Neither Holy, Nor Roman
This is a quiz, much like the quizzes we’ve done in the past, except that the answer, instead of being a book or an author, is a Holy Roman Emperor. The usual rules apply:
- No Googling or other use of search engines
- One point for the first correct answer
- If there are any questions, the ruling of the judge (me) is final
Any questions? Good. Here we go.
1. He caught quite a chill visiting the Pope.
2. His plans went out the window.
3. Ruled more of the world than any Holy Roman emperor before or since.
4. “I am king of the Romans and above grammar.”
5. A wonder of the world.
6. Son of a German Roman and a Greek Roman.
7. He demonstrated why bathing suits aren’t armored.
8 .A Welf in sheep’s clothing.
9. Not as pragmatic as he thought.
10. And done. I blame Napoleon.
Image by maximilianschiffer 
4. Charles V, who was Charles I in Spain. Product of a dynastic moonshot inheritence that united the heritary lands of the Crowns of Aragon and Castile, the Duchy of Burgundy and Austrian dominions into one person. Realized the unwieldiness of his regime and split into Austrian and Spanish halfs for his successors and retired to monasty to promptly die.
7. Fredrick I Barbarossa. Drowned in his armour in a Turkish river, leading the German and then largest component of the Third Crusade. Neither the Byzantines nor the Turks could beat him, but the river did.
9. Charles VI. His pragmatic sanction was the inheritence of Maria Theresa. Another great German military leader named Fredrick had something to say about that,
5. I think is Fredrick II, decendant of the Barbarossa Fredrick, but I’m not sure of the regnal title. Impressively cultured and liked being the King of Sciliy (quite the prize territory in those days) more than King of the Romans (Germans).
I know the events referenced in 2, 6 and 10, but not the personalities or names.Report
Well done. 5, 7, and 9 are correct. 4 is not, but I suspect you meant it as the answer to a different clue,Report
Gah, 4 was supposed to be for 3. Just like you suspected.Report
Funny factoid on the Pragmatic Sanction I wasn’t aware of until very recently
At the end of WWI, Hungary did not (immediately) abolish the monarchy. They just overturned the Pragmatic Sanction, barred crown inheritance via female line, and thus barred all descendants of Maria Theresa (that is, every single living Hapsburg) from the Hungarian throne. Hungary continued to be a Kingdom-without a King- until 1946Report
That is partially true. The Hungarians were generally perfectly fine with the last Hapsburg being King of Hungary. The Allies were not. Since no faction could agree on a replacement King, Horthy was elected Regent.Report
#10 is Francis II, Marie Antoinette’s nephew, who surrendered the German Imperial crown in 1808 and became the first Emperor of Austria
#2 is strange, because I think you are referring to the Defenestration of Prague, and the person involved would be the future Ferdinand II, who was already King of Bohemia. However, the Defenestration happened in 1618, a year before Ferdinand became Emperor. The them Emperor was Mathias, but he was (very old and) in principle supportive of the Protestant defenestrators, while the defenestrated were the representatives of the very Catholic already king, and future Emperor, Ferdinand
#5 is Frederick II, who truly was one of the most interesting characters in history, and is impossible to do him justice in a blurb. Go Wikipedia him.Report
There were two Defenestrations of Prague. Seriously. It seems to be a thing there. The more famous one you cite was the second. The first was about two centuries earlier, and has to do with the Hussites. I have no idea who was Emperor at that time.Report
And then there was Tomas Masaryk.Report
There’s also the minor 1 1/2 Prague Defenestration in the XVI century. A municipal dispute if I recall correctly
Note to self: avoid windows while in Prague.Report
2 is indeed Ferdinand. You’re right that that incident took place slightly before he was emperor, but it displayed the full flower of his genius for diplomacy, which quite soon resulted in the Thirty Years War.Report
So it was a corpse flower?Report
1. Umm… Frederick I?Report
I think #1 might be Henry IV. I remember the episode, but not sure about the name. I think the pope was Alexander IIIReport
You are correct.Report
Though (I just looked) the pope was Gregory VII.Report
1-10. What is an inbred Hapsburg?
(“Is there any other kind?”)
