Tag Archives: Holy Roman Empire

The Universality of the Catholic Emperor

23 Tuesday May 2017

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Prayers for the Holy Roman Emperor figured in all Christian (Catholic) missals and, until recently, were recited on Good Friday and Holy Saturday. The election of an emperor (who originally had to be crowned by the pope) became a feast all over western Christendom. In American Catholic missals these prayers appeared until World War II, when they were formally abolished by Pope Pius XII. Such prayers were also recited in Lutheran services, and in Prussia they were cancelled only upon the orders of Frederick II in the eighteenth century… He [the Emperor] was chosen by the electors, and before his coronation he had the title “King of the Romans.”  (The seven, eight, or nine electors were powerful princes, secular or ecclesiastical.) After Frederick III (1440-1493) it became inconceivable that any other but a Habsburg could be elected… as successor of the Caesars, surrounded by the glory of universality: the Pope was the spiritual, the Holy Roman Emperor the temporal head of the world. 

-Erik Ritter von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, The Intelligent American’s Guide to Europe

The True Felicity of Catholic Emperors

12 Friday May 2017

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For neither do we say that certain Christian emperors were therefore happy because they ruled a long time, or, dying a peaceful death, left their sons to succeed them in the empire, or subdued the enemies of the commonwealth, or were able both to guard against and to suppress the attempt of hostile citizens rising against them. These and other gifts or comforts of this sorrowful life even certain worshippers of false gods have merited to receive, who do not belong to the kingdom of God to which these belong; and this is to be traced to the mercy of God, who would not have those who believe in Him desire such things as the highest good.

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Reflections on Imperium

08 Saturday Apr 2017

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The Imperial Dignity is not in the spoken name itself, but consists and culminates in glorious piety.

-Emperor Louis II, Letter to Basil King of Greece

What is the nature of the Imperium? The Imperium, the Authority to command and administer justice universally, is not mere power, as is so often assumed by those of a certain political conviction. It is a truly unique among temporal authorities in the sense that only one living man may receive it, yet also in that it is essentially non-territorial. The Imperator is the firstborn (in the temporal order) of the Diákonοί kai Leitourgοί Theoú, the Servants and Ministeriales of God. Continue reading →

Civilization, the Continual Vigilance

12 Sunday Mar 2017

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Out of this intimate co-operation of Church and state came one of the most brilliant ideas in the history of statesmanship: the transformation of Charlemagne’s realm into a Holy Roman Empire that should have behind it all the prestige, sanctity, and stability of both Imperial and Papal Rome… If the bold scheme could be carried through there would again be a Roman emperor in the West, Latin Christianity would stand strong and unified against schismatic Byzantium and threatening Saracens, and by the awe and magic of the imperial name, barbarized Europe might reach back across centuries of darkness, and inherit and Christianize the civilization and culture of the ancient world… the Holy Roman Empire was a noble conception, a dream of security and peace, order and civilization restored in a world heroically won from barbarism, violence, and ignorance. 

-Will Durant, The Story of Civilization: The Age of Faith

For God, the Emperor, and Fatherland: Andreas Hofer and the Tyrolean Rebellion

20 Monday Feb 2017

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Mander ‘s isch Zeit!

On the morning of the ninth of April, 1809, the Church bells tolled fiercely, summoning the men of the Imperial County of Tyrol to gather in defense of their country. The Heir of Revolutionary Nationalism, the tyrant styling himself as Emperor, had suppressed the ancient liberties and Austrian loyalty of the Tyrol for long enough. The next day Imperial forces under the command of Archduke Karl von Teschen crossed the river Inn, beginning the War of the Fifth Coalition. In South Tyrol an army was gathering, under the command of a former militia captain, Andreas Hofer, the Innkeeper of Passeiertal.

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Europe is the Empire: The Social Order of Tomorrow

02 Thursday Feb 2017

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The West is Europe and Europe is the Empire; Europe is the Empire Revisited; Europe is the Empire: Benedict Edition

The Social Order of Tomorrow by the his late majesty Otto of Austria is book which every true Rightist should read. His vision of the repersonalization of economics brought about by the coming “Atomic Age” has not come to pass, however all of the underlying societal, economic, and especially political principles (with one exception that will be discussed later) remain as true today as they were eight hundred years before the book was written. In examining the political aspect, let us begin where his Majesty began, with this very important principle;

We are not the playthings of blind forces, but free men who, in accordance with the will of God, are able to shape their own lives.

