1. Terminology and composition
Until the end of the Old Empire in 1806, its official German name was Heiliges Römisches Reich Deutscher Nation (“Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation”; Latin Sacrum Imperium Romano-Germanicum). The addition of the adjective Holy probably goes back to 12th-century Staufian ideas, but it was not challenged in the early modern period; similar epithets like Regnum Apostolicum (“Apostolic Kin…