W. Robert Godfrey

And that empire continued until Constantinople was overrun by the Turks in 1453.

So there is a Roman Empire really through the whole Middle Ages in the East.

sometimes shrinking, sometimes growing, sometimes struggling, sometimes remarkably vital, and always there.

And even when the Roman Empire in the East finally is snuffed out in 1453, it's not quite the end of the story because in the year 800, a king in France and Germany by the name of Charles

is crowned Holy Roman Emperor.

And the Roman Emperor in the East sends his approval for the appointment of a new Roman Emperor in the West.

So in 800, the Roman Empire is revived in the West.

Now, that Western Roman Empire survives down till

1806.

It increasingly doesn't amount to much.

The title increasingly becomes just a title, sort of in the way that for many, many years the monarchs of England were styled King of England and King of France, even though they never set a foot in France.

Titles sometimes live on beyond realities, but still.

In some formal sense, the Holy Roman Empire survives down until 1806 when Napoleon says, this silly thing is ended.

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.