AHC france in the HRE not Italy

So, what would it take to have France instead of Italy be attached to the HRE,. The HRE can still decentralized and more in name than practice, but France has to be part of it, and preferably Italy is not part of it.
 
So, what would it take to have France instead of Italy be attached to the HRE,. The HRE can still decentralized and more in name than practice, but France has to be part of it, and preferably Italy is not part of it.
A Franco-German HRE is interesting.
 
So, what would it take to have France instead of Italy be attached to the HRE,. The HRE can still decentralized and more in name than practice, but France has to be part of it, and preferably Italy is not part of it.

Umm....
Holy ROMAN Empire without Rome? Ya, sure, after several centuries of ruling both Germany and Italy, the HRE lost Italy, essentially, and became what some people call HREGN (HRE of the German Nation). But having Italy split off early instead of France makes it glaringly obvious that the 'R' part doesn't make sense.

SO....
To get this to work, you have to have all three kept in for those requisite centuries (basically have this HRE be close to coterminous with Western Christendom), and THEN have it lose Italy. How you'd do that, I don't know?

Maybe have Byzantium survive and keep their toehold in southern Italy, eventually taking Rome and leaving the Po valley as a buffer state?
 
Top