Which modern country is the successor of the Roman Empire?
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  Which modern country is the successor of the Roman Empire?
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Question: Since another thread created this discussion, we can vote here: Which modern country is the successor of the Roman Empire?
#1
Italy
 
#2
Vatican
 
#3
Turkey
 
#4
Greece
 
#5
Germany
 
#6
Russia
 
#7
Finland
 
#8
USA
 
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Total Voters: 45

Author Topic: Which modern country is the successor of the Roman Empire?  (Read 4904 times)
NYDem
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« Reply #25 on: March 02, 2023, 01:49:12 PM »

The last Roman successor state in the West (the Kingdom of Gwynedd: its boundaries always shifted about, but it covered most of North Wales most of the time) fell in 1283 and the last Roman successor state in the East (the Duchy of the Archipelago: essentially the Cyclades) fell in 1579. Some people would not count the Duchy of the Archipelago as it was created by Venetian adventurers/pirates during the general chaos following the Fourth Crusade, in which case the answer would be the Principality of Theodoro (a tiny Gothic-speaking slice of southern Crimea that was nominally attached to the equally tiny Empire of Trebizond) which fell in 1475. None of these places were fully sovereign all of the time by a modern understanding of the term, but that's not really important: what matters is that they were all clearly defined polities. Anyway, there's nothing afterwards.

HRE could be considered a revival of the Western Roman Empire, just as the Russian Federation could be considered a revival of the Russian Empire, in my eyes.

I was going to make a comment joking about how the answer is clearly Germany because of the Rome -> HRE -> Confederation of the Rhine -> North German Confederation -> Germany succession, but it’s less funny when there are people in thread actually claiming that the HRE was a successor of the Roman Empire.
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TheReckoning
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« Reply #26 on: March 02, 2023, 01:52:10 PM »

The last Roman successor state in the West (the Kingdom of Gwynedd: its boundaries always shifted about, but it covered most of North Wales most of the time) fell in 1283 and the last Roman successor state in the East (the Duchy of the Archipelago: essentially the Cyclades) fell in 1579. Some people would not count the Duchy of the Archipelago as it was created by Venetian adventurers/pirates during the general chaos following the Fourth Crusade, in which case the answer would be the Principality of Theodoro (a tiny Gothic-speaking slice of southern Crimea that was nominally attached to the equally tiny Empire of Trebizond) which fell in 1475. None of these places were fully sovereign all of the time by a modern understanding of the term, but that's not really important: what matters is that they were all clearly defined polities. Anyway, there's nothing afterwards.

HRE could be considered a revival of the Western Roman Empire, just as the Russian Federation could be considered a revival of the Russian Empire, in my eyes.

I was going to make a comment joking about how the answer is clearly Germany because of the HRE -> Confederation of the Rhine -> North German Confederation -> Germany succession, but it’s less funny when there’s people in thread actually claiming that the HRE was a successor of the Roman Empire.

It used the Roman language, practiced the Roman religion, and was considered to be Roman by the people who lived in and around it. That doesn’t mean it has to be a successor state, but I could see an interpretation of the terms “successor state” and of historical analysis at the time to determine that maybe it was.
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NYDem
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« Reply #27 on: March 02, 2023, 02:07:53 PM »

The last Roman successor state in the West (the Kingdom of Gwynedd: its boundaries always shifted about, but it covered most of North Wales most of the time) fell in 1283 and the last Roman successor state in the East (the Duchy of the Archipelago: essentially the Cyclades) fell in 1579. Some people would not count the Duchy of the Archipelago as it was created by Venetian adventurers/pirates during the general chaos following the Fourth Crusade, in which case the answer would be the Principality of Theodoro (a tiny Gothic-speaking slice of southern Crimea that was nominally attached to the equally tiny Empire of Trebizond) which fell in 1475. None of these places were fully sovereign all of the time by a modern understanding of the term, but that's not really important: what matters is that they were all clearly defined polities. Anyway, there's nothing afterwards.

HRE could be considered a revival of the Western Roman Empire, just as the Russian Federation could be considered a revival of the Russian Empire, in my eyes.

I was going to make a comment joking about how the answer is clearly Germany because of the HRE -> Confederation of the Rhine -> North German Confederation -> Germany succession, but it’s less funny when there’s people in thread actually claiming that the HRE was a successor of the Roman Empire.

