![]() ![]() He argued that the empire had declined from a ‘regular kingdom’ into an ‘irregular’ one, suggesting that its political development somehow ran opposite to that of other European states by becoming progressively weaker and more decentralised. Others, like the political philosopher Samuel Pufendorf a century earlier, described the empire as ‘resembling a monstrosity’ because it did not conform to any of the recognised categories of state. Even this was denied by some sceptical observers, notably Voltaire, who famously dismissed the empire as ‘neither holy, Roman, nor an empire’ in 1756. ![]() This geographic heterogeneity is reflected in how the empire’s history has been written, as that of a loose confederation with little binding it together beyond a vague sense that the empire embodied the fading ideal of a single Christendom. ![]() The Holy Roman Empire sprawled across much of Europe for over a millennium, encompassing what are now Germany, Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, much of Italy, and parts of France, Denmark, and Poland. T his essay originally appeared under the title ‘Identity and belonging in the Holy Roman Empire‘ in Nation, State and Empire: Perspectives from the Engelsberg Seminar, published by Bokförlaget Stolpe in collaboration with the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit, 2017. ![]()
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