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Income tax

An income tax is a tax imposed on individuals or entities (taxpayers) in respect of the income or profits earned by them (commonly called taxable income). Income tax generally is computed as the product of a tax rate times the taxable income. Taxation rates may vary by type or characteristics of the taxpayer and the type of income.

The tax rate may increase as taxable income increases (referred to as graduated or progressive tax rates). The tax imposed on companies is usually known as corporate tax and is commonly levied at a flat rate. Individual income is often taxed at progressive rates where the tax rate applied to each additional unit of income increases (e.g., the first $10,000 of income taxed at 0%, the next $10,000 taxed at 1%, etc.). Most jurisdictions exempt local charitable organizations from tax. Income from investments may be taxed at different (generally lower) rates than other types of income. Credits of various sorts may be allowed that reduce tax. Some jurisdictions impose the higher of an income tax or a tax on an alternative base or measure of income.

Taxable income of taxpayers' resident in the jurisdiction is generally total income less income producing expenses and other deductions. Generally, only net gain from the sale of property, including goods held for sale, is included in income. The income of a corporation's shareholders usually includes distributions of profits from the corporation. Deductions typically include all income-producing or business expenses including an allowance for recovery of costs of business assets. Many jurisdictions allow notional deductions for individuals and may allow deduction of some personal expenses. Most jurisdictions either do not tax income earned outside the jurisdiction or allow a credit for taxes paid to other jurisdictions on such income. Nonresidents are taxed only on certain types of income from sources within the jurisdictions, with few exceptions.

Most jurisdictions require self-assessment of the tax and require payers of some types of income to withhold tax from those payments. Advance payments of tax by taxpayers may be required. Taxpayers not timely paying tax owed are generally subject to significant penalties, which may include jail-time for individuals. Taxable income of taxpayers resident in the jurisdiction is generally total income less income producing expenses and other deductions. Generally, only net gain from the sale of property, including goods held for sale, is included in income. The income of a corporation's shareholders usually includes distributions of profits from the corporation. Deductions typically include all income-producing or business expenses including an allowance for recovery of costs of business assets. Many jurisdictions allow notional deductions for individuals and may allow deduction of some personal expenses. Most jurisdictions either do not tax income earned outside the jurisdiction or allow a credit for taxes paid to other jurisdictions on such income. Nonresidents are taxed only on certain types of income from sources within the jurisdictions, with few exceptions.

History
The concept of taxing income is a modern innovation and presupposes several things: a money economy, reasonably accurate accounts, a common understanding of receipts, expenses and profits, and an orderly society with reliable records.

For most of the history of civilization, these preconditions did not exist, and taxes were based on other factors. Taxes on wealth, social position, and ownership of the means of production (typically land and slaves) were all common. Practices such as tithing, or an offering of first fruits, existed from ancient times, and can be regarded as a precursor of the income tax, but they lacked precision and certainly were not based on a concept of net increase.

Early examples
The first income tax is generally attributed to Egypt. In the early days of the Roman Republic, public taxes consisted of modest assessments on owned wealth and property. The tax rate under normal circumstances was 1% and sometimes would climb as high as 3% in situations such as war. These modest taxes were levied against land, homes and other real estate, slaves, animals, personal items and monetary wealth. The more a person had in property, the more tax they paid. Taxes were collected from individuals.

In the year 10 AD, Emperor Wang Mang of the Xin dynasty instituted an unprecedented income tax, at the rate of 10 percent of profits, for professionals and skilled labor. He was overthrown 13 years later in 23 AD and earlier policies were restored during the reestablished Han dynasty which followed.

One of the first recorded taxes on income was the Saladin tithe introduced by Henry II in 1188 to raise money for the Third Crusade. The tithe demanded that each layperson in England and Wales be taxed one tenth of their personal income and moveable property.

In 1641, Portugal introduced a personal income tax called the décima.

United Kingdom
The inception date of the modern income tax is typically accepted as 1799, at the suggestion of Henry Beeke, the future Dean of Bristol. This income tax was introduced into Great Britain by Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger in his budget of December 1798, to pay for weapons and equipment for the French Revolutionary War. Pitt's new graduated (progressive) income tax began at a levy of 2 old pence in the pound ($1/120$) on incomes over £60 (equivalent to £0 in ), and increased up to a maximum of 2 shillings in the pound (10%) on incomes of over £200. Pitt hoped that the new income tax would raise £10 million a year, but actual receipts for 1799 totalled only a little over £6 million.

Pitt's income tax was levied from 1799 to 1802, when it was abolished by Henry Addington during the Peace of Amiens. Addington had taken over as prime minister in 1801, after Pitt's resignation over Catholic Emancipation. The income tax was reintroduced by Addington in 1803 when hostilities with France recommenced, but it was again abolished in 1816, one year after the Battle of Waterloo. Opponents of the tax, who thought it should only be used to finance wars, wanted all records of the tax destroyed along with its repeal. Records were publicly burned by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but copies were retained in the basement of the tax court.

In the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, income tax was reintroduced by Sir Robert Peel by the Income Tax Act 1842. Peel, as a Conservative, had opposed income tax in the 1841 general election, but a growing budget deficit required a new source of funds. The new income tax, based on Addington's model, was imposed on incomes above £150 (equivalent to £0 in ). Although this measure was initially intended to be temporary, it soon became a fixture of the British taxation system.

A committee was formed in 1851 under Joseph Hume to investigate the matter, but failed to reach a clear recommendation. Despite the vociferous objection, William Gladstone, Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1852, kept the progressive income tax, and extended it to cover the costs of the Crimean War. By the 1860s, the progressive tax had become a grudgingly accepted element of the United Kingdom fiscal system.

United States
The US federal government imposed the first personal income tax on August 5, 1861, to help pay for its war effort in the American Civil War (3% of all incomes over US$800) (equivalent to $0 in ). This tax was repealed and replaced by another income tax in 1862. It was only in 1894 that the first peacetime income tax was passed through the Wilson-Gorman tariff. The rate was 2% on income over $4000 (equivalent to $0 in ), which meant fewer than 10% of households would pay any. The purpose of the income tax was to make up for revenue that would be lost by tariff reductions. The US Supreme Court ruled the income tax unconstitutional, the 10th amendment forbidding any powers not expressed in the US Constitution, and there being no power to impose any other than a direct tax by apportionment.

In 1913, the Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution made the income tax a permanent fixture in the U.S. tax system. In fiscal year 1918, annual internal revenue collections for the first time passed the billion-dollar mark, rising to $5.4 billion by 1920. The amount of income collected via income tax has varied dramatically, from 1% for the lowest bracket in the early days of US income tax to taxation rates of over 90% for the highest bracket during World War II.

Timeline of introduction of income tax by country

 * 1799–1802: 🇬🇧 United Kingdom
 * 1803–1816: 🇬🇧 United Kingdom
 * 1840: 🇨🇭 Switzerland
 * 1842: 🇬🇧 United Kingdom
 * 1860: 🇮🇳 India, under the rule of the British Raj
 * 1861–1872: 🇺🇸 United States
 * 1864: 🇮🇹 Italy
 * 1872: 🇫🇷 France
 * 1887: 🇯🇵 Japan
 * 1891: 🇳🇿 New Zealand, at the time a colony of the United Kingdom
 * 1894–95: 🇺🇸 United States
 * 1900: 🇪🇸 Spain
 * 1903: 🇩🇰 Denmark, 🇸🇪 Sweden
 * 1908: 🇮🇩 Indonesia
 * 1911: 🇳🇴 Norway
 * 1913: 🇺🇸 United States
 * 1916: 🇦🇺 Australia, 🇷🇺 Russia
 * 1918: 🇨🇦 Canada
 * 1920: 🇫🇮 Finland, 🇵🇱 Poland
 * 1921: 🇮🇸 Iceland
 * 1924: 🇧🇷 Brazil, 🇲🇽 Mexico
 * 1932: 🇧🇴 Bolivia, 🇦🇷 Argentina
 * 1934: 🇵🇪 Peru
 * 1937: 🇨🇳 China
 * 1942: 🇻🇪 Venezuela
 * 2007: 🇺🇾 Uruguay

Common principles
While tax rules vary widely, certain basic principles are common to most income tax systems. Tax systems in Canada, China, Germany, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and the United States, among others, follow most of the principles outlined below. Some tax systems, such as India, may have significant differences from the principles outlined below. Most references below are examples; see specific articles by jurisdiction (e.g., Income tax in Australia).

Taxpayers and rates
Individuals are often taxed at different rates than corporations. Individuals include only human beings. Tax systems in countries other than the US treat an entity as a corporation only if it is legally organized as a corporation. Estates and trusts are usually subject to special tax provisions. Other taxable entities are generally treated as partnerships. In the US, many kinds of entities may elect to be treated as a corporation or a partnership. Partners of partnerships are treated as having income, deductions, and credits equal to their shares of such partnership items.

Separate taxes are assessed against each taxpayer meeting certain minimum criteria. Many systems allow married individuals to request joint assessment. Many systems allow controlled groups of locally organized corporations to be jointly assessed.

