San Antonio College Library

"The Holy Roman Empire (Latin: Imperium Romanum Sacrum, German: Heiliges Römisches Reich, Italian: Sacro Romano Impero) was a varying complex of lands[1] that existed from 962 to 1806 in Central Europe. It grew out of East Francia, one of the primary divisions of the Frankish Empire. Its character changed during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period, when the power of the emperor gradually weakened in favour of the princes. In its last centuries,...

Henry IV succeeded his father as a young child, and after a childhood troubled by conflicting ambitions of lay and ecclesiastical magnates, he led a life worthy of a Shakespearean tragedy. Continually battling with the Pope, excommunicated, deserted by his wife, and betrayed by his closest supporters-including his son Henry V, who deposed him in 1106-Henry IV struggled to keep his empire together. However, the usurper Henry V proved to be the last...

One of a small number of historical texts that have become classics, Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire demands and deserves the kind of attention readers habitually grant to the classics of fictional literature. In Lionel Gossman's thematic and rhetorical study of Gibbon's masterpiece, the foundation of authority is seen as the historian's chief concern. The central problem of the work - the foundation of political authority - also appears...

Historians have tried time and again to identify the central issues of the conflict which devastated Europe between 1618 and 1648. The Thirty Years War by Ronald G. Asch puts the religious and constitutional struggle in the Holy Roman Empire squarely back into the centre of events. However, other issues are not neglected. Thus the problems of war finance are shown to be an important key to the interaction between inter-state and domestic conflicts...

You traveller, who make your way along the path, stop I ask - I beg you not to ignore my epitaph. Death never ceases to fascinate the living and in roman society, where the mortality was high, people were forced to confront the brevity of life and the impact of death. What did death mean and symbolize to the Romans? What does?roman death' tell the modern reader about ancient society? This accessible and engaging book ranges from suicides, funeral...