Theoretically, the Holy Roman Emperor was Europe's most powerful ruler. During the reign of Charles V (1519-1556), this may certainly have been true, but after his abdication in 1556 it was no longer the case. Charles had been both the king of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor but had given up both the thrones out of sheer exhaustion. He was convinced that it was impossible for one man to rule such an enormous area so, before he went off to spend his retirement in the calm of a Spanish monastery, he divided his possessions as follows:

This division meant that there were two separate branches of the Habsburg dynasty in 1600, the Spanish and the Austrian. They would never be reunited (much to the relief of France). After 1556, the Holy Roman Empire was like a jigsaw puzzle of more than 360 independent states, principalities and cities. In addition, to the various ethnic groups, such as Germans, Poles, Bohemians, Ruthenes, Hungarians and Rumanians, there were different religions (Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox and Muslim), different languages, traditions and cultures which made it impossible for the Emperor to rule a strong, unified state.

© Shirley Burchill, Nigel Hughes, Richard Gale and Keith Woodall 2009