Holy Roman Emperors Family Tree

today I'm going to show you the family tree of Holy Roman emperors starting with Charlemagne and going all the way down to the final emperor francis ii in fact i'll also trace the line a bit further through the emperors of austria all the way to the current air of the House of Habsburg today I'll be using the new 2019 version of my European royal family tree chart this version has quite a few improvements over previous versions but the biggest change is that I've reworked the early German sections which is why I've waited until now to do this video as always if you want to buy a copy of the poster you can head over to my website useful charts comm using the link on the screen or in the description if you've already purchased a previous version and want to upgrade to this new version please note that you can get a significant discount by using the code or oil upgrade all one word again see the description for details [Music] now first off please note that the term Holy Roman Emperor is an English term and a fairly recent one at that none of the people that I'm going to be talking about actually held that exact title in most cases they were simply known as the Emperor of the Romans so some historians like to start with Charlemagne others like to start with Otto the great I'm gonna go ahead and start with Charlemagne in order to cover all the bases so Charlemagne was the first person in Western Europe to be crowned emperor following the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 he was originally titled king of the franks but then received the extra title of emperor in the year 800 the original plan was for his empire to be divided amongst his three sons charles the younger Pepin and Louie however his first two sons died before him and therefore when Charlemagne died his youngest son Louie became the sole Emperor note that this Louis is both Louis the first in the numbering of the kings of France as well as in the numbering of the Holy Roman emperors now after Louis the first the Empire did end up becoming divided as originally planned there was West Frankia middle Frankia and East Frankia West Frankia eventually evolved into France and East Frankia evolved into the Holy Roman Empire middle Frankia just kind of fizzled out and was basically split between West and East so since the Holy Roman Empire evolved out of East Frankia that's the branch we're going to concentrate on east Frankia was inherited by louis the german also known as louis ii when he died his kingdom was too find it yet again between his three sons so we get a king of Bavaria a King of Saxony and a king of Swabia but this division did not stick because eventually Charles the fat became ruler of his brothers portions as well in fact he also managed to gain West Frankia over here so he was the first person in this branch to hold the title of Emperor previously it had been held by the rulers of middle Frankia and then by Charles the bald of West Frankia so to clear things up a bit Charlemagne whose name literally means Charles the Great was Emperor Charles the first Charles the bald of West Frankia was Charles the second and Charles the fat from East Frankia was Emperor Charles the third Charles the fat was eventually deposed and replaced by his nephew Arnold who started out as king of East Frankia but then briefly managed to hold the title of Emperor as well you can see that during this early period the title of Emperor jumped around quite a bit there was an Italian branch of the family way over here that held the title and then for a brief period there was Louis the third from middle Frankia and then there was Emperor bérenger from this minor branch over here after that there was a period of almost forty years in which there was no Emperor but during that time there continued to be a king of East Frankia Arnold was followed by his son Louie who was called the child because he became King at age six he was followed by Conrad who was a member of the family through a rather unclear connection by this point the various regions in Germany had developed quite a bit of autonomy and the King was actually chosen the leading Nobles instead of simply inheriting it by birth so after Conrad the first the nobles elected Henry the Fowler as king he was a descendant of Charlemagne through his mother's side but through his father's side he was a Saxon he therefore became the first non Frank to rule East Frankia and because of this he is sometimes considered the first king of Germany Henry planned to travel to Rome to be crowned Emperor but unfortunately he died before he could make it there and he was exceeded by his son who went on to become Otto the great a lot of historians consider out of the great to be the first true Holy Roman Emperor he expanded the powers of the King as well as the actual territory of the kingdom he also went on to conquer the Kingdom of Italy after which he was crowned emperor of the Romans he was followed by a son and a grandson who became otto ii and out of the third during the reign of these three monarchs the region experienced a mini renaissance similar to the one that occurred during the reigns of Charlemagne and Louie the first prior to the main Renaissance there were three smaller Medieval Renaissance 'iz the Carolingian Renaissance of the early 800s the Otto nian Renaissance of the late 900s and a third one which we'll get to shortly the Otto nian dynasty was short-lived otto ii became King at age 18 but then he died unexpectedly at age 28 Otto the 3rd was only three when he became King and then he died when he was just 22 the next Emperor was his second cousin Henry the second a descendant of Henry the Fowler through this line here note that although he was the first emperor named Henry he is called Henry the second because Henry the Fowler as king of Germany is considered Henry the first ii had no children though so after he died the next king an emperor was conrad ii descendant of Otto the great through his first wife's daughter now at this point I should probably remind you that the throne of Germany and the title of Holy Roman Emperor was technically an elected position after the death of the Emperor the leading Nobles would get together and formally elect the new king if the current ruling dynasty was strong the most senior male heir of the previous Emperor would be elected without any fuss however if the succession was murky or the ruling dynasty did not have a firm hold on power a king from a new dynasty could be elected so this is what happened here the Otto nian dynasty was replaced by the salient eyeness T the Saleen dynasty lasted approximately 100 years through various father-son successions after conrad the second we get henry