The national monarchies of western Europe--England, France, Spain, and Portugal--were political novelties in the year 1500: the idea of uniting the people of similar language and customs under a strongly centralized state had been slowly developing but had not reached fruition much before that date. On the other hand, in central Europe survived in weakness an entirely different kind of state, called an empire. The theory of an empire was a very ancient one--it meant a state which should embrace all peoples of whatsoever race or language, bound together in obedience to a common prince. Such, for example, had been the ideal of the old Roman Empire, under whose Caesars practically the whole civilized world had once been joined, so that the inhabitant of Egypt or Armenia united with the citizen of Britain or Spain in allegiance to the emperor. That empire retained its hold on portions of eastern Europe until its final conquest by the Ottoman Turks in 1453, but a thousand years earlier it had lost control of the West because of external violence and internal weakness. So great, however, was the strength of the idea of an "empire," even in the West, that Charlemagne about the year 800 temporarily united what are now France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Belgium into what he persisted in styling the "Roman Empire." Nearly two centuries later, Otto the Great, a famous prince in Germany, gave other form to the idea, in the "Holy Roman Empire" of which he became emperor. This form endured from 962 to 1806. [Sidenote: The Holy Roman Empire; Its Mighty Claims in Theory and its Slight Power in Practice] In theory, the Holy Roman Empire claimed supremacy over all Christian rulers and peoples of central and western Europe, and after the extinction of the eastern empire in 1453 it could insist that it was the sole secular heir to the ancient Roman tradition. But the greatness of the theoretical claim of the Holy Roman Empire was matched only by the insignificance of its practical acceptance. The feudal nobles of western Europe had never recognized it, and the national monarchs, though they might occasionally sport with its honors and titles, never admitted any real dependence upon it of England, France, Portugal, or Spain. In central Europe, it had to struggle against the anarchical tendencies of feudalism, against the rise of powerful and jealous city- states, and against a rival organization, the Catholic Church, which in its temporal affairs was at least as clearly an heir to the Roman tradition as was the Holy Roman Empire. From the eleventh to the thirteenth century the conflict raged, with results important for all concerned,--results which were thoroughly obvious in the year 1500. [Sidenote: The Holy Roman Empire practically Restricted by 1500 to the Germanies]