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The Holy Roman Empire (of the German Nations) was a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, and multi-lingual coalition from its (unofficial) founding by Charlemagne in the 9th century AD. The German Empire would be a better term in fact, as it was founded and typically ruled by Germanic peoples. (Charlemagne himself was a Frank.) As Voltaire once perceptively ...

I wouldn't characterize post-Magna Carta England as having a weak central government. Compared to the Holy Roman Empire it had a very efficient central government, in which the parliament played an important role alongeside the king. The early English Parliament already had a House of Commons. Hence not only the nobility was given rights but the common ...

The Holy Roman Empire actually persisted into the early 19th century. At this time it was centralized in the loosely defined and allied Germanic states/kingdoms. Following the rise of Napoleon and the defeat of many different, unaligned German kingdoms' forces by Napoleon's forces, Napoleon was able to sweep across the nation we now know as Germany. One of ...

I am sorry this is the only thing I could find. because the royal court was constantly moving, Frederik's library was dispersed in many different places; the part that he carried with him, so presumably the dearest one, was seized by his enemies, and thus likely divided as loot between different factions; parts were left in his different residencies; of ...

While Kutná Hora was producing silver, I don't think that this commodity or any other commodity (and surely not one stolen from a colony – colonies didn't really exist) was the main driver behind the glory of the Golden Era – although the silver was obviously needed for our hard currency, the Prague Groschen (picture below). The true reasons were ...

In addition to what you list, the organizational structure, bookkeeping of the monarchs, and relative literacy levels (albeit not high levels absolutely) helped enable a democratic system to emerge. Townhalls and church organizations allowed for some census and accountability to emerge. The later monarchs kept relatively accurate and complete tax records ...

Officially it collapsed after falling to Napoleon with the 4th treaty of Pressburg, but had been fading for some time before that. The empire was pretty decentrized in nature, but various events such as the Peace of Westphalia after the thirty years war, which granted dominions effectively independence in all but name. Nations, especially the Hapsburgs in ...

There was a medieval saying, "Stadluft macht Frei." (City air makes one free.) One important aspect of England (and Greece and Rome before it) was the relative urbanization of its time. The most "progressive" and democratic elements of society tend to concentrate in cities, whereas the most conservative and pro monarchic influences are generally found in ...

It was an internal fight in Sienna, Karl IV supported the party of twelve (Dodicini), probably seeking to extend his influence in the city. According to the German Wikipedia article on the topic, the Dodicini originally came to power with the help of the Salimbeni family and were favored by Karl IV. They didn't stay long and were replaced by a new council ...

In addition to the points already made, I would say that religion might have played a major role in how England turned out. The English Civil War and the Glorious Revolution, both of which severely damaged the power of the monarch (the former completely destroying it for a while) were partly because of religion. Structures like the English Parliament were ...

To build on GPierce's answer, the HRE functionally collapsed much before that time. The Thirty Years War (1618-1648) had really taken a toll on the HRE's central government. It left the country politically and religiously divided, which was a major issue to unification at that point in time. The country was ruled by princes who controlled city states that ...

"It is chivalry that has no equal in the world; without seeing it with your own eyes, its vigor and splendor is impossible to imagine." (Cosimo Brunetti, 1676) The answer is both "yes", as it's completely different kind of hussars that the one mentioned in the question about effectiveness of Cossack cavalry, and "no", as there were around 20000 horses in ...

Andrew Wheatcroft's The Enemy at the Gate: Habsburgs, Ottomans, and the Battle for Europe contains the argument that both the Habsburg Empire (in the West) and the Ottoman Empire (in the East) considered themselves to be successors of the Roman Empire by the 17th century. Wheatcroft points out that both empires ascended almost in parallel: Frederick III ...

Here's what I've collected from various sources up to this time: Hungarian Holy Lance Historians agree that one of them belonged to Saint Stephen, first king of Hungary. Otto III took a crown for Stephen I to Gniezno and it was sent from there to Hungary, but no sources I could find clarify if the spear came to Hungary the same way. This "Polish route" is ...

The Holy Roman Empire was never a real "country," but rather a motley confederation of mostly independent (mostly German-speaking) states. During the Middle Ages, it did, however, prove itself capable of rallying behind an elected Emperor for crusading or other religious purposes. In contrast to other answerers above, I date the (de facto, not de jure) ...

My answer is only hinted at the following piece. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_I_of_Bohemia But there is a key line that says that Bohemia escaped the Black Plague that affected much of the rest of Europe. That would be sufficient to attract "flight capital" from the rest of Europe seeking a "safe haven" from afflicted areas. Bohemia appears to be ...

The key phrase I had been looking for to define the type of monarchy you mean is an Elective Monarchy. The description for this type of monarchy is: An elective monarchy is a monarchy ruled by an elected monarch, in contrast to a hereditary monarchy in which the office is automatically passed down as a family inheritance. The manner of election, the ...

The best answer to the question that I have been able to come up myself so far points to silver mining e.g. in Kutná Hora, another UNESCO World Heritage property in the Czech Republic, from the the 13th and 14th centuries ("Kutná Hora is therefore rightly considered to be the treasure-house of the land whose wealth gave strength to the expansion of the ...

It wasn't just "weakening of central government", but more specifically, weakening of the King/Queen, giving Parliament more power. The Magna Carta was part of that. Another notable event was the Glorious Revolution in 1688 when Parliament kicked the (Catholic) King James II out and replaced him with the Dutch. This is another example of Parliament (i.e. ...

I'm unable to find a reference to an official language of the empire, but according to Wikipedia, the languages that would have been spoken within its borders were numerous, and would include the following: Latin German Italian various West Germanic languages Romance languages Slavic languages taken from here As for which one would have been the language ...