A stem duchy ( German : Stammesherzogtum , from Stamm , meaning "tribe", in reference to the Franks , Saxons , Bavarians and Swabians ) was a constituent duchy of the Kingdom of Germany at the time of the extinction of the Carolingian dynasty (death of Louis the Child in 911) and through the transitional period leading to the formation of the Ottonian Empire . The Carolingians had dissolved the original tribal duchies of the Empire in the 8th century. As the Carolingian Empire declined, the old tribal areas assumed new identities. The five stem duchies (sometimes also called "younger stem duchies" in contrast to the pre-Carolingian tribal duchies) were Bavaria , Franconia , Lotharingia (Lorraine) , Saxony and Swabia (Alemannia) . The Salian emperors (reigned 1027–1125) retained the stem duchies as the major divisions of Germany, but the stem duchies became increasingly obsolete during the early high-medieval period under the Hohenstaufen , and Frederick Barbarossa finally abolished them in 1180 in favour of more numerous territorial duchies.
41-630: An Italienzug (also known as Romfahrt or Romzug , Latin expeditio italica ) was the expedition undertaken by an elected king of the Romans to be crowned by the pope as the Holy Roman emperor in the City of Rome . Prior to the reforms of Frederick Barbarossa , the kings of the Romans struggled to muster an army for the expedition, for they needed the formal approval of the Reichstag . If such permission
82-732: A good-faith attempt to journey to Rome. At this time Maximilian also took the new title "King in Germania" ( Germaniae rex , König in Germanien ), but the latter was never used as a primary title. Maximilian's titles read, in part: " Maximilian von Gots genaden erwelter Romischer Romischer kayser, zu allen zeiten merer des Reichs, in Germanien zu Hungern, Dalmatien, Croatien etc. kunig […] ("Maximilian, by God's grace Elected Roman Emperor, always Augustus, in Germany, of Hungary, Dalamatia, Croatia etc King […]" Beginning with Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor ,
123-1001: A majority voting as determined by the 1338 Declaration of Rhense . They were the Prince-Archbishops of Mainz , Trier and Cologne as well as the King of Bohemia , the Count Palatine of the Rhine , the Saxon duke , and the Margrave of Brandenburg . After the Investiture Controversy , Charles intended to strengthen the legal status of the Rex Romanorum beyond Papal approbation . Consequently, among his successors only Sigismund and Frederick III were still crowned Emperors in Rome and in 1530 Charles V
164-506: A certain level of internal solidarity. Early among these were Saxony and Bavaria , which had been conquered by Charlemagne , and Alamannia , placed under Frankish administration in 746. In German historiography they are called the jüngere Stammesherzogtümer , or "more recent tribal duchies", although the term "stem duchies" is common in English. The duchies are often called "younger" (newer, more recent, etc.) in order to distinguish them from
205-506: A law stipulating that the kingdom would thereafter be united. Arnulf continued to rule it like a king even after his submission, but after his death in 937 it was quickly brought under royal control by Henry's son Otto the Great . The Ottonians worked to preserve the duchies as offices of the crown, but by the reign of Henry IV the dukes had made them functionally hereditary. The five stem duchies were: The complicated political history of
246-667: A title to emphasize his sacred entitlement to be crowned Emperor by the Pope. Pope Gregory VII insisted on using the derogatory term Teutonicorum Rex ("King of the Germans") in order to imply that Henry's authority was merely local and did not extend over the whole Empire. Henry continued to regularly use the title Romanorum Rex until he finally was crowned Emperor by Antipope Clement III in 1084. Henry's successors imitated this practice, and were also called Romanorum Rex before and Romanorum Imperator after their Roman coronations. Candidates for
287-473: The German people from a number of German tribes ( Deutsche Stämme; Volksstämme ) developed in 18th to 19th century German historiography and ethnography. This concept of German "stems" relates to the early and high medieval period and is to be distinguished from the more generic Germanic tribes of late antiquity . A distinction was sometimes made between the "ancient stems" ( Altstämme ), which were in existence in
328-577: The Lombard League towards the end of the 12th century, the system was reformed by banning monetary substitution and requiring each prince to contribute a fixed amount of troops for the cause. These troops could be substituted by an amount of money, which was eventually known as the Roman Month . King of the Romans King of the Romans ( Latin : Rex Romanorum ; German : König der Römer )
