Charles V and the Holy Roman Empire: Crash Course World History #219

King of France. The greatest animosity was between Francis and Charles, because Francis believed that Charles, Duke of Burgundy, located in France, was his subject. As for Charles, he knew that Francis was trying to obtain the position of Emperor of Holy Rome and warned the electors that Charles was incompetent and tyrannical. Let's stop for a moment. Why would someone aspire to become Emperor of Holy Rome? The two kings fought 4 wars against each other. Supporters of nationalism believe that the hand was in favor of Francis, since he had great fiscal power in France, a loyal religious class and a French-speaking population, or at least the elite among them.

But Charles's forces won all the wars, and during the wars they were even able to capture Francis himself during the siege of Pavia and sack Rome in 1527, thus eliminating the Pope's hope of having a real role in secular politics and thus ending as some scholars believe, Renaissance Italy. Charles also fought against Suleiman and the Ottomans and defeated them in Vienna, but he was unable to prevent Suleiman from consolidating his power in Hungary, which had previously belonged to the Habsburgs. However, despite this stubborn multilingual state, unlike cohesive nation-states, Charles managed well, at least in some respects, and in others he was a complete failure.

It's time for an open letter. Let's first see what's inside the ball. It's my past love affair. An open letter to failure. Oh failure, you are often relative. What seems like a failure to you at one point in your life may seem like a wonderful success later on. Charles V had many successes, but in the end he considered his government a miserable failure. That's why he finally abdicated the throne and resorted to drinking beer. She then divided his

empire

and gave his brother the Holy Roman Empire, while his son took Spain. And perhaps that would be a good thing for the Holy Roman Empire and Spain.

In short, failure, none of us are a complete failure or a complete success. Stop dividing people in this completely wrong and failed binary way. With best wishes, John Green. So the story of Charles V reminds us of something we learn over and over again when studying

world

history

: that every story has multiple angles. Yes, the Holy Roman Empire under Charles was no longer

holy

, that is, it was no longer 100% Catholic, and it was not Roman because Latin was not one of the many languages ​​spoken in it. It wasn't even an

empire

because it was too diverse and widespread to prevent Charles from having the authority of an emperor.

But, as with most of

history

, many cases of Facebook and a Meryl Streep movie: the case is complicated. Perhaps the most important lesson we learn from the story of Charles V is the benefit of knowing the limits of our power. Carlos did not know the limits of his power. In fact, his imperial motto was Latin, meaning "beyond" and also "limitless." Carlos attempted to unite Atlantic and Central Europe into a single country the size of today's European Union. He sought to crush the Protestant Reformations and make his response to them, the counter-Catholic Reformation, universal. He attempted to establish new policies in the New World, while still defending the old policies of the Old World.

In his attempt to be the most powerful emperor of the most powerful empire in the history of the

world

, he failed spectacularly. This is a lesson for all empires and nation-states and, indeed, for all peoples. Thanks for watching, see you next week. Crash Course was filmed at Chad and Stacy Emigholtz's studio in Indianapolis and was made possible by all these good people and you too. This is largely thanks to our subscribers through Subbable, an opt-in service that allows you to support Crash Course directly so it remains free for everyone forever. Thank you for your input, thank you for following us, and as we say in my hometown: "Don't forget to be awesome."