You refer to something in your essay called the *ahem* Holy Roman Empire. Now, I'm not going to deduct marks, but could you elaborate on what exactly you mean by this? I have my own misgivings with the term, but I'd like to hear your arguments and am open to changing my mind.
>>1043228
I may have written it wrong, in fact I meant the
>satanic
>barbarian
>coalition
Hmm, I have to argue that this meme is becoming a bit stale.
One of the main reasons being, that
Last time it was posted was a mere 2 hours ago
Yeah, it's really annoying at this point
Recognizing this guys face in the catalog has become a daily occurence
Over the past 2 days,
My experience on /his/ has been polluted by this shitty meme
And i'm frankly tired of it.
No more shitty Voltaire threads, please guys
Every time i go on /his/ this crap is being posted
Mostly it's the same people.
Posting the same stale joke over and over.
In the first month it was fun, i admit, but now?
Ridiculously over-used
Even the most hard-core memers are tired at this point.
>>1043536
>
>
>
>>1043536
Until voltaire's face reaches the front of the HRE wikipedia page there will be no peace
Reported.
>>1043552
This. We must put the > > > boos in their spot
>>1043228
im really glad we're getting some quality memes like this
has anyone seen any valuable commodities around here?
>>1043630
HOWDY
O
W
D
Y
>>1043536
shit/10
it didn't even rhyme
Remember to sage and hide Voltaire threads.
>>1043536
Ok this is getting out of hand
>tfw actually want to discuss Voltaire's ideas and life but the memery has eclipsed the man
Sure
First we start with "Empire". An Empire is a grouping of multiple kingdoms, which are groupings of multiple duchies. The HRE encompassed the kingdoms of Bohemia, Moravia, Saxony, et al and a plethora of duchies.
Naturally an empire has an Emperor, and while the Emperor would handle all matters temporal, his power, like the power of all sovereigns in feudalism, is invested by God through the conduit of the pope, based in Rome.
Now, while the Holy Roman Empire was mostly in the Germanies, the idea of what was "Roman" or not is more cultural than linguistic or ethnic. The Byzantine Empire referred to itself until its end as the Roman Empire, despite being run by Greeks, speaking Greek, several hundred miles away from Rome.
What makes the HRE able to have the title of "Roman" is that as the Western Roman Empire dissolved, its territories were largely taken over by federates, who generally kept their core culture, but invariably became more romanized. "Roman" is as much a cultural underpinning as "China" is, despite current China having as much in common with the first dynasty ethnically or culturally as they do the Mongols.