Tax rates vary widely. Some systems impose higher rates on higher amounts of income. Tax rates schedules may vary for individuals based on marital status. In India on the other hand there is a slab rate system, where for income below INR 2.5 lakhs per annum the tax is zero percent, for those with their income in the slab rate of INR 2,50,001 to INR 5,00,000 the tax rate is 5%. In this way the rate goes up with each slab, reaching to 30% tax rate for those with income above INR 15,00,000.

Residents and non-residents
Residents are generally taxed differently from non-residents. Few jurisdictions tax non-residents other than on specific types of income earned within the jurisdiction. See, e.g., the discussion of taxation by the United States of foreign persons. Residents, however, are generally subject to income tax on all worldwide income. A handful of jurisdictions (notably Singapore and Hong Kong) tax residents only on income earned in or remitted to the jurisdiction. There may arise a situation where the tax payer has to pay tax in one jurisdiction he or she is tax resident and also pay tax to other country where he or she is non-resident. This creates the situation of Double taxation which needs assessment of Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement entered by the jurisdictions where the tax payer is assessed as resident and non-resident for the same transaction.

Residence is often defined for individuals as presence in the jurisdiction for more than 183 days. Most jurisdictions base residence of entities on either place of organization or place of management and control.

Defining income
Most systems define income subject to tax broadly for residents, but tax nonresidents only on specific types of income. What is included in income for individuals may differ from what is included for entities. The timing of recognizing income may differ by type of taxpayer or type of income.

Income generally includes most types of receipts that enrich the taxpayer, including compensation for services, gain from sale of goods or other property, interest, dividends, rents, royalties, annuities, pensions, and all manner of other items. Many systems exclude from income part or all of superannuation or other national retirement plan payments. Most tax systems exclude from income health care benefits provided by employers or under national insurance systems.

Deductions allowed
Nearly all income tax systems permit residents to reduce gross income by business and some other types of deductions. By contrast, nonresidents are generally subject to income tax on the gross amount of income of most types plus the net business income earned within the jurisdiction.

Expenses incurred in a trading, business, rental, or other income producing activity are generally deductible, though there may be limitations on some types of expenses or activities. Business expenses include all manner of costs for the benefit of the activity. An allowance (as a capital allowance or depreciation deduction) is nearly always allowed for recovery of costs of assets used in the activity. Rules on capital allowances vary widely, and often permit recovery of costs more quickly than ratably over the life of the asset.

Most systems allow individuals some sort of notional deductions or an amount subject to zero tax. In addition, many systems allow deduction of some types of personal expenses, such as home mortgage interest or medical expenses.

Business profits
Only net income from business activities, whether conducted by individuals or entities is taxable, with few exceptions. Many countries require business enterprises to prepare financial statements which must be audited. Tax systems in those countries often define taxable income as income per those financial statements with few, if any, adjustments. A few jurisdictions compute net income as a fixed percentage of gross revenues for some types of businesses, particularly branches of nonresidents.

Credits
Nearly all systems permit residents a credit for income taxes paid to other jurisdictions of the same sort. Thus, a credit is allowed at the national level for income taxes paid to other countries. Many income tax systems permit other credits of various sorts, and such credits are often unique to the jurisdiction.

Alternative taxes
Some jurisdictions, particularly the United States and many of its states and Switzerland, impose the higher of regular income tax or an alternative tax. Switzerland and U.S. states generally impose such tax only on corporations and base it on capital or a similar measure.

Administration
Income tax is generally collected in one of two ways: through withholding of tax at source and/or through payments directly by taxpayers. Nearly all jurisdictions require those paying employees or nonresidents to withhold income tax from such payments. The amount to be withheld is a fixed percentage where the tax itself is at a fixed rate. Alternatively, the amount to be withheld may be determined by the tax administration of the country or by the payer using formulas provided by the tax administration. Payees are generally required to provide to the payer or the government the information needed to make the determinations. Withholding for employees is often referred to as "pay as you earn" (PAYE) or "pay as you go."

Income taxes of workers are often collected by employers under a withholding or pay-as-you-earn tax system. Such collections are not necessarily final amounts of tax, as the worker may be required to aggregate wage income with other income and/or deductions to determine actual tax. Calculation of the tax to be withheld may be done by the government or by employers based on withholding allowances or formulas.

Nearly all systems require those whose proper tax is not fully settled through withholding to self-assess tax and make payments prior to or with final determination of the tax. Self-assessment means the taxpayer must make a computation of tax and submit it to the government. Some countries provide a pre-computed estimate to taxpayers, which the taxpayer can correct as necessary.

The proportion of people who pay their income taxes in full, on time, and voluntarily (that is, without being fined or ordered to pay more by the government) is called the voluntary compliance rate. The voluntary compliance rate is higher in the US than in countries like Germany or Italy. In countries with a sizeable black market, the voluntary compliance rate is very low and may be impossible to properly calculate.

State, provincial, and local
Income taxes are separately imposed by sub-national jurisdictions in several countries with federal systems. These include Canada, Germany, Switzerland, and the United States, where provinces, cantons, or states impose separate taxes. In a few countries, cities also impose income taxes. The system may be integrated (as in Germany) with taxes collected at the federal level. In Quebec and the United States, federal and state systems are independently administered and have differences in determination of taxable income.

Wage-based taxes
Retirement oriented taxes, such as Social Security or national insurance, also are a type of income tax, though not generally referred to as such. In the US, these taxes generally are imposed at a fixed rate on wages or self-employment earnings up to a maximum amount per year. The tax may be imposed on the employer, the employee, or both, at the same or different rates.

Some jurisdictions also impose a tax collected from employers, to fund unemployment insurance, health care, or similar government outlays.

Economic and policy aspects

Multiple conflicting theories have been proposed regarding the economic impact of income taxes. Income taxes are widely viewed as a progressive tax (the incidence of tax increases as income increases).

Some studies have suggested that an income tax does not have much effect on the numbers of hours worked.

Criticisms
Tax avoidance strategies and loopholes tend to emerge within income tax codes. They get created when taxpayers find legal methods to avoid paying taxes. Lawmakers then attempt to close the loopholes with additional legislation. That leads to a vicious cycle of ever more complex avoidance strategies and legislation. The vicious cycle tends to benefit large corporations and wealthy individuals that can afford the professional fees that come with ever more sophisticated tax planning, thus challenging the notion that even a marginal income tax system can be properly called progressive.

The higher costs to labour and capital imposed by income tax causes dead weight loss in an economy, being the loss of economic activity from people deciding not to invest capital or use time productively because of the burden that tax would impose on those activities. There is also a loss from individuals and professional advisors devoting time to tax-avoiding behaviour instead of economically productive activities.

Bracket creep
Bracket creep is usually defined as the process by which inflation pushes wages and salaries into higher tax brackets, leading to fiscal drag. However, even if there is only one tax bracket, or one remains within the same tax bracket, there will still be bracket creep resulting in a higher proportion of income being paid in tax. That is, although the marginal tax rate remains unchanged with inflation, the average tax rate will increase.

Most progressive tax systems are not adjusted for inflation. As wages and salaries rise in nominal terms under the influence of inflation they become more highly taxed, even though in real terms the value of the wages and salaries has not increased at all. The net effect is that in real terms taxes rise unless the tax rates or brackets are adjusted to compensate.

Types of income
Many types of income are subject to income tax, which is very variable. It all depends on the country and its tax laws. In general, countries impose taxes on income from wages, salaries, interest, dividends, and rental income. The most typical ones are wage and salary, which are almost always subject to taxation withheld by employers. Some one-time payments such as bonuses paid to employees are taxable. Dividends and interest (stocks or bonds) are usually also taxed.

There is a very wide variation in the amount of taxation in different countries. For example, countries such as Singapore, Belgium and United Arab Emirates levy low income tax on interest and dividends, while countries such as Denmark, France and United States have very high income tax for this type of income. For profits that are earned by selling assets or a real estate (capital gains), the income tax varies between countries, and is different from for any other types of income. Rental income may also sometimes be subject to income tax, but many countries offer deductions or even exemptions for this type of income.

Around the world
Income taxes are used in most countries around the world. The tax systems vary greatly and can consist of a flat fixed rate, progressive, or regressive, structures depending on the type of tax. Comparison of tax rates around the world is a difficult and somewhat subjective enterprise. Tax laws in most countries are extremely complex, and tax burden falls differently on different groups in each country and sub-national unit. Of course, services provided by governments in return for taxation also vary, making comparisons all the more difficult.

Countries that tax income generally use one of two systems: territorial or residential. In the territorial system, only local income – income from a source inside the country – is taxed. In the residential system, residents of the country are taxed on their worldwide (local and foreign) income, while non-residents are taxed only on their local income. In addition, a very small number of countries, notably the United States, also tax their non-resident citizens on worldwide income.

Countries with a residential system of taxation usually allow deductions or credits for the tax that residents already pay to other countries on their foreign income. Many countries also sign tax treaties with each other to eliminate or reduce double taxation.

