rogue131
Byzantine Historian
Charlemagne wasn't really a Holy Roman Emperor. He was crowned "Emperor of the Romans", and this kicked off the whole "translatio imperii" idea the German Kings later applied to themselves, but the first Holy Roman Emperor was Otto I. in my eyes, even if he wasn't styled "holy" (neither was his empire yet).
May I remind you: On Christmas Day in 800, while Charlemagne knelt in prayer in Saint Peter's in Rome, Pope Leo III seized a golden crown from the altar and placed it on the bowed head of the king. Some sources claiming Charlemagne was unaware of the event's coming and regretted it happening. I doubt that.
The throng in the church shouted, "To Charles the August, crowned by God, great and pacific emperor, long life and victory!" Despite the fact, a Roman Emperor still reigned in the East. But that's beside the point.
The coronation was the foundation of the Holy Roman Empire. Though you are correct that Charlemagne did not officialy use the title, he is still, nonetheless, considered the first Holy Roman emperor. So yes officially, according to him, he wasn't; but later historians agree he was indeed the first Holy Roman Emperor, despite an official status. But that's all semantics now.
I also admire his tenacity to learn to read and write, an uncommon drive for king's of his day. But still we both can't look past his "interesting method of spreading the religion." I think we both know what that means ;-).
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On the other hand, it's quite weird to have Renaissance Charles V as LH from the start as well. And if you've looked into the Civilopedia, there's already a Barbarossa LH around waiting to be included I just wanted to wait with that until HRE and Prussia are split so that the former could have Barbarossa -> Charles V -> Francis I and the latter Frederick -> Bismarck.
I agree on that, it is weird to have Charles V. Maybe it should be Otto, would definitely be a much better choice. However, Barbarossa would do just as well. I'm going to have go to check out your Civlopedia on that.
I haven't really ever encountered the UHV-Greek situation before, so I'm interested in the details behind that?
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