369-513: The imperial city of Frankfurt after 1147, a custom recorded in the Schwabenspiegel code in about 1275. Originally all noblemen present could vote by unanimous acclamation, but later a franchise was granted to only the most eminent bishops and noblemen, and according to the Golden Bull of 1356 issued by Emperor Charles IV only the seven Prince-electors had the right to participate in
410-465: The 10th century, and "recent stems" ( Neustämme ), which emerged in the high medieval period as a result of eastward expansion . The delineation of the two concepts is necessarily vague, and as a result the concept has a history of political and academic dispute. The terms Stamm , Nation or Volk variously used in modern German historiography reflect the Middle Latin gens , natio or populus of
451-508: The 13th century. The list of "recent stems" or Neustämme , is much less definite and subject to considerable variation; groups that have been listed under this heading include the Märker , Lausitzer , Mecklenburger , Upper Saxons , Pomeranians , Silesians , and East Prussians , roughly reflecting German settlement activity during the 12th to 15th centuries. The use of Stämme , "tribes", rather than Völker "nations, peoples", emerged in
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#1732852231744492-508: The 16th century onwards, as German kings adopted the title of Emperor-elect and ceased to be crowned by the Pope, the title continued to be used solely for an elected successor to the throne during his predecessor's lifetime. The actual title varied over time. During the Ottonian period , it was King of the Franks (German: König der Franken , Latin: Rex Francorum ), from the late Salian period it
533-537: The East-Frankish, "German", stem-duchies. . . Certainly, their names had already appeared during the Migrations . Yet, their political institutional, and biological structures had more often than not thoroughly changed. I have, moreover, refuted the basic difference between the so-called älteres Stammesfürstentum [older tribal principalities] and jüngeres Stammesfürstentum [newer tribal principalities], since I consider
574-463: The German population of these stems or tribes as a historical reality is mostly recognized in contemporary historiography, while the caveat is frequently made that each of them should be treated as an individual case with a different history of ethnogenesis, although some historians have revived the terminology of "peoples" ( Völker ) rather than "tribes" ( Stämme ). The division remains in current use in
615-517: The Holy Roman Empire during Middle Ages led to the division or disestablishment of most early medieval duchies. Frederick Barbarossa in 1180 abolished the system of stem duchies in favour of more numerous territorial duchies. The duchy of Bavaria is the only stem duchy that made the transition to territorial duchy, eventually emerging as the Free State of Bavaria within modern Germany. Some of
656-564: The ceremony, the king would, if possible, cross the Alps , to receive coronation in Pavia or Milan with the Iron Crown of Lombardy as King of Italy . Finally, he would travel to Rome and be crowned Emperor by the Pope. Because it was rarely possible for the elected King to proceed immediately to Rome for his crowning, several years might elapse between election and coronation, and some Kings never completed
697-636: The duchies before and after Charlemagne to have been basically the same Frankish institution. . . After the division of the Kingdom in the Treaty of Verdun (843), Treaty of Meerssen (870), and Treaty of Ribemont (880), the Eastern Frankish Kingdom or East Francia was formed out of Bavaria, Alemannia, and Saxony together with eastern parts of the Frankish territory. The kingdom was divided in 864–865 among
738-577: The early 19th century in the context of the project of German unification . Karl Friedrich Eichhorn in 1808 still used Deutsche Völker "German nations". Friedrich Christoph Dahlmann in 1815 asked for unity of the German nation ( Volk ) in its tribes ( in seinen Stämmen ). This terminology became standard and is reflected in the preamble of the Weimar constitution of 1919, reading Das deutsche Volk, einig in seinen Stämmen [...] "The German nation (people), united in its tribes (stems) ...". The composition of
779-406: The former Frisian Kingdom had been conquered into Francia already in 734 . The customary or tribal laws of these groups were recorded in the early medieval period ( Lex Baiuvariorum , Lex Alamannorum , Lex Salica and Lex Ripuaria , Lex Saxonum , Lex Frisionum and Lex Thuringorum ). Franconian, Saxon and Swabian law remained in force and competed with imperial law well into