Countries do not necessarily use the same system of taxation for individuals and corporations. For example, France uses a residential system for individuals but a territorial system for corporations, while Singapore does the opposite, and Brunei taxes corporate but not personal income.

Transparency and public disclosure
Public disclosure of personal income tax filings occurs in Finland, Norway and Sweden (as of the late-2000s and early 2010s). In Sweden this information has been published in the annual directory Taxeringskalendern since 1905.

title: Income tax


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Oswald Avery

Oswald Theodore Avery Jr. (October 21, 1877 – February 20, 1955) was a Canadian-American physician and medical researcher. The major part of his career was spent at the Rockefeller Hospital in New York City. Avery was one of the first molecular biologists and a pioneer in immunochemistry, but he is best known for the experiment (published in 1944 with his co-workers Colin MacLeod and Maclyn McCarty) that isolated DNA as the material of which genes and chromosomes are made.

The Nobel laureate Arne Tiselius said that Avery was the most deserving scientist not to receive the Nobel Prize for his work, though he was nominated for the award throughout the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s.

The lunar crater Avery was named in his honor.

Family
Oswald Avery's grandfather was Joseph Henry Avery.  He was a papermaker, and he was in charge of the papermaking at Oxford University. He discovered a way to make thin paper that could be printed on both sides. This paper was used to make Oxford Bibles.

Avery's father, Joseph Francis Avery, born in 1846 in Norwich, Norfolk, became a Baptist minister after coming under the influence of C. H. Spurgeon, a Baptist Evangelist. He married his wife, Elizabeth Crowdy, in 1870, and spent three years in England, where he would continue his pastoral service as a Baptist. After this, he would move to Halifax, Nova Scotia with his wife, against the wishes of his friends, believing it to be the Will of God. He remained as a pastor for 14 years in Halifax before traveling to the Mariner's Temple in New York City, where he would preach to a rowdy and poverty-stricken crowd.  While here, he would publish an edifying pamphlet entitled "The Voyage of Life", edited the church publication Buds and Blossoms, and patented and attempted to sell a preparation known as "Avery's Auraline", though it would gain little success. When their home burned to the ground in December 1890, the Baptist community of New York banded together to help pay for the expenses, including one John D. Rockefeller. He would die in 1892, leaving his wife Elizabeth Avery a widow.

Avery's mother, Elizabeth Crowdy, was the beating heart and soul that made her husband's church the community center it was. After Joseph Francis Avery's death, she would continue editing the publication Buds and Blossoms. She would also continue to work with the Baptist City Mission Society, where she would come into association with a number of wealthy people, including the Sloans, the Vanderbilts, and the Rockefellers.

Oswald had two siblings - an older brother Ernest and a younger brother Roy. Ernest was a gifted child, but became ill at a young age. Roy followed his brother Oswald in the field of bacteriology. He eventually taught at Vanderbilt Medical School in Nashville, Tennessee.

Early life and education
Oswald Avery was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1877 to Francis Joseph Avery, a Baptist minister, and his wife Elizabeth Crowdy. The couple had immigrated from Britain in 1873. Oswald Avery was born and grew up in a small wooden row house on Moran Street in the North End of Halifax, now a designated heritage building. When Avery was 10, his family moved to the Lower East Side of New York City. Oswald Avery began participating in church activities at a young age. He and his older brother Ernest learned how to play the cornet from a German musician who played at church. Soon, both were playing at church themselves. The brothers played on the steps of Mariners' Temple to attract worshippers.  Both earned a scholarship to the National Conservatory of Music. Ernest became sick and did not continue, but Oswald pushed onward. He became talented enough to play with the National Academy of Music in Antonin Dvorak's Symphony No. 5, From the New World, under direction of Walter Damrosch.

Oswald Avery began at Colgate University in 1896. Even though Colgate was a Baptist school, there were signs of rebellion against orthodoxy during Avery's time at the university. In Avery's senior year, he and a few of his classmates asked their philosophy professor to create a metaphysics class that would allow them to explore the credibility of the Christian faith.  Avery's senior year was entirely electives, but he did not choose to take a single science elective, even though many were offered.  Avery made exceptional grades throughout his years at Colgate. He received 8.5 out of 10 or above in all courses his freshman year and 9 out of 10 or above his sophomore through senior year. Avery's top grades were in his public speaking courses, in which he never received lower than a 9.5. He even tied for first with his friend Emerson in an oratorical contest. Avery earned his undergraduate degree in humanities at Colgate University and was a member of the Class of 1900.

Oswald Avery began medical studies at The College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University in New York later in the year of 1900. At the college, he made good grades in all of his courses, except bacteriology and pathology. He graduated with a medical degree in 1904, and then he began to practice general medicine.'  Avery did not like dealing with patients who have chronic diseases that he was unable to fix. He practiced medicine until 1907 when he began working as an associate director to Benjamin White in Hoagland Laboratory.

Hoagland Laboratory
At Hoagland Laboratory, he began by studying the bacteriology of yogurt and other fermented milk products and their effects on gut bacteria. He recorded his findings in "Observations on Certain Lactic Acid Bacteria of the Bulgaricus Type". During the years 1909 through 1913, he performed medical research with bacteriological, immunological, and chemical approaches.

For a period of time, White came down with tuberculosis. Avery went with him to Trudea Sanatorium for a cure. Afterwards, Avery went back to take vacations at the sanatorium. He became interested in tuberculosis and began doing research in the Trudea Laboratory, where he looked at the clinical and experimental aspects of tuberculosis. Here he carried out 100 consecutive blood cultures of tuberculosis patients in the active phase of the disease. He never found evidence of secondary infection. His careful clinical investigation caught the eye of Dr. Rufus Cole at Rockefeller Institute.

At Hoagland, Avery performed a chemical and toxicological study of a product derived from tubercle bacilli. With White as a colleague, he extracted the product with alkaline ethanol. The research was published in 1912. This further showed his systematic effort to observe and analyze bacterial activity using their chemical structure. In 1911, Avery instructed staff of H. K. Mulford Company in bacteriological techniques, and they taught him the industrial methods for production of antitoxins and vaccines.

Throughout his time at Hoagland, Avery published nine papers, one of which was a chapter on "Opsonins and Vaccine Therapy". He collaborated with Dr. N. B. Potter for this chapter, which was put in Hare's Modern Treatment - a popular medical magazine at the time. Avery also taught a course to student nurses at Hoagland. During the course, he conveyed the dangers of pathogens spread through sneezing. During his teaching, he was given the nicknames "The Professor" and "Fess". While working at Hoagland, Avery was mailed two written offers from Rockefeller Institute, and he denied them both. Avery did not accept the offer until Rufus Cole from Rockefeller came to offer the position to him in person.

Rockefeller Institute
Oswald Avery entered Rockefeller Institute as Assistant in 1913, and in 1915, he became an Associate. In 1919, Avery was promoted to an associate member. He was granted full membership in 1923. At the institute, Cole, Avery and Alphonse Dochez developed the first effective immune serum against a strain of pneumococcus, a bacterium causing pneumonia. The serum was produced from the blood of infected horses.

Research showed that various pneumonia cultures isolated from different patients had different immunological properties. This made it difficult to develop a serum effective against all of the different strains. Four main groups of pneumococcus had been discovered - type I, type II, type III, and type IV. Avery investigated distribution of different pneumococcus types in healthy individuals versus individuals with symptoms of pneumonia. Avery found different subgroups of type II pneumococcus. These groups were similar to the type strain in certain aspects. However, the subgroups of type II had similarities amongst each other that they did not share with the other main groups of pneumococcus. Avery wrote about the results of his findings in a 1915 paper called "Varieties of Pneumococcus and Their Relation to Lobar Pneumonia". In the paper, he argued that people who appeared to be healthy could be carriers of pneumonia Avery also suggested it was important to identify the type of strain, based on agglutination of the pneumococci, when determining the appropriate serum for the patient. Avery suggested pneumococci strains that produced more severe symptoms had higher virulence than strains that cause less severe symptoms. A serum effective against type II pneumonia was developed. Avery tested the serum in horses. He processed the serum and measured its antipneumococcal activity. Avery concentrated the serum so that a minimal amount of foreign protein was needed in it. Avery wrote the monograph, Acute Lobar Pneumonia: Prevention and Serum Treatment, that was published by The Institute explaining this improvement.

Avery also helped Dochez in his research on specific soluble substances found in the blood and urine of pneumonia patients. The presence of specific soluble substances in a urine sample allowed him to rapidly test the type of pneumonia without having to wait for a culture to grow. Avery and Heidelberger realized that the capsules of different strains of pneumonia had different polysaccharide structures and concluded that polysaccharides play a role in immunological specificity. Their work with specific soluble substances showed that it is important to consider the factor in the chemical composition of organisms to design anti-serums. Avery published papers on specific soluble substance findings between 1923 and 1929, along with an additional paper he published with Goebel in 1933. He worked with Goebel until 1934, and then Gobel continued their work upon his cessation. Later, Avery concluded that a protein determines the specificity of Diplococcus pneumoniae after he observed that the active protein was the same for all pneumococcal strains but different than that of other bacteria.