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Blessed Carolus, Holy Roman Emperor

28 Saturday Jan 2017

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On the most Holy Day of the Nativity of the Lord when the King rose from praying at Mass before the tomb of biased Peter the Apostle, Pope Leo placed a crown on his head and all the Roman people cried out, “To Carolus, pious Augustus, crowned by God, great and peace giving Emperor of the Romans, life and victory.” And after the laudation he was honoured by the pope in the manner of the ancient princes and, the title of Patrician being set aside, he was called Emperor and Augustus.

Of all the rulers of the Holy Roman Empire the most renowned, the first to receive the golden Imperial Crown from the hands of the Roman Pontiff, no Emperor has so captured the Catholic imagination as Carolus Magnus, the Emperor Charlemagne. The beginning of the Sacred Ages might truly be dated to his coronation on the feast of the Nativity of Our Lord. Born on the second of April in the year of Our Lord 742 in the realm of Austrasia, Karol (as he was named in old Frankish) was the oldest son of Pippin the Short, King of Francia and Patrician of the Roman Empire. Upon the death of King Pippin in A.D. 768, Karol and his younger brother Karloman jointly ascended to the Frankish throne, in the midst of a rebellion in Aquitania.

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A Note on Sovereignty and the Knights of St. John

26 Thursday Jan 2017

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This post is in part a response to a very recent article by the Modern Medievalist, whom I respect highly (and yet nonetheless disagree with in this case), and partly as a general response to the distortion of the concept of Sovereignty in Modern times. This has been brought to the forefront by the investigation of Holy See into the Religious Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta. As the investigation is still on-going, it would be unwise to comment on specific situation of the Order today, so this post is mainly confined to the general principles involved.

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Catholic, Western, and Supranational

26 Thursday Jan 2017

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Austria has always been a stronghold of Catholicism: the former head of the supranational Holy Roman Empire, the secular arm of Christendom, has always been a luminous antithesis to all forms of provincialism. This is not primarily because Austria was the head of a great empire with many inhabitants, but rather because it was Catholic, Western, and supranational…

-Dietrich von Hildebrand, Der Genius Österreichs und der Provinzialismus

Austria, the true heir and embodiment of the Holy Roman Empire, has always reflected in its forms and institutions the true Catholic ideal of the supranational country. Ever since the Roman Empire was transformed into a truly foederatial system in the fifth century Heroic Age has Christendom striven for this ideal. However, in few institutions has this ideal ever been as wholly achieved or pursued as in the Kaiserlich und Königlich Gemeinsame Armee, the Imperial and Royal Common Army, of which the Hapsburg Restoration Movement is in part a spiritual succesor and continuation. Therefore, it might be asked, what are the qualities that allowed the K.u.K. Armee to act as a unifying element of the Empire? 

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Was there ever a “Medieval Nationalism”?

11 Wednesday Jan 2017

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The first truly concrete, “systematized” identitarian revolution in Europe is Taboritism, the radical form of Hussitism… This furious explosion of a synthetic mixture of nationalism, socialism, and radical democracy with communist innuendos not only had devastated large parts of Bohemia, Moravia, and Upper Hungary, but also had deeply shaken the social and spiritual fabric of Europe. In their perennial ramifications the shadows of this profound revolution are still with us and will continue to be for some time.

-Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, Leftism

Recently I came across an article attempting to claim that Nationalism was not only a political-philosophy that originated in the “Medieval Period,” but that it was the political norm. Referring to the Holy Roman Empire with the absurd (never officially recognized) addition “of the German Nation“ the article goes on to claim that the Crownlands of Empire in the Sacred Ages “included all people of the German nationality,” a falsehood which completely ignores not only the Transylvanian Saxons, but also the Danube Swabians, the Carpathian Germans (Zipsers), the Walddeutsche, the Teutonic Livonians, the Saxons of Schleswig, and the Vosges Germans. Still the questions remain, was there a form of Nationalism present in the Sacred Ages, and was it the prevalent understanding of the political order?

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