The Holy Roman Empire - Viscount James Bryce

The object of this treatise is not so much to give a narrative history of the countries included in the Romano-Germanic Empire--Italy during the middle ages, Germany from the ninth century to the nineteenth--as to describe the Holy Empire itself as an institution or system, the wonderful offspring of a body of beliefs and traditions which have almost wholly passed away from the world. Such a description, however, would not be intelligible without some account of the great events which accompanied the growth and decay of imperial power; and it has therefore appeared best to give the book the form rather of a narrative than of a dissertation; and to combine with an exposition of what may be called the theory of the Empire an outline of the political history of Germany, as well as some notices of the affairs of mediæval Italy. To make the succession of events clearer, a Chronological List of Emperors and Popes has been prefixed