Avery became an emeritus member of The Institute when he retired in 1943. However, he continued to work in the lab until 1948.

Debate over the pathogen in the 1918 influenza epidemic
At the height of the 1918 influenza epidemic, the dominant hypothesis was that the causative agent in the disease was a bacterium — specifically, Haemophilus influenzae (then called 'Pfeiffer's bacillus' or Bacillus influenzae), a microbe first isolated by German bacteriologist Richard Pfeiffer, which he had identified in nasal samples of patients infected by seasonal influenza decades earlier and which was also found in many but not all samples taken from patients in the 1918 epidemic. The failure to isolate B. influenzae in some patients was generally attributed to the difficulty of culturing the bacterium.

Peter Olitsky and Frederick Gates at the Rockefeller Institute found that nasal secretions from infected patients could still cause disease in the lungs of rabbits after having been filtered through a bacterium-excluding Berkefeld filter, but other researchers were unable to reproduce their results. Avery initially doubted Olitsky's and Gates's data, and set out to prove the B. influenzae hypothesis. For that purpose, he developed improved culture media for B. influenzae, which were widely adopted and reduced the possibility of false negatives. However, B. influenzae could still not be found in all influenza patients. The true cause of influenza, a virus, would not be discovered until the 1930s.

DNA as the basis for genes
After the influenza epidemic, Avery returned to his work on pneumococcus. He identified R and S strains of the bacterium; the latter caused disease and had a polysaccharide capsule, while the former lacked the capsule and was harmless. Griffith's experiment of 1928 showed that the ability to produce a capsule could be transferred from S to R strain bacteria, even if the S strain bacteria were killed first.

For many years, genetic information was thought to be contained in cell protein. Continuing the research done by Frederick Griffith, Avery worked with Colin MacLeod and Maclyn McCarty on the mystery of inheritance. He had received emeritus status from the Rockefeller Institute in 1943, but continued working for five years, though by that time he was in his late sixties. In 1944 at the Rockefeller Institute's Hospital for medical research, Oswald Avery, along with Colin MacLeod and Maclyn McCarty, isolated S-strain bacteria and killed them with heat. They used available techniques to remove various macromolecules - proteins, RNA, and DNA - from the bacteria. Then, the killed S-strain bacteria, with various substances removed, were placed with live R-strain bacteria. Avery hypothesized that if the live R-strain bacteria did not transform into S-strain bacteria, then the missing substance contained genetic information and was the "transforming principle". Proteins were removed with protease enzymes and upon transfer of S-strain bacteria into R-strain, the R-strain transformed into S-strain. Therefore, proteins were not the "transforming principle". Next, the S-strain bacteria were treated with ribonucleases to degrade their RNA, and the remainder of the S-strain was placed with the live R-strain bacteria. The R-strain still transformed into S-strain, suggesting that RNA was not the transforming substance. Finally, the S-strain bacteria were treated with a deoxyribonuclease enzymes, which removed the DNA, and the S-strain bacteria were placed with the live R-strain bacteria. After this treatment, the R-strain bacteria did not transform into S-strain bacteria. The lack of transformation suggested that DNA was the substance that transformed R-strain into S-strain bacteria and indicated that it was the carrier of genetic information in cells.

Avery's conclusion, that "The evidence presented supports the belief that a nucleic acid of the desoxyribose type is the fundamental unit of the transforming principle of Pneumococcus Type III" greatly influenced Erwin Chargaff, who upon reading those words dedicated his work to identify a "chemistry of heredity" which he later elucidated in Chargaff's rules. Chargaff would later comment that "As this transformation represents a permanently inheritable alteration of a cell, the chemical nature of the substance responsible for this alteration had been elucidated for the first time. Seldom has more been said in so few words."

Alfred Hershey and Martha Chase furthered Avery's research in 1952 with the Hershey–Chase experiment. These experiments paved the way for Watson and Crick's discovery of the helical structure of DNA, and thus the birth of modern genetics and molecular biology. Of this event, Avery wrote in a letter to his youngest brother Roy, a bacteriologist at the Vanderbilt School of Medicine: "It's lots of fun to blow bubbles but it's wiser to prick them yourself before someone else tries to."

Nobel laureate Joshua Lederberg stated that Avery and his laboratory provided "the historical platform of modern DNA research" and "betokened the molecular revolution in genetics and biomedical science generally".

Retirement and later years
While working at Rockefeller Institute, Avery contracted Grave's disease, which caused him to experienced mood swings of depression and irritability. After undergoing a thyroidectomy, Avery once again became more lively and began sailing, where he fell in love with the sport. Shortly after, he retired in Nashville, Tennessee, where he lived close to his brother and his brother's family, where he was regarded not as a scientist, but as a pleasant family man and a kind country gentleman. While in the southern United States, Avery took a particular interest in the local flora and would act as a gardener would, learning about and appreciating the flowers and trees.

Avery's enthusiasm toward researching nucleic acids continued into his retirement, and he would continue his work with Dr. Hugh Morgan, chairman of the department of medicine at Vanderbilt Medical School. Dr. Morgan was given a research grant from the Department of Defense to study immunity to streptococcal infection, and he convinced Avery to help him in his research. Avery worked on this research with Dr. Bertram E. Sprofkin. The two wrote a joint report on "Studies on the bacteriolytic property of Streptomyces albus and its action on hemolytic streptococci".

During his later years, Avery became terminally ill with extensive hepatoma, or liver cancer. He died at age 77 on February 20, 1955, and was buried in Mount Olivet cemetery in Nashville.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Oswald Avery


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Coluccio Salutati

Coluccio Salutati (16 February 1331 – 4 May 1406) was an Italian Renaissance humanist and notary, and one of the most important political and cultural leaders of Renaissance Florence; as chancellor of the Florentine Republic and its most prominent voice, he was effectively the permanent secretary of state in the generation before the rise of the powerful Medici family.

Early career
Salutati was born in Stignano, a tiny commune near Buggiano (today's province of Pistoia, Tuscany). After studies in Bologna, where his father lived in exile after a Ghibelline coup in Buggiano, the family returned to Buggiano, which had become more securely part of the Republic of Florence. There he worked as notary and pursued his literary studies, coming into contact with the Florentine humanists Boccaccio and Francesco Nelli. The refined and masterful classical Latin of his letters to Florentine scholars earned him the admiring nickname of "Ape of Cicero", In 1367 Coluccio was appointed chancellor of Todi in the Papal States. Papal secretary Francesco Bruni took Salutati with him to Rome from 1368 to 1370, as assistant in the Papal curia of Pope Urban V recently returned from Avignon. In 1370, through his connections in the curia he was made chancellor of the powerful Tuscan city of Lucca, a post he quickly lost in internecine struggles there.

Chancellor of Florence
In 1374 Coluccio received an appointment in Florence and the following year was appointed Chancellor of Florence, the most important position in the bureaucracy of the Florentine Republic. In his position, Salutati was responsible for the widely circulated official correspondences with other states, drafting confidential instructions to ambassadors, conducting diplomacy and negotiating treaties: "in its chancellor Florence had someone truly exceptional, endowed not only with legal knowledge, political cunning and diplomatic skill, but also with psychological penetration, a gift for public relations, and unusual literary skill." His abilities as a statesman were soon tested as Florence was immediately faced with war with the papacy. Salutati was charged with addressing Pope Gregory XI to assure him that Florence was still a loyal member of the Guelf party. Although he failed to prevent war with the papacy, Salutati soon became the most celebrated chancellor in all of Italy and a master of the formal letter. Florence's principal nemesis during his tenure, Gian Galeazzo Visconti, Duke of Milan, once remarked that one of Salutati's letters could "cause more damage than a thousand Florentine horsemen." During his life, Florence warred twice against its powerful northern rival, Giangaleazzo Visconti. His treatise De tyranno ("On the tyrant") published in 1400, has, most likely, its model in Visconti, although in it Salutati (despite being a republican) remains a supporter of the providential universal monarch already put forward by Dante. Occasionally his letters had unintended consequences. When he wrote to the people of Ancona in 1376, inciting them, in the name of their freedom, to revolt against the governor imposed by the pope, he called to mind the evils Italy had suffered on behalf of the French. Word of his nasty tone got to the King of France, which prompted a most conciliatory letter from Salutati, assuring the King that he meant no harm and that Florence would always be a friend to France.

In testimony to his service as chancellor the city of Florence paid 250 florins for his funeral in 1406.

Cultural achievements
Coluccio's cultural achievements are perhaps even greater than his political ones. A skilled writer and orator, Coluccio drew heavily upon the classical tradition and developed a powerful prose style based on the Latin of Virgil and Cicero: "I have always believed," Salutati wrote, "I must imitate antiquity not simply to reproduce it, but in order to produce something new". In this sense his own view of humanism was broader-based than the antiquarianism of the generation of humanists he fostered.