820-565: The former classification of German dialects into Franconian , Alemannic , Thuringian , Bavarian and Low Saxon (including Friso-Saxon , with Frisian languages being regarded as a separate language). In the Free State of Bavaria , the division into "Bavarian stems" ( bayerische Stämme ) remains current for the populations of Altbayern (Bavaria proper), Franconia and Swabia . Within East Francia were large duchies, sometimes called kingdoms ( regna ) after their former status, which had
861-554: The journey to Rome at all. As a suitable title for the King between his election and his coronation as Emperor, Romanorum Rex would stress the plenitude of his authority over the Empire and his warrant to be future Emperor ( Imperator futurus ) without infringing upon the Papal privilege. Not all Kings of the Romans made this step, sometimes because of hostile relations with the Pope, or because either
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#1732852231744902-547: The kingdom. The dukes gathered and elected Conrad I to be their king. According to Tellenbach's thesis, the dukes created the duchies during Conrad's reign. No duke attempted to set up an independent kingdom. Even after the death of Conrad in 918, when the election of Henry the Fowler was disputed, his rival, Arnulf, Duke of Bavaria , did not establish a separate kingdom but claimed the whole, before being forced by Henry to submit to royal authority. Henry may even have promulgated
943-423: The kingship were at first the heads of Germanic stem duchies . As these units broke up, rulers of smaller principalities and even non-Germanic rulers were considered for the position. The only requirements generally observed were that the candidate be an adult male, a Catholic Christian, and not in holy orders. The kings were elected by several Imperial Estates (secular princes as well as Prince-Bishops ), often in
984-595: The medieval chronicler Widukind of Corvey in his Res gestae saxonicae . The kings received the Imperial Crown from at least 1024, at the coronation of Conrad II . In 1198 the Hohenstaufen candidate Philip of Swabia was crowned Rex Romanorum at Mainz Cathedral (as was King Rupert centuries later), but he had another coronation in Aachen after he had prevailed against his Welf rival Otto IV . At some time after
1025-487: The medieval source material. Traditional German historiography counts six Altstämme or "ancient stems", viz. Bavarians , Swabians (Alemanni) , Franks , Saxons , Frisians and Thuringians . All of these were incorporated in the Carolingian Empire by the late 8th century. Only four of them are represented in the later stem duchies; the former Merovingian duchy of Thuringia was absorbed into Saxony in 908 while
1066-614: The older duchies which were vassal-states of the Merovingian monarchs. Historian Herwig Wolfram denied any real distinction between older and younger stem duchies, or between the stem duchies of Germany and similar territorial principalities in other parts of the Carolingian empire: I am attempting to refute the whole hallowed doctrine of the difference between the beginnings of the West-Frankish, "French", principautés territoriales , and
1107-466: The other stem duchies emerged as divisions of the Holy Roman Empire; thus, the Electorate of Saxony , while not directly continuing the duchy of Saxony , gives rise to the modern state of Saxony . The duchies of Franconia and Swabia , on the other hand, disintegrated and correspond only vaguely to the contemporary regions of Swabia and Franconia . The Merovingian duchy of Thuringia did not become
1148-428: The pressure of business at home or warfare in Germany or Italy made it impossible for the King to make the journey. In such cases, the king might retain the title "King of the Romans" for his entire reign. The title Romanorum Rex ceased to be used for ruling kings after 1508, when the Pope permitted King Maximilian I to use the title of Electus Romanorum Imperator ("elected Emperor of the Romans") after he failed in
1189-450: The question of national unification . The term's applicability, and the nature of the stem duchies in medieval Germany, consequently have a long history of controversy. The overly literal or etymologizing English translation "stem duchy" was coined in the early 20th century. While later authors tend to clarify the term by using the alternative translation "tribal", use of the term "stem duchies" has become conventional. The derivation of
1230-456: The rulers of the Empire no longer sought the Imperial coronation by the Pope and styled themselves "Emperors" without Papal approval, taking the title as soon as they were crowned in Germany or, if crowned in their predecessor's lifetime, upon the death of a sitting Emperor. The Holy Roman Empire was an elective monarchy . No person had an automatic legal right to the succession simply because he