It used the Roman language, practiced the Roman religion, and was considered to be Roman by the people who lived in and around it. That doesn’t mean it has to be a successor state, but I could see an interpretation of the terms “successor state” and of historical analysis at the time to determine that maybe it was.

All those statements have big asterisks attached though.

The vernacular was not a Roman language in most of the HRE. Most of the common people did not speak Latin-derived languages, and essentially none of them actually knew Latin. The Church used it, and laws and literature were typically written in Latin, but that was the case in all of Western Europe at that time. Writing in the vernacular was pretty uncommon until the early modern period, if I remember correctly.

The did practice Catholicism, but again, that wasn't unique to them. At the founding of the HRE they weren’t the only Catholic nation in Western Europe, let alone Europe as a whole. You also have to consider that by the end of the HRE’s existence a significant portion of it was Protestant.

When it comes to recognition, again, there’s a lot to be debated. Their claim was far from universally accepted even at the time, but that’s an issue I won’t pretend to know much about (maybe one of our more historically-knowledgeable posters could weigh in on this one).

I suppose one could interpret the term “successor state” widely enough to include the HRE as a successor state to the Roman Empire, but at that point the term is so general that it’s almost useless. They’re two very different states at the end of the day. I think the whole question is a silly one. Rome has no successor. It’s gone. A lot of their innovations and culture live on in various ways, but the Roman state has been completely dead for centuries.
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RINO Tom
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« Reply #28 on: March 17, 2023, 01:38:06 PM »

I will say, the whole laughing at the Holy Roman Empire's claim has become a bit of a Dunning Kruger thing, where people who think they're smart for pointing out how "ridiculous" it is that they'd claim to be successors (more accurately, a "revival" of it, per their words at the time) of the late Western Roman Empire are actually the ones not smart enough to realize the nuances of the situation.

Once the Roman Empire was fully Christianized, being "Roman" was entirely a concept based on the belief of One God, One Emperor and One Empire.  "Rome" (in whatever form it took) was God's chosen empire to rule the world by His words.  Charlemagne was crowned Emperor in the city of Rome, by the Pope, with the FULL support of the city's people and he ruled over every single part of the former Roman Empire that wasn't (A) currently ruled over by the Empire's eastern half from Constantinople (i.e., Southern Italy) or (B) actively being occupied by foreign Muslim invaders (i.e., Iberia).  What does his Frankish heritage matter?  The Empire had had countless non-Italic Emperors by that point, and its living successor in the east was being ruled by Greeks, Illyrians, Armenians and others.

Did the HRE eventually lose any real connection to its original founding principles, especially once it was religiously divided, politically divided and had lost its holdings in Italy?  Sure ... but how is that different than the Eastern Roman Empire once it was reduced to Anatolia and Greece and had completely done away with even pretending to care about Latin?  All of these nitpicky things really didn't bother the people of the day (whose understanding of the concept we should care about WAY more than modern people, I might add...) than they do people in the Twenty-First Century.

For context, I am of the opinion that the Eastern Roman Empire is the obvious "successor" of "Rome" in that it quite literally never stopped being the literal eastern half of the Roman Empire, lol.  However, make no mistake - to act like a bunch of Western Europeans who'd been Christianized and were ruling over the Western half's former territories couldn't reasonably get with the Pope (let's keep in mind that the Roman Catholic Church is arguably THE sole legacy of the Roman Empire left today...) and decide to resurrect the Western Empire in some form is just SO ridiculous is to not appreciate the complexity of the era ... and I feel like it's something people do to sound smart or be funny, and both usually fail.  Lol.  The fact that many nations and peoples would look to carry on the tradition of an idea as abstract as "The (Late, Christianized) Roman Empire" should not be surprising, and it certainly shouldn't be mocked quite as much as it is.
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« Reply #29 on: March 23, 2023, 01:44:56 PM »

Every country, state, county, corporation, municipal agency, social club, etc. with a Latin motto is the true successor to the Roman Empire. This is the only reasonable way to measure it.
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Republican Party Stalwart
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« Reply #30 on: May 02, 2023, 12:58:13 PM »


San Marino was literally formed by secession and a declaration of independence from the Roman Empire, though.
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