An admiring correspondent of Petrarch, he spent much of his salary on amassing a collection of 800 books, slightly less than his contemporary Niccolò de' Niccoli. He also pursued classical manuscripts, making a number of important discoveries, the most important being Cicero's lost Letters to his Friends (Epistulae ad Familiares), which showed Cicero as a defender of republican liberty. Coluccio also did important studies of history, tying Florence's origin not to the Roman Empire but to the Roman Republic.

He promoted the work of younger humanists such as Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini, Niccolò de' Niccoli, Leonardo Bruni and Pier Paolo Vergerio.

He also brought the Byzantine scholar Manuel Chrysoloras to Florence in 1397 to teach one of the first courses in Greek since the end of the Roman Empire. After Boethius, few Westerners spoke or read Greek. Many ancient Greek works of science and philosophy were not available in Latin translation. By Salutati's time, a few Latin texts of Aristotle had arrived in Europe via Muslim Spain and Sicily. These texts, however, had been translated from Arabic, rather than directly from the Greek. By bringing Chrysoloras to Florence, Salutati made it possible for a select group of scholars (including Bruni and Vergerio) to read Aristotle and Plato in the original ancient Greek.

title: Coluccio Salutati


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Gian Galeazzo Visconti

Gian Galeazzo Visconti (16 October 1351 – 3 September 1402), was the first duke of Milan (1395) and ruled that late-medieval city just before the dawn of the Renaissance. He also ruled Lombardy jointly with his uncle Bernabò. He was the founding patron of the Certosa di Pavia, completing the Visconti Castle at Pavia begun by his father and furthering work on the Duomo of Milan. He captured a large territory of northern Italy and the Po valley. He threatened war with France in relation to the transfer of Genoa to French control as well as issues with his beloved daughter Valentina. When he died of fever in the Castello of Melegnano, his children fought with each other and fragmented the territories that he had ruled.

Biography
During his patronage of the Visconti Castle, he contributed to the growth of the collection of scientific treatises and richly illuminated manuscripts in the Visconti Library.

Gian Galeazzo was the son of Galeazzo II Visconti and Bianca of Savoy. His father possessed the signoria of the city of Pavia. In 1385 Gian Galeazzo gained control of Milan by overthrowing his uncle Bernabò through treacherous means by faking a religious conversion and ambushing him during a religious procession in Milan. He imprisoned his uncle who soon died, supposedly poisoned on his orders.

Galeazzo's role as a statesman also took other forms. Soon after seizing Milan, he took Verona, Vicenza, and Padua, establishing himself as Signore of each, and soon controlled almost the entire valley of the Po, including Piacenza where in 1393 he gave the feudal power to Confalonieri family on the lands they already had in the valleys around Piacenza. He lost Padua in 1390 when it reverted to Francesco Novello da Carrara. He received the title of Duke of Milan from Wenceslaus, King of the Romans in 1395 for 100,000 florins.

Gian Galeazzo spent 300,000 golden florins in attempting to turn from their courses the rivers Mincio from Mantua and the Brenta from Padua, in order to render those cities helpless before the force of his arms.

Notable are his library, housed in the grandest princely dwelling in Italy, the Castello in Pavia, and his rich collection of manuscripts, many of them the fruits of his conquests. In 1400, Gian Galeazzo appointed a host of clerks and departments entrusted with improving public health. For the new system of administration and bookkeeping this established, he is credited with creating the first modern bureaucracy, with the assistance of his Chancellor Francesco Barbavara.

Conflict with France
Galeazzo was a devoted father to his daughter Valentina. He reacted to gossip about Valentina at the French Court by threatening to declare war on France. The wife of King Charles VI of France was Isabeau of Bavaria, the granddaughter of Bernabò Visconti, and, thus, a bitter rival of Valentina and her father Gian Galeazzo.

Furious at French political manoeuvring that had removed Genoa from his influence, Gian Galeazzo had been attempting to stop the transfer of Genoese sovereignty to France and Enguerrand VII was dispatched to warn him that France would consider further interference a hostile act. The quarrel was more than political. Valentina Visconti, the wife of the Duke of Orleans and Gian Galeazzo's beloved daughter, had been exiled from Paris due to the machinations of Queen Isabeau the same month as the departure of the crusade.

In 1396, after the disaster of Nicopolis, Galeazzo was strongly suspected of having informed the Ottomans of the Crusaders' plans and of the size and strength of their army as vengeance for his daughter being accused of being behind the illness of King Charles VI of France, and for France's increasing control over the city of Genoa that he had attempted to hamper, for which he had been rebuked by Enguerrand VII before the battle.

Uniting Italy and death
Gian Galeazzo had dreams of uniting all of northern Italy into one kingdom, a revived Lombard empire. Obstacles included Bologna and especially Florence. In 1402, Gian Galeazzo launched assaults upon these cities. The warfare was extremely costly on both sides, but it was universally believed the Milanese would emerge victorious. The Florentine leaders, especially the chancellor Coluccio Salutati worked successfully to rally the people of Florence, but the Florentines were being taxed hard by famine, disease, and poverty. Galeazzo won another victory over the Bolognese at the Battle of Casalecchio on 26–27 June 1402.

Galeazzo's dreams were to come to nought, however, as he succumbed to a fever at the Castello of Melegnano on 10 August 1402. He died on 3 September. His empire fragmented as infighting among his successors wrecked Milan, partly through the division of his lands among both legitimate and illegitimate children.

Marriage and issue
His first marriage was to Isabelle of Valois, who brought him the title of comte de Vertus in Champagne, rendered in Italian as Conte di Virtù, the title by which he was known in his early career. They had:
 * Gian Galeazzo (b. Pavia, 4 March 1366 – d. bef. 1376).
 * Azzone (b. Pavia, 1368 – d. Pavia, 4 October 1381).
 * Valentina (b. Pavia, 1371 – d. Château de Blois, Loir-et-Cher, 14 December 1408), married on 17 August 1389 to Louis I, Duke of Orléans
 * Carlo (b. Pavia, 11 September 1372 – d. Pavia, 1374).

After Galeazzo's wife Isabelle died in childbirth in 1372, he married secondly, on 2 October 1380, his cousin Caterina Visconti, daughter of Bernabò; with her he had:
 * Gian Maria (7 September 1388 – 16 May 1412)
 * Filippo Maria (3 September 1392 – 13 August 1447).

title: Gian Galeazzo Visconti


text:
Gregory of Tours

Gregory of Tours (born Georgius Florentius; 30 November c. 538 – 17 November 594 AD) was a Gallo-Roman historian and Bishop of Tours during the Merovingian period and is known as the "father of French history". He was a prelate in the Merovingian kingdom, encompassing Gaul's historic region.

Gregory's most notable work is the Decem Libri Historiarum ('Ten Books of Histories'), also known as the Historia Francorum ('History of the Franks'). Decem Libri Historiarum is considered a primary source for the study of Merovingian history and chronicles the accounts of the Franks during the period. Gregory is also known for documenting accounts of religious figures, notably that of Martin of Tours.

Biography
Gregory was born in Clermont, in the Auvergne region of central Gaul. He was born into the upper stratum of Gallo-Roman society as the son of Florentius, Senator of Clermont, by his wife Armentaria II, niece of Bishop Nicetius of Lyon and granddaughter of both Florentinus, Senator of Geneva, and Saint Gregory of Langres. Relatives of Gregory held the Bishoprics of Tours, Lyon, and Langres at the time of his birth and he claimed that he was related to 13 of the 18 bishops of Tours who preceded him. Gregory's paternal grandmother, Leocadia III, descended from Vettius Epagathus, the illustrious martyr of Lyon.

His father died while Gregory was young and his widowed mother moved to Burgundy, where she had property. Gregory went to live with his paternal uncle St. Gallus, bishop of Clermont, under whom, and his successor St. Avitus, Gregory had his education. Gregory also received the clerical tonsure from Gallus. Having contracted a serious illness, Gregory made a visit of devotion to the tomb of St. Martin at Tours. Upon his recovery, he began to pursue a clerical career and was ordained deacon by Avitus. Upon the death of St. Euphronius, he was chosen as bishop by the clergy and people, who had been charmed with his piety, learning, and humility. Their deputies overtook him at the court of King Sigebert of Austrasia, and being compelled to acquiesce, though much against his will, Gregory was consecrated by Giles, bishop of Rheims, on 22 August 573, at the age of 34.

He spent most of his career at Tours, although he assisted at the council of Paris in 577. The world in which he lived in was on the cusp between the Western culture of late antiquity and the sweeping changes of early-medieval Europe. Gregory lived also on the border between the Frankish culture of the Merovingians to the north and the Gallo-Roman culture of the south of Gaul.

At Tours, Gregory was well placed to hear and meet people of influence in Merovingian culture. Tours was situated on the Loire, five Roman roads radiated from it, and it was on the main route between the Frankish north and Aquitania, with Spain beyond. At Tours, the Frankish influences of the north and the Gallo-Roman influences of the south had their chief contact. As the center for the popular cult of St Martin, Tours was a pilgrimage site, hospital, and a political sanctuary to which important leaders fled during periods of violence and turmoil in Merovingian politics.

