The Parchment Imperialists: Texts, Scribes and the Medieval Western Empire, <i>c</i>.1250–<i>c</i>.1440
Len Scales
‘The dear Holy Roman Empire, whatever holds it together?’ sings a reveller in Auerbach's Cellar part one of Faust, which Goethe completed 1806, the year Empire's extinction. For late Middle Ages, is question with historians continue to grapple, has elicited various theories, but no certainty. On matter at least, however, well-established and durable consensus does exist: may have been, can had little do bureaucracy. Of period this appear truer than Ages. The medieval Empire was time an intensively governed polity. Even heyday its power, eleventh twelfth centuries, institutions government reached thinly very unevenly across vast geographic extent. About their working efficacy great deal obscure. Much always depended upon monarch's personal presence. However, two centuries between end Hohenstaufen dynasty mid-thirteenth century long Habsburg ascendancy begins fifteenth, such administrative structures as existed for actually wither contract. Relatively way new emerged take place. And yet, despite all this, hold together largely did, albeit some erosion, including loss significant territorial fragments margins. Explaining why should been raises important questions, both about character Reich empire role administration extended premodern realms more generally.
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