the third Henry the fourth and Henry the fifth I'll point out that Henry the fifth was the first husband of Matilda of England Henry and Matilda did not have any children but Matilda went on to marry Geoffrey Plantagenet as her second husband and with him they established the House of Plantagenet but over in the Holy Roman Empire there was a succession crisis Henry the fifths nephew was put forward as a candidate for the throne but the nobles elected an individual from a totally different family instead that person became Lothair the second but lothair also died without a son and therefore he named his son-in-law as his heir but this time the nobles decided to go back to this family and they elected Conrad the third as king this set the stage for a conflict between these two families would last for more than a century on one side there was the house of Hohenstaufen and on the other side there was the house of valve during the period that followed the Pope and the Emperor came into conflict and therefore two main political groups arose there were the Ghibellines who supported the Emperor and the Guelph's who supported the Pope now Conrad the third was never actually crowned Emperor so that's why he's shown here as king instead generally what would happen is that upon election the German monarch would assume the title of king and then only later during a fancy ceremony he would be crowned Emperor so in the few cases where the coronation never happened those monarchs are shown on the chart as Kings instead of H R e Conrad was followed by his nephew Frederick Barbarossa who did become emperor Barbarossa was a nickname meaning red beard during the reign of Frederick the first the Holy Roman Empire reached its peak the period also coincides with the Renaissance of the 12th century the third of the three Medieval Renaissance as' Frederick Barbarossa was followed by his son Henry the sixth but Henry the sixth died unexpectedly in his 30s when his son Frederick was just three years old this led to yet another succession crisis this time two different people were declared King Henry's brother Philip as well as out of the fourth from the rival House of ELF note that his mother was an English princess and that's why you see the symbol of the two lions in the house of Welf coat of arms eventually Philip was assassinated and the Pope allowed Otto to become the Emperor but Otto eventually had a falling-out with the Pope and was forced to have Kate by this time frederick ii had become of age and was therefore made emperor instead he would be the last of the Hohenstaufen to have a stronghold on power after his death in 1250 we get the great interregnum a period of almost 60 years without an emperor the longest since Charlemagne during this time two non Germans were actually elected King there was Richard of Cornwall brother of King Henry the third of England but at the same time there was also Alphonso the 10th king of Castile he too was elected by certain German Nobles as their king in reality though neither of the men were really King and neither were ever crowned emperor in 1273 Rudolf the first was elected King he was the first person from the House of Habsburg to hold the position previously the House of Habsburg had actually been a rather minor house having only achieved the rank of count which was lower than that of a Duke in fact over the next 150 years or so we get a series of count kings and the title of king and/or Emperor bounced around quite a bit between various houses most of which had previously only held the title of count so after Rudolf we get a king Adolphe from the house of nassau the same house that would later go on to rule the netherlands we then get Albert the first from the House of Habsburg again but none of these three kings were able to secure the title of Emperor the first person to do that again was Henry the seventh from the house of Luxembourg again previously he had been merely a count we then get Louis the fourth from the house of Wittelsbach before where things move back to the house of Luxembourg with Charles the fourth he was during the reign of Charles the fourth that the golden bull of 1356 was issued this document established certain laws and structures that would govern the Empire for the rest of its history one of the more important things it did was limit the number of people who elected the Emperor to just seven three of these were Archbishop's and four were secular princes the secular electors included the rulers of Bohemia Saxony Brandenburg and the Palatinate missing from the list of the secular electors were the rulers of Bavaria and Austria ruled respectively by the vittles box and the Habsburgs something that would lead to later power struggles after Charles the fourth we get to Kings first his son Wenceslas and then a wittelsbach King note that the later kings of Bavaria would be descendant from this King here things then swing back to the Luxembourg's with Emperor Sigismund another son of Charles the fourth but neither wences loss or Sigismund had sons so after Sigismund Albert the second from the House of Habsburg was elected King Albert had married the daughter of Sigmund Albert never became Emperor though and he had no sons so the next person elected was his second cousin Frederick that individual became Emperor Frederick the third and from this point forward the Emperor ship stayed within the House of Habsburg until the very end with only one exception technically the emperor was still elected but in reality the throne was inherited in the same way that it was in other European countries so Frederick the third after a very long reign of 53 years was followed by his son Maximilian the first now at this point we're going to switch to the other side of the chart by following this line here and that's because Maximilian son Philip married into the Spanish royal family and therefore for the next 200 years the Holy Roman Empire and Spain were very much connected so this individual here Philip the first was the son of the Holy Roman Emperor he never became Emperor himself though because he died before his father Maximilian he did however briefly become the king of Castile in Spain because of his marriage to Joanna the mad Joanna the mad was the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella and also the sister of Catherine of Aragon who married Henry the 8th at this point Spain consisted of two kingdoms Aragon and Castile Ferdinand was the monarch of Aragon and Isabella was the monarch of Castile by marrying each other the two crowns became United these two are also known for having funded Christopher Columbus's voyage to the New World so it was their daughter who married the son of the Holy Roman Emperor that marriage