Demographics[edit]

Population[edit]
Overall population figures for the Holy Roman Empire are extremely vague and vary widely.
Given the political fragmentation of the Empire, there were no central agencies that could
compile such figures. According to an overgenerous contemporary estimate of the Austrian
War Archives for the first decade of the 18th century, the Empire, including Bohemia and the
Spanish Netherlands, had a population of close to 28 million with a breakdown as follows:[83]

 65 ecclesiastical states with 14 percent of the total land area and 12 percent of the
population;
 45 dynastic principalities with 80 percent of the land and 80 percent of the
population;
 60 dynastic counties and lordships with 3 percent of the land and 3.5 percent of the
population;
 60 imperial towns with 1 percent of the land and 3.5 percent of the population;
 Imperial knights' territories, numbering into the several hundreds, with 2 percent of
the land and 1 percent of the population.

German demographic historians have traditionally worked on estimates of the population of

the Holy Roman Empire based on assumed population within the frontiers of Germany in
1871 or 1914. More recent estimates use less outdated criteria, but they remain guesswork.
One estimate based on the frontiers of Germany in 1870 gives a population of some 15–
17 million around 1600, declined to 10–13 million around 1650 (following the Thirty Years'
War). Other historians who work on estimates of the population of the early modern Empire
suggest the population declined from 20 million to some 16–17 million by 1650.[84]
A credible estimate for 1800 gives 27 million inhabitants for the Empire, with an overall
breakdown as follows:[85]

 9 million Austrian subjects (including Silesia, Bohemia and Moravia);

 4 million Prussian subjects;
 14–15 million inhabitants for the rest of the Empire.

Largest cities[edit]
Largest cities or towns of the Empire by year:


1050: Regensburg 40,000
people. Rome 35,000. Mainz 30,000. Speyer 25,000. Cologne 21,000. Trier 20,000. Wor
ms 20,000. Lyon 20,000. Verona 20,000. Florence 15,000.[86]

1300–1350: Prague 77,000 people. Cologne 54,000 people. Aachen 21,000
people. Magdeburg 20,000 people. Nuremberg 20,000 people. Vienna 20,000
people. Danzig (now Gdańsk) 20,000 people. Straßburg (now Strasbourg) 20,000
people. Lübeck 15,000 people. Regensburg 11,000 people.[87][88][89][90]

1500: Prague 70,000. Cologne 45,000. Nuremberg 38,000. Augsburg 30,000. Danzig 
(now Gdańsk) 30,000. Lübeck 25,000. Breslau (now Wrocław)
25,000. Regensburg 22,000. Vienna 20,000. Straßburg (now Strasbourg)
20,000. Magdeburg 18,000. Ulm 16,000. Hamburg 15,000.[91]

1600: Prague 100,000. Vienna 50,000. Augsburg 45,000. Cologne 40,000. Nurember
g 40,000. Hamburg 40,000. Magdeburg 40,000. Breslau (now Wrocław)
40,000. Straßburg (now Strasbourg)
25,000. Lübeck 23,000. Ulm 21,000. Regensburg 20,000. Frankfurt am
Main 20,000. Munich 20,000.[91]

Religion[edit]

Front page of the Peace of Augsburg, which laid the legal groundwork for two co-existing religious
confessions (Roman Catholicism and Lutheranism) in the German-speaking states of the Holy Roman
Empire
Roman Catholicism constituted the single official religion of the Empire until 1555. The Holy
Roman Emperor was always a Roman Catholic.
Lutheranism was officially recognized in the Peace of Augsburg of 1555, and Calvinism in
the Peace of Westphalia of 1648. Those two constituted the only officially
recognized Protestant denominations, while various other Protestant confessions such
as Anabaptism, Arminianism, etc. coexisted illegally within the Empire. Anabaptism came in
a variety of denominations, including Mennonites, Schwarzenau Brethren, Hutterites,
the Amish, and multiple other groups.
Following the Peace of Augsburg, the official religion of a territory was determined by the
principle cuius regio, eius religio according to which a ruler's religion determined that of his
subjects. The Peace of Westphalia abrogated that principle by stipulating that the official
religion of a territory was to be what it had been on 1 January 1624, considered to have been
a "normal year". Henceforth, the conversion of a ruler to another faith did not entail the
conversion of his subjects. In addition, all Protestant subjects of a Catholic ruler and vice
versa were guaranteed the rights that they had enjoyed on that date. While the adherents of
a territory's official religion enjoyed the right of public worship, the others were allowed the
right of private worship (in chapels without either spires or bells). In theory, no one was to be
discriminated against or excluded from commerce, trade, craft or public burial on grounds of
religion. For the first time, the permanent nature of the division between the Christian
Churches of the empire was more or less assumed.[92]
In addition, a Jewish minority existed in the Holy Roman Empire.

See also[edit]
  Holy Roman Empire portal
 Succession of the Roman Empire
 Family tree of the German monarchs
 List of state leaders in the 10th-century Holy Roman Empire
 List of state leaders in the 11th-century Holy Roman Empire
 List of state leaders in the 12th-century Holy Roman Empire
 List of state leaders in the 13th-century Holy Roman Empire
 List of state leaders in the 14th-century Holy Roman Empire
 List of state leaders in the 15th-century Holy Roman Empire
 List of state leaders in the 16th-century Holy Roman Empire
 List of state leaders in the 17th-century Holy Roman Empire
 List of state leaders in the 18th-century Holy Roman Empire
 List of state leaders in the 19th-century Holy Roman Empire

Notes[edit]
1. ^ Jump up to:a b c Some historians refer to the beginning of the Holy Roman Empire as
800, with the crowning of Frankish king Charlemagne considered as the first Holy Roman
Emperor. Others refer to the beginning as the coronation of Otto I in 962.
2. ^ Regensburg, seat of the 'Eternal Diet' after 1663, came to be viewed as the
unofficial capital of the Empire by several European powers with a stake in the Empire –
France, England, the Netherlands, Russia, Sweden, Denmark – and they kept more or less
permanent envoys there because it was the only place in the Empire where the delegates of
all the major and mid-size German states congregated and could be reached for lobbying,
etc. The Habsburg emperors themselves used Regensburg in the same way. [2]
3. ^ German, Low
German, Italian, Czech, Polish, Dutch, French, Frisian, Romansh, Slovene, Sorbian, Yiddish 
and other languages. According to the Golden Bull of 1356 the sons of prince-electors were
recommended to learn the languages of German, Latin, Italian and Czech.[3]
4. ^ "transfer of rule"

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