Reign in The Holy Roman Empire
The Wittelsbach family was the ruling dynasty of the German territories of Bavaria from 1180 to 1918 and of the Electorate of the Palatinate from 1214 until 1805; in 1815 the latter territory was partly incorporated as Rhine Palatinate into Bavaria, which was elevated to a kingdom by Napoleon in 1806.
On Duke Otto II's death in 1253, the Wittelsbach possessions were divided between his sons: Henry became Duke of Lower Bavaria, and Louis II Duke of Upper Bavaria and Count Palatine of the Rhine. When Henry's branch died out in 1340 the duchy was reunited under Emperor Louis IV, a son of Duke Louis II.
The family provided two Holy Roman Emperors: Louis IV (1314–1347) and Charles VII (1742–1745), both members of the Bavarian branch of the family, and one German King with Rupert of the Palatinate (1400–1410), a member of the Palatinate branch.
The House of Wittelsbach split into these two branches in 1329: Under the Treaty of Pavia, Emperor Louis IV granted the Palatinate including the Bavarian Upper Palatinate to his brother Duke Rudolf's descendants, Rudolf II, Rupert I and Rupert II. Rudolf I this way became the ancestor of the older (Palatinate) line of the Wittelsbach dynasty, which returned to power also in Bavaria in 1777 after the extinction of the younger (Bavarian) line, the descendants of Louis IV.
Read more about this topic: House Of Wittelsbach
Famous quotes containing the words roman empire, reign in, reign, holy, roman and/or empire:
“Ce corps qui s’appelait et qui s’appelle encore le saint empire romain n’était en aucune manière ni saint, ni romain, ni empire. This agglomeration which called itself and still calls itself the Holy Roman Empire was in no way holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.”
—Voltaire [François Marie Arouet] (1694–1778)
“I am monarch of all I survey;
My right there is none to dispute;
From the center all round to the sea
I am lord of the fowl and the brute.
O Solitude! where are the charms
That sages have seen in thy face?
Better dwell in the midst of alarms,
Than reign in this horrible place.”
—William Cowper (1731–1800)
“The reign of imagagology begins where history ends.”
—Milan Kundera (b. 1929)
“There is a very holy and a very terrible isolation for the conscience of every man who seeks to read the destiny in affairs for others as well as for himself, for a nation as well as for individuals. That privacy no man can intrude upon. That lonely search of the spirit for the right perhaps no man can assist.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
“The Roman Road runs straight and bare
As the pale parting-line in hair
Across the heath.”
—Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)
“The sea, washing the equator and the poles, offers its perilous aid, and the power and empire that follow it.... “Beware of me,” it says, “but if you can hold me, I am the key to all the lands.””
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)