W. Robert Godfrey

Now we all know, at least it always used to be taught in schools, the essential character of the Holy Roman Empire was this.

It was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.

But the power of the idea of continuity was so strong and so attractive

that Charles, known to history as Charlemagne, Charles the Great, Charlemagne wanted to be invested with that dignity, with that title, and so it continued.

Finally, really located in Austria, but still that title, still the coronation garb in Vienna, worn at the coronation of the Austrian emperors until 1806, styling themselves Holy Roman Emperors.

One could even argue that beyond 1806 we see remnants of that Roman Empire.

The Tsar in Russia insisted that Moscow, after the fall of Constantinople, became the third Rome.

And the Tsars used Byzantine eagles as the signs of their empire.

And the word Tsar is derived from Caesar, Caesar, the ancient Roman title.

So there's a kind of Roman Empire that survives down until 1917.

And then...

In one of the curious and little reported elements of the Second World War, Adolf Hitler provided for the coronation garb of the Holy Roman Emperor to be taken from Vienna and brought to Nuremberg, where it was to be enshrined and to give some validity to the Third Reich, to the Third Empire.

There were still these remnants of Roman imperial dignity being claimed down until 1945.

That was the year I was born, and no, I won't go there, that I'm any continuation.

But it shows what a long shadow this ideal of a Roman Empire cast on the West, and the idea of being connected, of still having some connection with that great, noble, civilizing experiment.

That's what Rome said of itself.

Rome was eternal.

It seemed almost to manage it.

But Rome was civilizing.

Rome brought order to the barbarians.