The politics of the Holy Roman Empire, from beginning to end, are quite complex. Most of these politics have been covered in the above nodes, and therefore I shall only cover the politics concerning its conception. This stems back as far as 600 B.C. and stretches right through to the events at the beginning of the Early Medieval period in 1000 A.D.

Around 600 B.C. was, of course, the foundation of Rome as an independent city state. While this has little to do with the German principates of Medieval Europe, its history has a lot to do with it. Rome flourished into the largest European empire ever known, and even in its early stages of expansion, Rome controlled up to the banks of the River Rhine in Germany. Roman culture was well developed over the years here, and later in the stage of Rome's history it even managed to cross the Rhine and push into Upper Germany. It didn't ever conquer all of Germany, but it left a long lasting impression, to say the least.

Rome's influence in France was significantly greater, and all of Gaul, more or less, had been quite Romanised. The Gallic people had more or less become Romans, so Rome's impression here was almost absolute. Thus, when the western half of the Roman Empire collapsed, it left a heavy impression on both France and Germany with culture and society. Therefore, its not that surprising that one of their subject peoples might one day dream of reviving the Empire.

By this stage, in early 900, the Papacy had been established, and the Pope resided in Rome, therefore any Roman Empire was going to be a Holy Roman Empire. It was Charlemagne, who lived in France, that first conceived this vision, and he was incredibly effective. He united Gaul beneath him, conquered all of Germany, then pushed on to Rome where he was crowned King of the Romans, continued down the Italian Peninsular, then conquered many Slavic regions, brining him into contact with the Byzantine Empire. War with the Byzantines seemed inevitable, but when Charlemagne died in 936 A.D. the three heirs to the Empire began squabbling.

The Empire was split in three, the Frankish domain, the German domain and the Italian domain. The German domain retained the official name of the Empire, and thus the Holy Roman Empire at the beginning of the medieval period was born. The Emperor, in the same fashion that Charlemagne was coronated King of the Romans, was declared Holy Roman Emperor, and the German princedoms, principates and duchies swore an oath of loyalty to the Emperor. His power was real, and quite extensive, but there were problems with the loalty of the states in reality. They were generally happy to remain under the rule of the Holy Roman Empire, as in most cases they prospered. Whether they remained under this rule to Emperor A or Emperor B, however, was inconsequential to most of them.

Thus, the oppurtunity for people such as Henry the Lion was present, and quite often there would be rebellions and uprisings. The stronger Emperors, such as Fredrick Barbarossa, were quite able to secure loyalty, eventually, but this ebbed away with their death, and it was always far from stable. Throughout its history the Emperors often sought to reclaim the Empire, and some invaded Italy and even took Rome. The disloyal home states, however, always caused the Empire to return to its original state, and eventually saw its collapse in the post-Medieval period when the Ottoman Turks invaded. When Bavaria was lost a powerful Austrian Duke seized the province for himself. Austria outlasted the Ottomans and eventually expanded into Hungary, but without its most powerful province, the Holy Roman Empire quickly crumbled under the weight of Ottoman expansionism.

So there you have it, the political, historical and cultural reasons behind the formation of the Holy Roman Empire.