Could the Holy Roman Empire have stayed united? With a strong Kaiser?

Susano

Banned
Well I think there are three Emperors which are your best bets:
1) Otto III - that wouldnt be a HRE as we know it, though, not German and led from Rome
2) Frederick Barbarossa - Barbarossa might have managed on the strength of his arms alone, but of course the problem remains that those arms always had to cross the Alps - when he was in Italy, the German nobles rebelled and when he was in Germany, the North Italian cities rebelled.
3) Henry IV - Barbarossas son, and his "Erbreichsplan" to make the Imperial Crown hereditary, which very nearly passed. If it does, then there wont be so many dynastic conflicts in the HRE, potentially allowing it to centralise.

After Henry IV its too late - his son Frederick II was practcially only interested in Sicily and gave away vast amounts of rights to th enobles (some of which de facto they already had enjoyed before, but still, codifying them meant a huge loss of imperial power), and after Frederick II came the devasting interregnum...
 
Otto I is a good possible launching point. Just have him stay out of lengthy military campaigns in Italy; they weakened the Empire in the long run. Keep the Empire centred in Germany, with strong ties to Italy; it'd piss off the Italian city states less, and keep Germany in good fortune.

Or, as Susano said, Henry IV is another good choice.
Or you could go a bit earlier and have the Salian Emperors win the investiture controversy.
 
2) Frederick Barbarossa - Barbarossa might have managed on the strength of his arms alone, but of course the problem remains that those arms always had to cross the Alps - when he was in Italy, the German nobles rebelled and when he was in Germany, the North Italian cities rebelled.

I don't think this is entirely fairly. After all, Barbarossa ultimately gained a degree of control over Lombardy, and Henry VI was able to extend that with the conquest of Sicily. And the wealth and power that Italy would have given him, IMO, means that it would have been well worth it.

An Imperial state centered on Austria and Northern Italy sounds familiar, no?

I also think unification aroudn the Habsburgs is plausible, though it would be a more federal state.
 
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