Holy Roman Empire

>absolutism, the desire to have a strong king
The french took most of the permanent losses of the HRE because they were strong (and absolutist), but not because the local populace wanted it. Strong central states need not be absolutist either.

>This is your brain on PiS propaganda
If we had to decide who was the dominant power in europe, poland would barely make third place after the HRE and/or France. None of these fought muslims at the time directly, that would have been spain, balkan people and various crusaders.

>barely make third place after the HRE and/or France
Make that fifth after spain and england too.

>Though it was very chaotic
In contrast, the Empire worked very well from the basic and was a comparatively peacefull and prosperous entity, creating better living conditions than most other places in Europe.
However most anons compare it to a modern state and do not understand how the medieval worked. Now every historian will tell you the HRE was the powerhouse of medieval Europe, but you are on Veeky Forums home of the disgruntled polak shitposter, so you gonna hear all kinds of bullshit.

>comparatively peacefull and prosperous entity, creating better living conditions than most other places in Europe.
Eh. It was a reasonably benevolent climate, generally advanced, and the political turmoil had less bearing on general prosperity than it would have today.

Thus, there is nothing left for us to do but to call the German Empire [Reich], if classified according to the rules of political science, an irregular body resembling a monster. Through the negligent indulgence of the emperors, the ambitions of the princes, and the machinations of the clergy, it has developed over the course of time from a regular monarchy into such a disharmonious form of government that it is no longer merely a limited monarchy, though outward appearances would seem to indicate that; nor is it yet a federation of several states, but rather a cross between the two.
>even a German lawyer calls it "an irregular body resembling a monster"

>It was a reasonably benevolent climate
Ey, it was the medieval, rough times, still it was more peaceful than most others.

yet still, it dominated medieval Europe like no other entity.

>an irregular body resembling a monster
If you were a historian having to explain how the ten thousand sovereign entities and dozens of levels of politics worked together to make some historic event happen you'd call it a monster too.
Same reason Veeky Forumslets dislike it. It is too complicated for their small brains and even smaller span of attention.

>>Poland was the dominant power of Europe from 1000-1500 AD, it dominated the politics of medieval Europe and kept the muslimes at bay.

The Catholic Church

More thoughts?

It lasted for 1000 years, and it dominated Europe for about half of that. That's hardly a failure. The reason it fell apart is because Austria and Prussia became disconnected from the Empire's institutions and started using them as a battleground to play out their rivalry. This prevented it from making meaningful reforms in the late 17th century that could've saved it.

Austria started to focus on its own *because* they saw the HRE as hopeless. The HRE stopped functioning properly because of the religious conflicts coupled with the Franco-Habsburg wars and the rise of centralized states

>iberians are more entitled in that stripe
After the Franks beat them initially. Asturias never would have been a thing if Charles the Hammer didn't btfo the Umadbros

The emperors failed to centralize it because the princes were very powerful relative to the average feudal vassals. The reformation didnt help as it just added another layer of seperation between the emperor and his subjects and while France and Russia were becoming more absolutist the 30 years war just weakened the emperor's power further. If France wasnt constantly fucking with them the HRE probably could have survived

>Dominates continental Europe for over 800 years
>Lasts from the 9th century all the way into the 19th century.
>Failed

for starters the goal of the Emperor was to become the Universal Emperor of Latin Christendom, a tall order.

>Universal Emperor of Latin Christendom
What exactly would that mean?

the sovereign of all latin christian lords, including say the kings of england and france.
This obviously lead to some conflict with the Pope, the other figure competing for primacy in christendom.

It was powerful in the middle ages
but become defunct after the protestant reformation.

It was pretty much a Confederation that masked itself as an empire in order to look strong.

But a more important question is, did the citizens of the HRE actually believe themselves to be Romans or did they identify more with their local government?

HRE is like Voltron if the pilots hated each other

together it's scary as hell but apart you still have to deal with fucking lions

>did the citizens of the HRE actually believe themselves to be Romans
Of course not. They thought themselves germans (or bohemians), austrians, saxons etc.. and subjects of the empire as well as their local lord.

(Citizenship was a city thing btw. You can't be citizen of the empire, merely a subject either directly of the empire or of a lord. The direct subjects could be considered some kind of citizen and identified with the emperor quite strongly, since he guaranteed their liberty against local lords.)

I always wondered if there existed some form of ID in medieval cities. Iam sure that all citizens had their name writtein in the city archive, but how could for example city guards say if is one person citizen of the city or isnt?

There might be some kind of passport system if the city is very large. Citizenship was actually a rather rare privilege, so the guards might just know you. Or they're gonna find someone to check if it's really important. It's not like you're gonna make use of your citizenship privileges all the time.

Holy Roman Empire lasted for more then a 1000 years. In modern times it changed it's name and became what you know as Germany. So it's still there. It's a leading power in Europe. I would call this a success.

the concept of 'holy roman empire' was actually from a later period in its existance, before then it was just the land of the Holy Roman Emperor, not necessarily the Holy Roman Empire. It was just a title.