1271-449: The sons of Louis the German , largely along the lines of the tribes. Royal power quickly disintegrated after 899 under the rule of Louis the Child , which allowed local magnates to revive the duchies as autonomous entities and rule their tribes under the supreme authority of the King. After the death of the last Carolingian, Louis the Child , in 911, the stem duchies acknowledged the unity of
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1312-419: The throne failed to achieve widespread support are coloured in pink. Individuals that bore the title "Kings of the Romans" solely as heirs designate are coloured in silver. '* ' indicates that the king in question was elected in his predecessor's lifetime. Stem duchy The term Stammesherzogtum as used in German historiography dates to the mid-19th century, and from the beginning was closely related to
1353-497: Was King of the Romans (German: König der Römer , Lat.: Rex Romanorum ). In the Modern Period, the title King in Germania (German: König in Germanien , Lat.: Germaniae Rex ) came into use. Finally, modern German historiography established the term Roman-German King ( Römisch-deutscher König ) to differentiate it both from the classical Roman Emperor as well as from the modern German Emperor . The territory of East Francia
1394-578: Was granted, the king had permission to recruit knights for their military service in Italy for 410 days. However, the nobility was generally disinterested and inclined to rather substitute a monetary payment for the service. Therefore, the small force tended to be composed out of mercenaries and high ranking clergymen , reinforced by loyal Italian cities . Occasionally the substitution was not enough; Henry V ended up using his wife Matilda 's dowry to fund his Italienzug . Following Barbarossa's struggles against
1435-505: Was in the same form as that of the senior ruler. In practice, however, the actual administration of the Empire was always managed by the Emperor (or Emperor elect), with at most certain duties delegated to the heir. When Napoleon I, Emperor of the French , had a son and heir, Napoleon II (1811–32), he introduced the title as King of Rome ( Roi de Rome ), styling his son as such at birth. The boy
1476-502: Was not referred to as the Kingdom of Germany or Regnum Teutonicum by contemporary sources until the 11th century. During this time, the king's claim to coronation was increasingly contested by the papacy , culminating in the fierce Investiture Controversy . After the Salian heir apparent Henry IV , a six-year-old minor, had been elected to rule the Empire in 1056 he adopted Romanorum Rex as
1517-563: Was often known colloquially by this title throughout his short life. However, from 1818 onward, he was styled officially as the Duke of Reichstadt by his maternal grandfather, Emperor Francis I of Austria . The following list shows all individuals bearing the title "Kings of the Romans". The regnal dates given are those between a king's election as "King of the Romans" and either becoming Emperor or ending their reign by deposition or death. Ruling kings are coloured in yellow, while those whose claim to
1558-485: Was related to the current Emperor. However, the Emperor could, and often did, have a relative (usually a son) elected to succeed him after his death. This elected heir apparent bore the title "King of the Romans". During the Middle Ages, a junior King of the Romans was normally chosen only when the senior ruler bore the title of Emperor, so as to avoid having two, theoretically equal kings. Only on one occasion (1147–1150)
1599-670: Was the last king to receive the Imperial Crown at the hands of the Pope (in Bologna ). The Golden Bull remained effective as constitutional law until the Empire's dissolution in 1806. After his election, the new king would be crowned as King of the Romans ( Romanorum Rex ), usually at Charlemagne's throne in Aachen Cathedral by the Archbishop of Cologne in a solemnly celebrated ceremony. The details of Otto's coronation in 936 are described by
1640-455: Was the title used by the king of East Francia following his election by the princes from the reign of Henry II (1002–1024) onward. The title originally referred to any German king between his election and royal coronation until he was crowned Holy Roman Emperor by the Pope . The title was also used to designate the successor to the throne elected during the lifetime of a sitting Emperor. From
1681-404: Was there both a ruling King of the Romans (King Conrad III ) and a King of the Romans as heir ( Henry Berengar ). This practice continued from the 16th century onwards as the rulers of the Empire assumed the title "Emperor elect" without Imperial coronation by the Pope. The title of a King of the Romans now exclusively refers to the elected successor during his predecessor's lifetime. The election