Kingdom of Germany
[4] It was popularized by the chancery of Pope Gregory VII during the Investiture Controversy (late 11th century), perhaps as a polemical tool against Emperor Henry IV.
[5] In the 12th century, in order to stress the imperial and transnational character of their office, the emperors began to employ the title rex Romanorum (king of the Romans) on their election.
The tripartite division of the Carolingian Empire effected by the Treaty of Verdun was challenged very early on with the death of the Emperor Lothair I in 855.
Traditionally referred to as "Saxony", "Bavaria", and "Swabia" (or "Alemannia"), these kingdoms were ruled by the three sons of Louis in cooperation and were reunited by Charles the Fat in 882.
Within East Francia were large duchies, sometimes called kingdoms (regna) after their former status, which had a certain level of internal solidarity.
Herwig Wolfram (1971) denied any real distinction between older and younger stem duchies, or between the stem duchies of Germany and similar territorial principalities in other parts of the Carolingian empire: I am attempting to refute the whole hallowed doctrine of the difference between the beginnings of the West-Frankish, "French", principautés territoriales, and the East-Frankish, "German," stem-duchies ...
[10] In the context of modern German nationalism, Gerd Tellenbach (1939) emphasised the role of feudalism, both of the kings in the formation of the German kingdom and of the dukes in the formation of the stem duchies, against Martin Lintzel and Walter Schlesinger, who emphasised the role of the individual "stems" or "tribes" (Stämme).
[10] Arnulf continued to rule it like a king even after his submission, but after his death in 937 it was quickly brought under royal control by Henry's son Otto the Great.
[11] The Ottonians worked to preserve the duchies as offices of the crown, but by the reign of Henry IV the dukes had made them functionally hereditary.
The other peoples of East Francia were Saxons, Frisians, Thuringii, and the like, referred to as Teutonici (or Germans) and sometimes as Franks as ethnic identities changed over the course of the ninth century.
An entry in the Annales Iuvavenses (or Salzburg Annals) for the year 919, roughly contemporary but surviving only in a twelfth-century copy, records that Baiuarii sponte se reddiderunt Arnolfo duci et regnare ei fecerunt in regno teutonicorum, i.e. that "Arnulf, Duke of the Bavarians, was elected to reign in the Kingdom of the Germans".
[19] In the tenth century, German writers already tended toward using modified terms such as "Francia and Saxony" or "land of the Teutons".
It is impossible to base this distinction on primary sources, as Eastern Francia remains in use long after Kingdom of Germany comes into use.
For, as is perfectly clear in what precedes, at the time of Charles the boundaries of the kingdom of the Franks included the whole of Gaul and all Germany, from the Rhine to Illyricum.
Beginning in the late eleventh century, during the Investiture Controversy, the Papal curia began to use the term regnum teutonicorum to refer to the realm of Henry IV in an effort to reduce him to the level of the other kings of Europe, while he himself began to use the title rex Romanorum or King of the Romans to emphasise his divine right to the imperium Romanum.
However foreign sources combined the imperial titles with "Teutonic" and "Alemannic" which reference a denial of their Romanitas or universal rule.
[30] During the celebrations on the canonisation of Charlemagne in December 1165 and January 1166, Barbarossa also called Aachen the "head and seat of the German Kingdom".
He was highly successful at encouraging his German supporters such as Berthold of Reichenau or Bernold of St Blasien to use the terms "Regnum Teutonicorum" or "Teutonicae partes".
The Kaiserchronik explicitly describes Henry as having rule of a separate German kingdom (siniu Tiuschen riche) under the empire.
Henry's successor Konrad IV was also called king-designate of Germany (rex Theutonie designatus) by a contemporary writer.
[32] The Count Palatine of the Rhine was legally authorised to judge on the princes' affairs should the king leave Germany ("von teutchem lande").
[35] There were persistent proposals, including one that Ptolemy of Lucca claimed was discussed between Pope Nicholas III and Rudolf I, to create a hereditary German kingdom independent from the Holy Empire.
These led to more interest in connecting German identity to being heirs of Imperial Rome (Translatio Imperii), by right of their military strength as defenders of Christendom.
[39] In 1508, Maximilian I, with papal approval, adopted the title "emperor elect" (Dei gratia Romanorum imperator electus semper augustus).
[41] Brendan Simms called the Imperial circles as "an embryonic German collective-security system" and "a potential vehicle for national unity against outsiders".
