Pope St. Stephen II was the first sovereign of the Papal States, a gift from the Frankish king Pepin the Short, the son of Charles Martel and father of Charlemagne, the first Holy Roman Emperor.

By the early 16th century Italy was a chaotic battleground between France and the Holy Roman Empire. Pope Clement VII, caught in the power struggle, initially allied with France against Charles V.

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Charles in chargeA bronze likeness of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, created in 1555. Under Charles V (who was also Charles I of Spain), Pizarro began to forge an empire for Spain in the Americas.

The Church honors Jeanne d’Arc as a virgin martyr and national patroness, whose courage, purity and fortitude continue to ...

Papal conclaves have featured calls of election fraud and bribery so gauche that riches were wheeled in on donkey carts.

Charles craftily lured Henry VIII into alliances, promising the Tudor monarch support ... boasted a court of equal extravagance. The Holy Roman Empire halted the Ottoman advance into Europe at the ...

The Pope refused to annul the marriage as he was afraid to go against the will of Catherine's nephew Charles V, The Holy Roman Emperor. Although she resisted Henry VIII's advances, by 1533 Anne ...

Matilda of Canossa, the Margravine of Tuscany who militarily and materially made possible Pope Gregory VII’s famous Investiture Controversy slap-down of the future Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV ...