What if France was part off the HRE from the beginning. There is no French emperor and the land is like German lands cut in many small pieces.
This might actually make the empire more stable because you get rid of a strong rival next door, who in later centuries pretty much made HRE decentralization a major foreign policy, as well as keep the Pope from being to confrontational to the emperor of most of Catholic Christendom.
In terms of population, the kingdom of France weighed more than the HRE, and much more than the german part of the HRE.
Personaly I think that there would be enough non-France in the empire for France not to completely dominate it. Especialy if we consider that France would probably as divided as the German (and Italian) part was. Actualy if I remember my medieval history correctly, until Philip Augustus France was pretty disunited and I doubt someone similar will arise in this case. Someone trying to unite the lands would have to unite not only France, but also the Ferman parts, making it a lot harder to unite them.
Personaly I believe that with France it would become a much more multicultural empire than it was OTL. It would have (northern) Italians, French (language d'oc as well as language d'oill), Bretons, Germans (low Germans, as well as high Germans, including the Swiss and Dutch) and Czech. So I think the French part of the empire will be extremely influential, I don't think the empire would be French (my guess would be that Aachen will be the capital). The emperor will often be French, but certainly not always.Decentralized does not mean disunited. When the kingdom of France was threatened by the HRE, the then weak king could however count on the mobilization and support of his very powerful vassals.
This being said, you are right. France in the HRE means France not existing as OTL. However, there had been previous political entities that correspondre rather well with what was going to become France. Basically, there were the italian-italic peoples, the gallo-roman peoples, and the germanic peoples.
And the first group demographically weighed much more than the others and much much much more than the germanic groups.
Personaly I believe that with France it would become a much more multicultural empire than it was OTL. It would have (northern) Italians, French (language d'oc as well as language d'oill), Bretons, Germans (low Germans, as well as high Germans, including the Swiss and Dutch) and Czech. So I think the French part of the empire will be extremely influential, I don't think the empire would be French (my guess would be that Aachen will be the capital). The emperor will often be French, but certainly not always.
Exactly. Actualy in this caseI suspect that the northern Italians would become more part of the HRE than they were OTL. With France part of the Empire the Alpes aren't as big of a barrier anymore.I do agree. It will not be french. It will not either be german.
Exactly. Actualy in this caseI suspect that the northern Italians would become more part of the HRE than they were OTL. With France part of the Empire the Alpes aren't as big of a barrier anymore.