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I believe he's referring to when the last Holy Roman Emperor abdicated in 1806. "The empire was dissolved on 6 August 1806, when the last Holy Roman Emperor Fr

by vmh1928 6y ago

I believe he's referring to when the last Holy Roman Emperor abdicated in 1806. "The empire was dissolved on 6 August 1806, when the last Holy Roman Emperor Francis II (from 1804, Emperor Francis I of Austria) abdicated, following a military defeat by the French under Napoleon at Austerlitz (see Treaty of Pressburg)." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Roman_Empire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Roman_Empire Although you could make an argument that the Roman Empire in the west ended in 476 C.E. when the last Roman emperor, Romulus, was overthrown by the Germanic leader Odoacer, who became the first Barbarian to rule in Rome. In 800 the Pope gave Charlemagne the title of Roman Emperor so there's a gap of 324 years with no emperor in the west. Meanwhile, the Roman Empire in the east continued to function.

Bayart 6y ago
Odoacer was a career general in the Roman army, while "Romulus Augustus" was the kid of a former secretary of Attila. Odoacer took power with the benediction of the Senate and ruled in the name of the actual Emperor in Constantinople. It's not any more or any less the end of the Western Roman Empire than the political troubles that occurred in the earlier and later centuries. The Gothic, Frankish or Vandalic kingdoms very much thought of themselves as belonging to a Roman world.
bhaak 6y ago
I agree that the date 476 CE was probably not as much of a devastating blow to the Roman empire and their contemporary population as it was made out to be later. But in those 324 years a lot happened that make the case of a direct lineage questionable. The Gothic wars destroyed a lot of remaining infrastructure and Roman culture, the Roman senate was no more after 600 CE, the long term population loss, and the Christian Pope was the defacto ruler of the city (if you could still call that what was left a city). The coronation of Charlemagne was also considered illegitimate by the Eastern Roman emperor at first, until they couldn't ignore Charlemagne's military power anymore.

Bayart 6y ago

Odoacer was a career general in the Roman army, while "Romulus Augustus" was the kid of a former secretary of Attila. Odoacer took power with the benediction of the Senate and ruled in the name of the actual Emperor in Constantinople. It's not any more or any less the end of the Western Roman Empire than the political troubles that occurred in the earlier and later centuries. The Gothic, Frankish or Vandalic kingdoms very much thought of themselves as belonging to a Roman world.

bhaak 6y ago

I agree that the date 476 CE was probably not as much of a devastating blow to the Roman empire and their contemporary population as it was made out to be later. But in those 324 years a lot happened that make the case of a direct lineage questionable. The Gothic wars destroyed a lot of remaining infrastructure and Roman culture, the Roman senate was no more after 600 CE, the long term population loss, and the Christian Pope was the defacto ruler of the city (if you could still call that what was left a city). The coronation of Charlemagne was also considered illegitimate by the Eastern Roman emperor at first, until they couldn't ignore Charlemagne's military power anymore.