abstract
| - One of the most persistent ideas in Western Christendom has been the idea that somewhere, somehow, there ought to be an Emperor of the West. At various times in history certain states and dynasties have been recognized, usually by the Popes, as possessing the Imperial dignity. The character of the Western Empire has changed over time. The original empire, a direct continuation of the late Roman Empire, famously fell in 476. The Carolingian Empire had a definite administrative structure, descended from the Frankish kingdoms, but from the start it was an imperium plurimarum nationum, and the Frankish tendency to subdivide the realm among sons and grandsons encouraged still more fragmentation. So the Empire became more of a historic and religious ideal than an actual fact. The Tolosan Empire, established in 977, was a sprawling concatenation in the same vein. In the eleventh century the Burgundians established a new empire on firmer ground, more compact and more based on cities and sea power than their predecessors. For a complete list of rulers, see Roman Emperors.
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