(Actually I think the Revolutions podcast mentioned that the family miscalculated on the election once or twice in the multi-century run. But always got back in the next one)Report
The Stupir Mundi was Hohenstaufen. Same with many of the others.Report
He was smarter than the Hapsburgs of his generation, at least.Report
There were no Hapsburgs (worth mentioning) in his generation
Though, funny fact. The evil ruler of William Tell is supposed to be the gopher of (then still) minor Hapsburg feudal lords in Western SwitzerlandReport
The first Hapsburg Holy Roman Emperor was Rudolph in the late 13th century. He was picked because of his obscurity. To this day, school children sing about Rudolph the Red Nosed Emperor in Austria. They didn’t secure the throne permanently until Maximillian I.Report
The Habsburgs, like many noble families, named themselves after one of their castles. They go back to the 10th or 11th century, when they were local lords in what’s now Switzerland.Report
There are at least 2 Hohenstaufens, 1 Welf, 1 Luxembourg and one Saxon Ottonian on the list, so not even a majority of them are Hapsburgs, inbred or otherwise.Report
As Hapsburg inbreeding goes, Francis II was fairly outbreeded. He had sixteen distinct great-great-grandparents, and most of those were not first cousins to each other.Report
This one is for my wife (her being the European history major). I’m seriously impressed any of you can pull this stuff out of your heads. I can’t keep the various European heads of state and church straight without a program, too many rulers, not enough names.Report
I’ll give you an insiders tip: just number them so you can pick them apart: Louis I, Louis II,…., Louis XIV, Louis XV, …., Louis XVIII.Report
Well, I can’t remember anything after too many Bourbons.Report
Ha. I always liked the Bourbons. They might have remembered everything and learnt nothing but you can tell that they really like being Kong’s of France and latter Spain and the Two Sicilies. The Hapsburg did not seem to enjoy it that much.Report
But with so many Louis’, even with numbers it gets hard to remember which one ate his wives and which one merely divorced them, or something…
Now with the Charles’, at least they did the smart thing and gave the important Charles a slightly different name. Everyone remembers Charlemagne.
ETA: Imagine if all the theorems in calculus were just just Calc Theorem I, Calc Theorem II,… Calc Theorem XI; instead of Greens Theorem, Cauchy’s Theorem, Rolle’s Theorem, etc.Report
Cough*Euclid’s Axiom #….*coughReport
@j_a
You are so not helping…Report
Or the amendments.Report
Fermat only numbered his last one.Report
Charles X, Louis XVI, and Louis XVIII were brothers, making them the French version of Larry, Darryl, and Darryl.Report
(No one I’ve told that to has ever found it funny.)Report
It’s the delivery. Say “Charles X, Louis XVI, and Louis XVIII were brothers”, then translate “hi, I’m Charles, this is my brother Louis and this is my other brother Louis” into French and leave it for the reader to figure out.Report
“Salut, je suis Charles, voici mon frère Louis et voici mon autre frère Louis.”
“¿Son ellos tus hermanos?”
“Non Armand : Louis!”Report
That’s is way, way, way, way betterReport
Arrested Development is way, way better than Newhart.Report
I thought it was worth a chuckle, and it’s even better in FrenchReport
“Louis, Louis. Harry, Harry. Your my candy King…”Report
4. Refers to the comeback the Emperor made to a priest to corrected his bad Latin grammar at an important council, one dealing with Jan Hus’s heresey. I don’t remember his name but he would be one of the Luxembourg emperors.
6. Refers to one of the later Saxon dynasty emperors, one of the many Ottos and not the first or the second Otto. The marriage of a Byzantine princess to the heir of the Saxon line was a big diplomatic event in the 10th century, and I believe she reigned as regent for her infant son for a time.Report
Both correct, but, like HUAC, we need you to name names.Report
Based on my above logic, I’m going to say 6. is Otto III.
4. I want to say Sigismund I, but have no idea where my brain is pulling that from.Report
Right on both accounts. (He’s the only Emperor Sigismund ever, so he’s not generally given a number.)Report
To recap,:
Brent : 3, 5, 7, and 9.
JA: 1, 2, and 10
4, 6, and 8 are still open.Report
Can’t remember the real name for #4, only that he got tagged ‘Super Grammaticam’ because of that
#8: Otto #?, son of Henry the Lion – only Welf to be Holy Roman Emperor and double crossed the popeReport
Otto IV; judges say “close enough”.
As you probably know, a few hundred years later the Welfs became electors of Hanover and a bit after that inherited the throne of England.Report
Final score:
Brent wins: 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 9.
JA: 1, 2, and 10
bookdragon: 8
Impressive knowledge on everyone’s part. Thanks for playing.Report