Gregory struggled through personal relations with four Frankish kings, Sigebert I, Chilperic I, Guntram, and Childebert II, and he personally knew most of the leading Franks.

Works
Gregory wrote in Late Latin, which frequently departed from Classical usage in both syntax and spelling, although with relatively few changes in inflection.

Summary
Gregory of Tours' history is densely written, with numerous narratives and characters. It contains Christian tales of miracles, descriptions of omens and natural events, stories of Christian martyrs, dialogues of church debates, discussions of the lives of holy men, nobility, and eccentric peasants, frequent Bible verses and references, and explorations of the complex international relations between numerous tribes and nations including the Lombards, Visigoths, Ostrogoths and Huns, not to mention Gregory's personal biography and interpretation of events.

Book 1
Book One begins with a pronouncement by the author that he is a Frankish Catholic clergyman who follows the Nicene Creed and abhors heresy like those of the "wicked" Arian sect among other heresies. The narrative history begins with a brief epitome of the biblical Old Testament and New Testament, and the subsequent spread of the Christian religion into Gaul. Next, Gregory covers the history of Christianity in Gaul and some of the major events in Roman-Gallo relations. It ends with the death of Saint Martin of Tours in 397.

Book 2 (397–511)
Book Two covers the beginnings of the Merovingian dynasty, including King Clovis I's conversion to Christianity by his wife Clotilde, and ending with his death in 511, after his conquest of large tracts of land in modern-day France.

Book 3 (511–548)
Book Three follows the four sons of Clovis who equally divide his realms after his death in 511. These four kings, Theuderic I, Chlothar I, Childebert I, and Chlodomer, quarrel and fight for supremacy over the Frankish realm. Despite their disputes, they occasionally work together against an outside threat, such as their attack of the Burgundians in 523. Eventually, Chlothar becomes the most powerful king in the Frankish realm. After the death of Theuderic I in 534, Book Three ends with the death of his son and successor Theudebert I in 548. Theudebert's kingdom is inherited by Theudebald until his own death in 555.

Book 4 (548–575)
Book Four continues from when the two remaining sons of Clovis die: Childebert in 558 and Clothar in 561. The last years of Clothar's life see the entire realm of the Franks ruled by him. At the time of his demise in 561 (as under Clovis before him), the kingdom is divided equally between four sons of Clothar: Charibert I, Sigebert I, Guntram, and Chilperic I; they quarrel for control of the entire realm. A truce between them is maintained until after the death of Charibert I in 567. Clothar's remaining sons fight for the supremacy, with Sigibert showing the strongest military force. Book Four ends with the killing of Sigbert in 575, leaving Chilperic as the dominant king. Gregory of Tours blames Fredegund, the wife of Chilperic, for the assassination. Fredegund, he says, had long held a grudge against Sigibert and his wife Brunhilda.

Book 5 (575–581)
Book Five begins the part where the author has much personal knowledge about the events in the Frankish kingdom. This book and the ones after are considerably longer and more detailed than the previous, while covering a shorter amount of time. This book also contains Gregory's impressions of ecclesiastical issues he witnessed and had some bearing on. It describes a possible debate that Gregory had with a rival Arian church leader. Moreover, Book 5 also introduces Childebert II, the son of recently slain Sigibert and of the still-living Brunhilda. Childebert is taken along with Brunhilda under the protection of Gunthram, brother and sometime rival of Chilperic.

Book 6 (581–584)
In Book Six, the young Childebert betrays his alliance with his adoptive uncle Gunthram, who had protected Childebert and his mother after his father Sigibert's death. Now Childebert forms an alliance with his uncle, Chilperic, who had often been an enemy of Sigibert. In 584, Chilperic is murdered under mysterious circumstances.

Book 7 (584)
In Book Seven, Fredegund assumes regency for her young son Clothar II. In the future, he will be king of all Franks until his death in 629 – beyond Gregory's narrative, which ends in roughly 593. Fredegund and her son are under the protection of Gunthram. She remains in power until her death in 597. Also in this book is the rebellion of Gundovald and its failure. Gundovald claimed to be a lost illegitimate son of dead Chlothar I. Many of the Frankish nobles and the Byzantine emperor Maurice gave some support to this rebellion; however, it is swiftly crushed by Guntram.

Book 8 (585)
"Many evil things were done at this time", as Gregory writes in Book Eight. It begins with the travels of Guntram to Paris and Orleans and describes numerous confrontations between the king and some bishops. Meanwhile, Guntram becomes ill and fears for his life. Gregory comments that the king's illness is a just punishment since he is planning to send a great number of bishops into exile. Fredegund gives two poisoned daggers to two clerics and sends them away with the order to assassinate Childebert and Brunehild. However, the two clerics are arrested by Childebert, tortured, and executed. Meanwhile, Fredegund is also behind the assassination of bishop Praetextus of Rouen while he is praying in his church. Guntram orders his army to march against Arian-controled Septimania and Spain without success and blames his army commanders for having allowed atrocities and random destruction.

Book 9 (586–587)
In Book Nine, the Treaty of Andelot is signed in 587 between Guntram, Brunhilda, and Childebert II. It is a close pact of alliance, wherein Childebert is formally adopted as Guntram's heir. Brunhilda also formally allies with Guntram and comes under his protection.

Book 10 (587–591)
The last book is set around 589. Basina, the daughter of Chilperic I and Clotilda (daughter of Charibert) leads a brief revolt from a nunnery.

The 18 bishops of Tours are named and described. The book ends with a summary of Gregory's previous written works.

Analysis
The Historia Francorum is made up of ten books. Books I to IV initially recount the world's history from the Creation (as was traditional for wuch works); but move quickly on to the Christianization of Gaul, the life and times of Saint Martin of Tours, the conversion of the Franks and the conquest of Gaul under Clovis I, and the more detailed history of the Frankish kings down to the death of Sigebert I in 575. At this date, Gregory had been bishop of Tours for two years.

With his fifth book, Gregory embarks (with some relief) on contemporary history, opening: "Here, I am glad to say, begins Book V". This, the second part of his history, Books V and VI, closes with Chilperic I's death in 584. During the years that Chilperic held Tours, relations between him and Gregory were tense. After hearing rumours that the bishop of Tours had slandered his wife, Fredegund, Chilperic had Gregory arrested and tried for treason – a charge which threatened both Gregory's bishopric and his life. The most eloquent passage in the Historia is the closing chapter of Book VI, in which Chilperic's character is summed up unsympathetically through the use of an invective: Herod and Nero are among the comparisons employed.

The third part, comprising Books VII to X, takes his increasingly personal account to the year 591, and concludes with a plea for further chroniclers to preserve his work in entirety (as indeed would be done). An epilogue was written in 594, the year of Gregory's death.

Problems of interpretation
Readers of the Historia Francorum may find that one royal Frankish house is more generously treated than others. Gregory was also a Catholic bishop, and his writing reveals views typical of someone in his position. His views on perceived dangers of Arianism, still strong among the Visigoths, led him to preface the Historia with a detailed expression of his orthodoxy on the nature of Christ. In addition, his ridiculing of pagans and Jews reflected how his works were used to spread the Christian faith. For example, in book 2, chapters 28–31, he described the pagans as incestuous and weak and then described the process by which newly converted King Clovis led a much better life than that of a pagan and was healed of all the conundrums he experienced as a pagan.

Gregory's education was the standard Latin one of Late Antiquity, focusing on Virgil's Aeneid and Martianus Capella's Liber de Nuptiis Mercurii et Philologiae, but also other key texts such as Orosius's Chronicles, which his Historia continues, and Sallust; he referred to all these works in his own. His education, as was typical for the time, did not extend to a broad acquaintance with the pagan classics, but rather progressed to mastery of the Vulgate Bible. It is said that he constantly complained about his use of grammar. He did not understand how to correctly write masculine and feminine phrases, reflecting either a lack of ability or changes in the Latin language. Though he had read Virgil, considered the greatest Latin stylist, he cautioned: "We ought not to relate their lying fables, lest we fall under sentence of eternal death." By contrast, he seems to have thoroughly studied the lengthy and complex Vulgate Bible, as well as numerous religious works and historical treatises, which he frequently quoted, particularly in the earlier books of the Historia.

The main impression that historians once retained from the Historia focused on Gregory's anecdotes about violence; until recently, historians tended to conclude that Merovingian Gaul was a chaotic, brutal mess. Recent scholarship has refuted that view. Through more careful readings, scholars have concluded that Gregory's underlying purpose was to highlight the vanity of secular life and contrast it with the miracles of the saints. Though Gregory conveys political and other messages through the Historia, and these are studied very closely, historians now generally agree that this contrast itself is the central and ever-present narrative device.

