Europe and the Church, Part 8...Otto the Great, Founder of the First Reich
Almost everybody is aware of the Third Reich, which was meant to last a thousand years, but few today know much about the First Reich, which actually did. Although its origins go back to Charlemagne, the 10th century German Emperor Otto I was instrumental in founding the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation.
by Melvin Rhodes
The 18th century French philosopher and intellectual Voltaire wrote in an essay in 1756 that "this agglomeration which was called and still calls itself the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman nor an empire."
But it lasted a thousand years and was an inspiration for Hitler's Third Reich, which was similarly intended to last a millennium. It also inspires today's European Union, which continues to strive toward "an ever closer union."
"It is fatally easy to see the whole history of the Holy Roman Empire, down to 1806, unfolding itself in Charles the Great's coronation in Rome in the year 800. In reality the story of the Empire, later of the Holy Roman Empire, is a story of discontinuity. It meant different things to different men at the same time, and different things to men at different times; indeed, it was different things at different times" (Geoffrey Barraclough, "The Medieval Emperors Were Realists," "Problems in European Civilization," 1966).
The Holy Roman Empire ended with Napoleon's victory at the Battle of Austerlitz, also known as the Battle of the Three Emperors, when the empires of Russia and Austria were defeated. The Austrian Emperor Francis was forced to renounce the title of Holy Roman Emperor, thereby formally ending an empire that had lasted a thousand years.
The Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation was the First Reich (reich is the German word for "empire") and traced its origins back to the time of Charlemagne, crowned by the pope on Dec. 25, 800. The coronation of Charlemagne was a deliberate act on the part of Pope Leo III. In crowning Charlemagne "Augustus" (emperor), the pope was effectively declaring the rebirth of the Western Roman Empire, which had collapsed in the fifth century.