occurred in 1496 and would end up being one of the most important political marriages in the history of Europe here's what happened Isabella died in 1504 and therefore at that point Joana because she didn't have any brothers became the official monarch of Castile while her father remained the official monarch of Aragon only in reality he ran both there were concerns over Joanna's mental stability so in 1506 Ferdinand agreed to make Philip King but strangely Philip died just three months later so for the next 10 years ferdinand ii ruled all of spain even though technically joe was the monarch of Castile when Ferdinand died in 1516 his grandson Charles became the first king of all Spain technically Johanna was still c'mon arc until her death but Charles was the one in charge then in 1519 something unique in the history of Europe happened Maximilian the Holy Roman Emperor died and since his son Philip was already dead the Emperor passed to his eldest grandson Charles so Charles was now both king of Spain as Charles the first and Holy Roman Emperor as Charles the fifth as king of Spain his territory also included the growing Spanish Empire in the Americas and elsewhere so he was suddenly the closest thing to a monarch of all Europe since Charlemagne and this obviously made the other major powers of the time quite worried so before Charles the fifth died he made a wise decision he decided to divide his dominions in two he left the title of king of Spain to his eldest son Philip and he left the title of Holy Roman Emperor to his younger brother Ferdinand so from this point forward we get two branches of the family one in Austria and one in Spain with the Spanish branch being the senior of the two now I'm not going to go through all the Emperor's from this point forward because there were a lot of them and I've already done that in my video about the Habsburgs but I will point out a few things the Spanish line of the Habsburgs became extinct in 1700 making the Austrian line the senior branch after that this led to the war of the Spanish Succession in which the house of Borbon took over the throne of Spain but then in 1740 the Austrian branch ran out of male heirs as well this led to another war known as the War of the Austrian succession you see by this point the Holy Roman Emperor had come to hold many different titles at the same time in addition to being Emperor he was also King of Bohemia king of Hungary Archduke of Austria and a whole lot more so Charles the six had issued an edict that allowed his daughter Maria Teresa to inherit most of his lands however she could not inherit the title of Emperor because a part of German law known as salic law excluded females from this role so initially the son-in-law of the previous Emperor was elected he was from the house of Wittelsbach and was the only non Habsburg that I mentioned earlier but when he died Maria Theresa's husband was elected as Emperor making Maria Theresa his Empress consort however it could be argued that Maria Theresa was the de facto ruling Empress as well from there the line continued through their descendants who became known as the house of habsburg-lorraine being that Maria Teresa's husband came from the house of Lorraine her grandson francis ii was the last holy roman emperor due to the conquests of napoleon the holy roman empire finally came to an end after 1,000 years but this point there were two major german powers anyway in the north prussia had come to dominate and in the south the Holy Roman Empire continued in a sense under a new name the Empire of Austria so emperor francis ii of the holy roman empire became emperor francis the first of austria he was followed by his son Ferdinand the first and then his grandson Franz Josef the first during the reign of Franz Josef the first Austria was forced out of the German Confederation and the change in color here the German Confederation eventually evolved into the German Empire which is shown over here in the yellow so in the late 19th century there were now two Emperor's in what had once been the Holy Roman Empire the German emperor who was also the King of Prussia and the Austrian Emperor who was descended from the Holy Roman emperors of days gone by Franz Josef reigned for 68 years which is one of the longest reigns for any monarch in recorded history he was emperor during the first part of World War one and he died before its end his only son Crown Prince Rudolf had committed suicide several decades earlier so his heir at first was his nephew Archduke Franz Ferdinand it was the assassination of that individual that sparked World War one Archduke Franz Ferdinand's younger brother had already died so the next person in line was this person who when Franz Joseph died became Emperor Charles the first of Austria but at the end of the war the monarchy came to an end and the Austrian Empire cease to exist however it's quite easy to find out who would be the heir to the Habsburg monarchy today Charles had a son who was known as Otto von Habsburg Charles died in 1922 and Otto lived until 2007 so had he been Emperor he would have reigned for a whopping 85 years although he was never Emperor he was very much involved in European politics he was a staunch opponent of Hitler and after world war ii he was a key player in the various European unification movements which eventually led to today's EU in fact he served as a member of the European Parliament for 20 years his son Carl von Habsburg who is currently 58 years old is the current head of the house of habsburg he too has served as a member of the European Parliament he has a son named Ferdinand von Habsburg who is currently 22 years old and the future heir to the Habsburg line he's actually a racecar driver so it looks likely that his future will be more connected to that than to anything related to the Holy Roman Empire okay so that was a look at the entire tree of the Holy Roman Empire from Charlemagne to Ferdinand the race car driver hope you enjoyed it if you find history genealogy and monarchies interesting be sure to subscribe to the channel if you check the playlists you'll find that I have videos covering the family trees of famous dynasties from all over the world and to see what else I'm up to follow me on Twitter or Instagram thanks for watching

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Rating: 4.9327374 out of 5

Keywords: otto the great, frederick barbarossa, guelphs vs ghibellines, welf, hohenstaufen, habsburg family tree, salian dynasty, ottonian dynasty, german history, holy roman empire timeline, holy roman empire history, holy roman empire documentary, holy roman emperors, holy roman emperors timeline

Id: VEtkeLvTchc

Length: 26min 40sec (1600 seconds)

Published: Fri May 03 2019