first hear of it under Otto I, the Saxon emperor, who was crowned in
962.)

[Map: The Empire of Charlemagne]

This Holy Roman Empire included all of what is now Germany (except the
eastern third of Prussia), all of what is now Bohemia, Austria (but
not Hungary), and all of Italy except the part south of Naples. There
were times when part of France and all of the low countries (now
Belgium and Holland) also belonged to the Empire. (The mountaineers of
Switzerland won their independence from the Empire in the fourteenth
century, and formed a little republic.) See map "Europe in 1540."

[Map: Europe in 1540]

In the Holy Roman Empire, the son of the emperor did not necessarily
succeed his father as ruler. There were seven (afterwards nine)
"electors" who, at the death of the ruling monarch, met to elect his
successor. Three of these electors were archbishops, one was king of
Bohemia, and the others were counts of large counties in Germany like
Hanover and Brandenburg. It frequently happened that the candidate
chosen was a member of the family of the dead emperor, and there were
three or four families which had many rulers chosen from among their
number. The most famous of these families was that of the Counts of
Hapsburg, from whom the present emperor of Austria is descended.

[Illustration: Louis XIV]

This Holy Roman Empire was not a strong government, as the kingdoms of
England and France grew to be. The kings of Bohemia, Saxony, and