Hagiographies
His Life of the Fathers comprises twenty hagiographies of the most prominent religious men of the preceding generation, taking in a wide range the spiritual community of early medieval Gaul, including lives of bishops, clerics, monks, abbots, holy men, and hermits. He praised St. Illidius for purity of heart, St. Brachio the abbot for discipline and determination in study of the scriptures, St Patroclus for unwavering faith in the face of weakness, and St. Nicetius bishop of Lyon for justice. It is the life of St. Nicetius of Trier, though, which dominates this book; his great authority and sense of episcopal responsibility which is the focus of Gregory's account as his figure, predestined to be great, bestrode the lives of the others. It is told that he felt a weight on his head, but was unable to see what it was when turning around, though upon smelling its sweet scent he realised that it was the weight of episcopal responsibility. He surmounted the others in the glory of his miracles and was chosen by God to have the entire succession of past and future Frankish kings revealed to him.

A further aspect of this work is the appearance of Gregory himself in certain sections, notably in the life of St. Leobardus. This is for two reasons: Firstly, it created a distinct link between the temporal and the spiritual worlds, firmly placing the accounts of the lives in a world which was understandable and recognisable; or, seen from the other angle, confirming the presence of miracles in the temporal world.

In 587, Gregory began writing the Book of the Glories of the Martyrs (Liber in gloria martyrum), which deals "almost exclusively with the miracles wrought in Gaul by the martyrs of the Roman persecutions". But it also tells the story of one Theodore who made a pilgrimage to India and reported the existence of a large monastery where the body of Thomas the Apostle was first interred and where miracles took place.

Fighting heresy
Gregory's avowed aim in writing this book was to "fire others with that enthusiasm by which the saints deservedly climbed to heaven", though this was not his sole purpose, and he most surely did not expect his entire audience to show promise of such piety as to witness the power of God flowing through them in the way that it did for the fathers. More immediate concerns were at the forefront of his mind as he sought to create a further layer of religious commitment, not only to the Church at Rome, but also to local churches and cathedrals throughout Gaul. Along with his other books (notably the Glory of the Confessors, the Glory of the Martyrs, and the Life of St. Martin), meticulous attention is paid to the local as opposed to universal Christian experience. Within these grandiloquent lives are tales and anecdotes which tie miracles, saints, and their relics to a great diversity of local areas, furnishing his audience with greater knowledge of their local shrine, and providing them with evidence of the work of God in their immediate vicinity, thus greatly expanding their connection with and understanding of their faith. Attacks on heresy also appear throughout his hagiographies; Arianism he took to be the common face of heresy across Europe, exposed to great ridicule. Often, the scenes which expose the weaknesses of heresy focused on images of fire and burning, whilst the Catholics were proved right by the protection lavished on them by God, in Gregory's view.

This was of great relevance to Gregory himself as he presided over the important see of Tours, where extensive use was made of the cult of St. Martin in establishing the authority of the bishopric with the congregation and in the context of the Frankish church. Gregory's hagiography was an essential component of this. However, this should not be seen as a selfish grab for power on behalf of the bishops who emerge so triumphantly from the Life of the Fathers, but rather as a bid for hegemony of doctrine and control over the practice of worship, which they believed to be in the best interests of their congregation and the wider church.

Gregory's Creed
As an example of Gregory's zeal in his fight against heresy, the Historia Francorum includes a declaration of faith with which Gregory aimed to prove his orthodoxy with respect to the heresies of his time ("so that my reader may have no doubt that I am Catholic for they are"). The confession is in many phrases, each of which refutes a specific Christian heresy. Thus, Gregory's creed presents, in the negative, a virtual litany of heresies:

"I believe, then, in God the Father omnipotent. I believe in Jesus Christ his only Son, our Lord God, born of the Father, not created. [I believe] that he has always been with the Father, not only since time began but before all time. For the Father could not have been so named unless he had a son; and there could be no son without a father. But as for those who say: 'There was a time when he was not', [note: a leading belief of Arian Christology] I reject them with curses, and call men to witness that they are separated from the church. I believe that the word of the Father by which all things were made was Christ. I believe that this word was made flesh and by its suffering the world was redeemed, and I believe that humanity, not deity, was subject to the suffering. I believe that he rose again on the third day, that he freed sinful man, that he ascended to heaven, that he sits on the right hand of the Father, that he will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe that the holy Spirit proceeded from the Father and the Son, that it is not inferior and is not of later origin, but is God, equal and always coeternal with the Father and the Son, consubstantial in its nature, equal in omnipotence, equally eternal in its essence, and that it has never existed apart from the Father and the Son and is not inferior to the Father and the Son. I believe that this holy Trinity exists with separation of persons, and one person is that of the Father, another that of the Son, another that of the Holy Spirit. And in this Trinity confess that there is one Deity, one power, one essence. I believe that the blessed Mary was a virgin after the birth as she was a virgin before. I believe that the soul is immortal but that nevertheless it has no part in deity. And I faithfully believe all things that were established at Nicæa by the three hundred and eighteen bishops. But as to the end of the world I hold beliefs which I learned from our forefathers, that Antichrist will come first. An Antichrist will first propose circumcision, asserting that he is Christ; next he will place his statue in the temple at Jerusalem to be worshiped, just as we read that the Lord said: 'You shall see the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place.' But the Lord himself declared that that day is hidden from all men, saying; 'But of that day and that hour knoweth no one not even the angels in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father alone.' Moreover we shall here make answer to the heretics [note: the Arians] who attack us, asserting that the Son is inferior to the Father since he is ignorant of this day. Let them learn then that Son here is the name applied to the Christian people, of whom God says: 'I shall be to them a father and they shall be to me for sons.' For if he had spoken these words of the only begotten Son he would never have given the angels first place. For he uses these words: 'Not even the angels in heaven nor the Son,' showing that he spoke these words not of the only-begotten but of the people of adoption. But our end is Christ himself, who will graciously bestow eternal life on us if we turn to him."

Views on wine
Gregory's writings make ample references to wine and vineyards. He argued in his writings that wine drinking was defensible when consumed with proper gratitude towards God, but that it was problematic when consumed solely for pleasure.

Legacy
The History of the Franks by Gregory of Tours is an historical record of great importance. It is a central source for early Frankish history, representing the period of transition from late Roman antiquity to early Medieval times in a nascent Europe. It is believed to be the only reliable source of information to describe the emerging military and political power of the Franks in one kingdom.

Gregory has often been compared to Herodotus, and (with his detailed interest in, and accounts of, ecclesiastical history and maneuverings) to a bloodier Anthony Trollope. According to Robert Win's analysis: "There can be no argument that Gregory deliberately structured his narrative to protect himself from any political attacks and that it was the political circumstances around him that governed what he could and could not write."

Gregory's Latin was relatively poor in comparison with earlier centuries when writers were educated at secular Roman grammar and rhetoric schools. He was self-aware of this and apologized for his poor Latin in his introduction: "Ista etenim atque et his similia iugiter intuens dici, pro commemoratione praeteritorum, ut notitiam adtingerint venientum, etsi incultu effatu, nequivi tamen obtegere vel certamena flagitiosorum vel vitam recte viventium; et praesertim his inlicitus stimulis, quod a nostris fari plerumque miratus sum, quia: 'Philosophantem rethorem intellegunt pauci, loquentem rusticum multi'."

"Hearing continually these complaints and others like them I have undertaken to commemorate the past, in order that it may come to the knowledge of the future; and although my speech is rude, I have been unable to be silent as to the struggles between the wicked and the upright; and I have been especially encouraged because, to my surprise, it has often been said by men of our day: 'few understand the rhetorician but many the rustic speaker'."

Win further observed: "The Historia Francorum is the only source of that period covering the beginning of the Franks in the decaying Roman Empire from around 397 (the death of Martin of Tours) to 590 (the early reign of king Chlothar II). Gregory's chronology of the Franks is continued with the Fourth Book of Fredegar and its continuations for the events up to 642. Likewise, the fourth Book of Fredegar and its continuations is [sic] the only source of any significance for much of the period it covers."

Gregory's hagiographies are also a valuable source of anecdotes and stories which enrich modern understanding of life and belief in Merovingian Gaul. The motivation behind his works was to show readers the importance and strength of Christianity, and this bias should always be remembered. Alongside the most outstanding poet Venantius Fortunatus in his lifetime, Gregory of Tours is the unique historian from the 6th-century Merovingian world; and his extensive literary output is itself a testimony to the preservation of learning and to the lingering continuity of Gallo-Roman civic culture through the early Middle Ages.

