Q 01/05

Which Frankish king was crowned Roman Emperor by Pope Leo III on Christmas Day 800?

A) Louis the Pious

B) Clovis I

C) Charlemagne

D) Pepin the Short

Answer · why

C) Charlemagne

The pope wanted a male Roman emperor as head of Christendom after Empress Irene took sole power in Constantinople.

Q 02/05

Which German king's 962 coronation by Pope John XII is often taken as the empire's true beginning?

A) Frederick Barbarossa

B) Otto the Great

C) Conrad of Franconia

D) Henry the Fowler

Answer · why

B) Otto the Great

In 955 he had crushed the Magyars at the Battle of Lechfeld; the following year he deposed the very pope who had crowned him.

Q 03/05

In what year did the last emperor abdicate and dissolve the Holy Roman Empire?

A) 1815

B) 1848

C) 1789

D) 1806

Answer · why

D) 1806

Napoleon's Confederation of the Rhine had pulled the German client states out from under the empire after his crushing victory of 1805.

Q 04/05

Which philosopher quipped that the Holy Roman Empire was 'in no way holy, nor Roman, nor an empire'?

A) Voltaire

B) Diderot

C) Montesquieu

D) Rousseau

Answer · why

A) Voltaire

By his day the Thirty Years' War had left the empire a patchwork of some 300 territories, so the joke landed.

Q 05/05

'Holy' was added to the empire's name in 1157 under Barbarossa, reflecting his ambition to dominate what?

A) France and Burgundy

B) Sicily and Byzantium

C) The Baltic and Poland

D) Italy and the papacy

Answer · why

D) Italy and the papacy

The full form 'Holy Roman Empire' is only attested from 1254.