On December 25th 800AD, Charlemagne, King of the Franks was crowned Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Leo III in Rome. This title, with some exceptions, would continue to be used by the most powerful rulers in Europe until the 19th century. However, much of Charlemagne's empire was centred in what's now France whereas the Holy Roman Empire that followed was located here in what's very much not France.
So what happened? Why did so much of Charlemagne's core Frankish territory separate from the lands his title ruled? So in 768 the kingdom of the Franks was run by King Pepin of the Carolingian dynasty who took this opportune moment to die. He left his kingdom to his sons Charles and Carloman, who, due to Salic inheritance laws, split the kingdom between them.
Now Carloman would rule his half of the kingdom well for a whole three years before he suddenly died and Charles got the lot. Charles then spent the next few decades massively expanding the Frankish realm until the year 800. At this point Pope Leo III was run out of Rome and asked Charles to restore him. which he soon did and subsequently the Pope crowned him Holy Roman Emperor, which is what led to Charles being called Charles the Great, better known as Charlemagne. After some more conquests and Constantinople being grumpy about the new title, Charlemagne would himself die, but he only had one living son which meant that the empire would remain whole.
His successor however, Louis the Pious, did have multiple sons who fought a civil war after his death, and for the following half a century the empire would be split and split again, briefly reunited and split once more and the title of Holy Roman Emperor soon fell out of use. In the East Carolingian kings had been replaced with Saxon ones, and it was soon ruled by King Otto whose father had changed the succession laws to just one person getting everything. Otto soon conquered the kingdom of Italy and whilst he was there he got the pope to crown him Holy Roman Emperor.
Otto was an autocrat who didn't really care about family or bloodlines but only about loyalty. As such titles and positions went to his close friends and allies who were culturally German and the old Frankish nobility was soon replaced by Saxons, Bavarians and Swabians. Otto's personal authority meant that he was able to turn the West into a puppet state.
But soon after he died in 973 it rebelled against his son and won its full independence. Soon afterwards, Hew Capet became king there, which ended Carolingian rule and importantly severed the major unifying threads between the two realms. So the New Capetian dynasty, whilst holding the title of king, was actually very weak.
And its kingdom was very decentralised with noble families holding incredible power there. By the time this had been reversed in the 12th century by King Philippe Augustus, the title of Holy Roman Emperor wasn't seen as Frankish but as entirely German. And the Holy Roman Emperors didn't make any attempt to subjugate France after Otto I. First.
because, as anyone who is familiar with the HRE will tell you, it had its own problems. Its borders were constantly under pressure from the north, east and south. Internally, lords struggled for power in the imperial crown and the emperor often had to compete with the pope for authority, and when they did get along, it was time to crusade. The only time after this when the two came near to maybe technically if you squint uniting was during the reign of King Francis I. In 1519 Emperor Maximilian died and the electors of the empire had to choose between his grandson Charles I of Spain, Henry VIII of England and Francis I of France.
The electors of course had to pick which candidate was best at bribing them. Francis was supported by the Pope and promised lands and money to the electors that backed him, whereas Charles was the chosen successor of Maximilian, had large armies and lands within the Holy Roman Empire and also paid astronomical sums of money in bribes. Henry soon realised he couldn't afford to play this game and so withdrew. In the end, Charles' military position within the empire and also his promises to leave it alone so he could run the growing Spanish empire won him the title, and Francis also made the mistake of paying his bribes before the election. which is why those who pledged to vote for him didn't and promptly kept the money.
And after this there was no chance of the two uniting again and separate they would remain. I hope you enjoyed this episode with a special thanks to my patrons James Bizernet, Skye Chappell, Katoitska, Yuduan Wang, Wyan Hockey, Anthony Beckett, Blue Cardinal, Alex Schwinn, Aya Firefly, Spencer Lightfoot, Captain Psydog, The McWhopper, The Flying Deutschland, Gustav Swan, Robert C Perkins, Schuenin, Michael Holbert, Castle Bravo, Marvin Casau, Winston Kaywood, Rod D. Marting, Spinning Three Plates, Andy McGeehy, Kamun Yun, Danny Atanasio, Mirza Ahmed, Copper Tone, Maggie Paskowski, Heichi from Starve Harve, Arthur Hosey Jr, Kalitro, Remco Hoisman, Jim Stroomberg, Bet Kabot, Charles I, and Lord Beak.