But I guess since the term is a modern one made to describe the situation in the 20th century it is indeed hard to apply it to past powers

The Turks were breathing down their necks.

WE

>Even some italian city states and a few french knights could beat the oh so mighty Byzantine "Empire"
Italy actually revolted against the >H >R >E quite succesfully, they never managed to get their hands on Venice and the >H >R >E was France's punching bag from at least Philippe Auguste all the way to Napoleon's mercy killing. France has constantly expanded ever since its inception after the Treaty of Verdun, and it mostly expanded North and East, into the >H >R >E. At least a third of France's current territory was at some point imperial.

>be the first line of defense of europe for 800 years
The Byzantines viewed Western Europe as barbarians.

Also, Byzantine actually allied with arabs and didnt want to let the christians through during third crusade

italian city states were vassals of HRE
meanwhile, italian city states dominated Byzantine Empire both ecomically and in military.
That means HRE > Byzantine Empire