natur- conceived the idea of restoring once more the Roman empire, even as it had been revived by Charles the Great (see p. 406).
So in 962, just a little more than a century and a half after the coronation at Rome of Charlemagne as emperor, Otto, at the same place and by the same papal authority, was crowned Emperor of the Romans. For a generation no one had borne the title. From this time on it was the rule that the German king who was crowned at Aachen had a right to be crowned king of Italy at Milan, and emperor at Rome (Freeman). Thus three crowns, and in time still more, came to be heaped upon a single head.
Consequences to Germany of the Revival of the Empire.— The scheme of Otto respecting a world-empire was a grand one, but, as had been demonstrated by the failure of the attempt of Charlemagne, was an utterly impracticable idea. It was simply a dream, and never became anything more than a ghostly shadow. Yet the pursuit of this phantom by the German kings resulted in the most woeful consequences to Germany. Trying to grasp too much, these rulers seized nothing at all. Attempting to be emperors of the world, they failed to become even kings of Germany. While engaged in their schemes of foreign conquest, their home affairs were neglected, and their vassals succeeded in increasing their power and making it hereditary. Thus while the kings of England, France, and Spain were gradually consolidating their dominions, and building up strong centralized monarchies on the ruins of Feudalism, the sovereigns of Germany, neglecting the affairs of their own kingdom, were allowing it to become split up into a vast number of virtually independent states, the ambitions and jealousies of whose rulers were to postpone the unification of Germany for four or five hundred years—until our own day.
Had the emperors inflicted loss and disaster upon Germany alone though their pursuit of this phantom, the case would not be so lamentable; but Italy was made the camping field of the Imperial armies, and the whole peninsula kept distracted with the bitter quarrels of Guelphs and Ghibellines (see p. 504), and thus the nationalization of the Italian people was also delayed for centuries.