You're a clueless retard. It was Slavic warlords selling surplus of Slavic slaves, not Germans capturing them.

And yes, medieval Poland was relevant.

how free where medieval people able to travel from town to town? was there usually a required write by a noble to excuse you being there or where people free to travel as they please? where language barriers a big thing back then seeing how the only universal language was Latin and only scholars poke it

this might be a bit off the mark but I know that in Japan the daimyo really cared if their subjects remained in their domain because every subject that left was lost wealth and a boon to a potential enemy daimyo. So they set up checkpoints on major roads amongst other measures.
also there were things like serfdom in europe and traveling under the emperor's protection(which amounted to an official waving the imperial standard traveling with you, this happened to Luther when he was summoned to Worms).
There would definitely be tariffs between the principalities.

>how free where medieval people able to travel from town to town?
I am not a historian, but it seems rather obvious to me that no lord could just claim you as his serf - or rather, he was not allowed to. Doing it still would allow your own lord (or city) to start a feud or appeal to the emperor. What the lord COULD do would be forbidding you to cross, but why would he do that. (Actually, there are many reasons... and there was constant disorder for it.)
>where language barriers a big thing
I don't see why. Go to a place far away, you learn the language or get a translator. Considering how short travel distances would usually be, probably not a big problem.

all depends on your socio-economic status

if you where a surf or peasant farmer than you didn't really do a whole lot of traveling, as you didn't really need to. Mostly merchants (oy vay) and knights moved around a lot as i was part of their job. Your family lived in the same town as you and house most of the time, so you didn't need to leave to see them. The only real type of migration was rural peasants to big cities as there where more jobs.

what was the refugee crisis of the middle ages? where there alt right weeneis that reject the rapefugees as well back then to.

unironically the first crusade.

It was Germans capturing them, but rarely from Poland. There were many tribes of Polabian Slavs between Poland and Germans. Also, Poles were more often than not German Christian allies. Especially early on.

People fled from wars or famine all the time, were accepted or rejected all the time, started a new life or died all the time. Mostly not in numbers comparable to today, because the locals mostly had the good senses to only accept those that could be integrated into the local society and economy without too much trouble.
Main difference being that medieval arabs weren't quite as braindead as modern europeans.

>Be pole
>Decide to fight your fellow slavs with those guys from the west to increase your power
>Sell some of them as slaves because money
>Share the lands
>Thousand years later
>Oy vey all of eastern germany is rightful slavic clay, gibe back

with the first crusade I mean the scores of people traveling through eastern Europe wrecking shit so bad that local governments had to send in their armies to crush them, look up what happened in Hungary and the Byzantine Empire during the first crusade.

You're not wrong.

>Mostly not in numbers comparable to today, because the locals mostly had the good senses to only accept those that could be integrated into the local society and economy without too much trouble.
thats kinda racist

Was the HRE economically prosperous though? From what I've seen itt and elsewhere it seems like the HRE did implement some policies that fostered growth. Although this could have been offset by the mismanagement of local fiefdoms by absentminded nobles and clergy as was often the case.

Any thoughts Veeky Forums?

Considering that the entire Age of Discovery was motivated by trying to get Asian spices into HRE markets, I'd say they were fairly prosperous.

And the fact that the state was weaker than in France means it probably appropriate less wealth from society, leaving more for the common people.

Wasn't a strong state back then at least often beneficial to the economy because they could fund large scale projects?

bump

>Why did it fail?
unironically Habsburgs

calling modern Germany HRE would be a disgrace to Liechtenstein, Austria etc.

>how free where medieval people able to travel from town to town? was there usually a required write by a noble to excuse you being there or where people free to travel as they please?
If people were serfs they required a permission from their lord to travel. A lord had the right to demand his serfs back if they ran away and there were contracts between princes and cities to send back runaway serfs. However, due to the fractured nature of the Empire, serfs had quite a few ways to get away from their lords and in cities there was the general rule that one became a full-fledged citizen (and therefore a free man) after a year and a day, so if a serf kept a low profile and crossed the right borders he could become a free man.

If you weren't a serf, and most people weren't, travelling was rather more common in the medieval than most people would think. Legal affairs, pilgrimages, family affairs, market town visits etc, people would travel a lot. Language barriers were not that a huge problem, hands, feet and good will will solve that. Shity roads, bandits, and low level of protection for "outsiders" along the way was more ofa problem.

Liechtenstein is a micro state closely associated with Switzerland. It was a part of late HRE during parts of 18th century. And it was part of German Confederation until 1868.
Austria was also a part of HRE and German Confederation. It was also part of Germany between 1938 and 1945. And is still closely associated with Germany.

Poland WAS strong and DID fight turks but no where near to the extent of the HRE, italy, byzies, etc. except for 1686, not the middle ages.

Roman Empire --> WRE and ERE.
WRE --> Carolingian Empire --> France and HRE.
HRE --> German Empire and Austrian Empire.
Is this correct?