![]() ![]() Both “Roman” and an “Empire” largely in name only, it was theoretically ruled by an emperor, whose power ebbed and flowed over the centuries. ![]() These autonomous German states were bound together in a supra-national entity known as the Holy Roman Empire, theoretically founded under Charlemagne in A.D. Indeed, at this time Spain was at the height of its power militarily, economically, culturally and religiously.Īcross the continent, Germany existed not as a single nation state but as hundreds of autonomous polities with their own rulers, commonly referred to as a princes, though that was rarely their formal title. By the time he took the throne as King Charles I of Spain in 1516, the European Age of Discovery was well underway, bringing massive wealth and power to the Iberian Peninsula from Asian trade and precious metals from the Americas. ![]() ![]() Charles had been born in 1500, only eight years after Columbus' discovery of the New World. 25, 1555, the Hapsburg emperor of the Holy Roman Empire and the north German princes of the Schmalkaldic League signed the Peace of Augsburg, which after a bloody war allowed for a new level of religious freedom among Christians in the German states.īy the early 16th century, the most powerful man in Europe, arguably the world at the time, was Charles of the House of Hapsburg. ![]()
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