Editions

 * Gregorii episcopi Turonensis. Libri Historiarum X (ed. Bruno Krusch and Wilhelm Levison), MGH SRM I 1, Hannover, 1951
 * Miracula et opera minora (ed. Bruno Krusch), MGH SRM I 2, Hannover, 1969 (reprint from 1885), pp. 211–294

Translations

 * Fränkische Geschichte, 3 vols. (German transl. by Wilhelm von Giesebrecht, rev. by Manfred Gebauer), Essen, 1988.
 * From Roman to Merovingian Gaul: A Reader (ed. and transl. Alexander Callander Murray; "Readings in medieval Civilisations and Cultures" series, Vol. 5), Toronto, 2000, pp. 287–446.
 * Glory of the Confessors, 2nd edition (ed. and transl. Raymond Van Dam; Translated Texts for Historians 4), Liverpool, 2004, ISBN 0-85323-226-1.
 * Glory of the Martyrs, 2nd edition (ed. and transl. Raymond Van Dam; Translated Texts for Historians 3), Liverpool, 2004, ISBN 0-85323-236-9.
 * Liber de passione et virtutibus sancti Iuliani martyris und Libri de virtutibus sancti Martini episcopi, German transl., in: Raymond Van Dam (ed.), Saints and their Miracles in Late Antique Gaul, Princeton, 1993, 153–317.
 * Life of the Fathers, 2nd edition (ed. and transl. James Edward; "Translated Texts for Historians" series, Vol. 1), Liverpool, 1991, ISBN 0-85323-327-6.
 * The History of the Franks (transl. M. Dalton), Oxford University Press, 1927.
 * The History of the Franks (transl. L. Thorpe), Penguin, 1974.
 * Historias (Spanish transl. P. Herrera), Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Extremadura, 2013, ISBN 978-84-7723-190-5.
 * Histoire des Franks, in French.
 * Vita Patrum (ed. and transl. Seraphim Rose), St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, 1988, ISBN 0-938635-23-9.

Bilingual editions

 * Les livres des miracles et autres opuscules de Georges Florent Grégoire évêque de Tours (ed. and French transl. Léonard Bordier), Vol. 1, Paris, 1857.
 * Zehn Bücher Geschichten. Band I-II (ed. and German transl. Wilhelm Giesebrecht and Rudolf Buchner), Darmstadt, 1955–1956.
 * Lives and Miracles (ed. and transl. Giselle de Nie; "Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library" series, Vol. 39), Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2015.

title: Gregory of Tours


text:
Holy Roman Emperor

The Holy Roman Emperor, originally and officially the Emperor of the Romans (Imperator Romanorum, Kaiser der Römer) during the Middle Ages, and also known as the Roman-German Emperor since the early modern period (Imperator Germanorum, Römisch-deutscher Kaiser), was the ruler and head of state of the Holy Roman Empire. The title was held in conjunction with the title of king of Italy (Rex Italiae) from the 8th to the 16th century, and, almost without interruption, with the title of king of Germany (Rex Teutonicorum, lit. "King of the Teutons") throughout the 12th to 18th centuries.

The Holy Roman Emperor title provided the highest prestige among medieval Catholic monarchs, because the empire was considered by the Catholic Church to be the only successor of the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages and the early modern period. Thus, in theory and diplomacy, the emperors were considered primus inter pares, regarded as first among equals among other Catholic monarchs across Europe.

From an autocracy in Carolingian times (AD 800–924), the title by the 13th century evolved into an elective monarchy, with the emperor chosen by the prince-electors. Various royal houses of Europe, at different times, became de facto hereditary holders of the title, notably the Ottonians (962–1024) and the Salians (1027–1125). Following the late medieval crisis of government, the Habsburgs kept possession of the title with only one interruption from 1740 to 1745. The final emperors were from the House of Habsburg-Lorraine, from 1765 to 1806. The Holy Roman Empire was dissolved by Francis II, after a devastating defeat by Napoleon at the Battle of Austerlitz.

The emperor was widely perceived to rule by divine right, though he often contradicted or rivaled the pope, most notably during the Investiture controversy. The Holy Roman Empire never had an empress regnant, though women such as Theophanu and Maria Theresa exerted strong influence. Throughout its history, the position was viewed as a defender of the Catholic faith. Until Maximilian I in 1508, the Emperor-elect (Imperator electus) was required to be crowned by the pope before assuming the imperial title. Charles V was the last to be crowned by the pope in 1530. Even after the Reformation, the elected emperor was always a Catholic. There were short periods in history when the electoral college was dominated by Protestants, and the electors usually voted in their own political interest.

Title
From the time of Constantine I ((r. 306 – 337)), the Roman emperors had, with very few exceptions, taken on a role as promoters and defenders of Christianity. The reign of Constantine established a precedent for the position of the Christian emperor in the Church. Emperors considered themselves responsible to God for the spiritual health of their subjects, and after Constantine they had a duty to help the Church define and maintain orthodoxy. The emperor's role was to enforce doctrine, root out heresy, and uphold ecclesiastical unity. Both the title and connection between Emperor and Church continued in the Eastern Roman Empire throughout the medieval period (in exile during 1204–1261). The ecumenical councils of the 5th to 8th centuries were convoked by the Eastern Roman Emperors.

In Western Europe, the title of Emperor in the West lapsed after the death of Julius Nepos in 480, although the rulers of the barbarian kingdoms continued to recognize the authority of the Eastern Emperor at least nominally well into the 6th century. While the reconquest of Justinian I had reestablished Byzantine presence in Italy, religious frictions existed with the Papacy who sought dominance over the Constantinople Church. Toward the end of the 8th century the Papacy still recognised the ruler at Constantinople as the Roman Emperor, though Byzantine military support in Italy had increasingly waned, leading to the Papacy to look to the Franks for protection. In 800 Pope Leo III owed a great debt to Charlemagne, the King of the Franks and King of Italy, for securing his life and position. By this time, the Eastern Emperor Constantine VI has been deposed in 797 and replaced as monarch by his mother, Irene.

Under the pretext that a woman could not rule the empire, Pope Leo III declared the throne vacant and crowned Charlemagne Emperor of the Romans (Imperator Romanorum), the successor of Constantine VI as Roman emperor, using the concept of translatio imperii. On his coins, the name and title used by Charlemagne is Karolus Imperator Augustus. In documents, he used Imperator Augustus Romanum gubernans Imperium ("Emperor Augustus, governing the Roman Empire") and serenissimus Augustus a Deo coronatus, magnus pacificus Imperator Romanorum gubernans Imperium ("most serene Augustus crowned by God, great peaceful emperor governing the empire of the Romans"). The Eastern Empire eventually relented to recognizing Charlemagne and his successors as emperors, but as "Frankish" and "German emperors", at no point referring to them as Roman, a label they reserved for themselves.

The title of emperor in the West implied recognition by the pope. As the power of the papacy grew during the Middle Ages, popes and emperors came into conflict over church administration. The best-known and most bitter conflict was that known as the investiture controversy, fought during the 11th century between Henry IV and Pope Gregory VII.

After the coronation of Charlemagne, his successors maintained the title until the death of Berengar I of Italy in 924. The comparatively brief interregnum between 924 and the coronation of Otto the Great in 962 is taken as marking the transition from the Frankish Empire to the Holy Roman Empire. Under the Ottonians, much of the former Carolingian kingdom of Eastern Francia fell within the boundaries of the Holy Roman Empire.

Since 911, the various German princes had elected the King of the Germans from among their peers. The King of the Germans would then be crowned as emperor following the precedent set by Charlemagne, during the period of 962–1530. Charles V was the last emperor to be crowned by the pope, and his successor, Ferdinand I, merely adopted the title of "Emperor elect" in 1558. The final Holy Roman emperor-elect, Francis II, abdicated in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars that saw the Empire's final dissolution.

The term sacrum (i.e., "holy") in connection with the German Roman Empire was first used in 1157 under Frederick I Barbarossa.

The Holy Roman Emperor's standard designation was "August Emperor of the Romans" (Romanorum Imperator Augustus). When Charlemagne was crowned in 800, he was styled as "most serene Augustus, crowned by God, great and pacific emperor, governing the Roman Empire," thus constituting the elements of "Holy" and "Roman" in the imperial title.

The word Roman was a reflection of the principle of translatio imperii (or in this case restauratio imperii) that regarded the (Germanic) Holy Roman emperors as the inheritors of the title of emperor of the Western Roman Empire, despite the continued existence of the Eastern Roman Empire.

In German-language historiography, the term Römisch-deutscher Kaiser ("Roman-German emperor") is used to distinguish the title from that of Roman emperor on one hand, and that of German emperor (Deutscher Kaiser) on the other. The English term "Holy Roman Emperor" is a modern shorthand for "emperor of the Holy Roman Empire" not corresponding to the historical style or title, i.e., the adjective "holy" is not intended as modifying "emperor"; the English term "Holy Roman Emperor" gained currency in the interbellum period (the 1920s to 1930s); formerly the title had also been rendered as "German-Roman emperor" in English.

Succession
The elective monarchy of the Kingdom of Germany goes back to the early 10th century, the election of Conrad I of Germany in 911 following the death without issue of Louis the Child, the last Carolingian ruler of Germany. Elections meant the kingship of Germany was only partially hereditary, unlike the kingship of England, although sovereignty frequently remained in a dynasty until there were no more male successors. The process of an election meant that the prime candidate had to make concessions, by which the voters were kept on his side, which was known as Wahlkapitulationen (electoral capitulation).

Conrad was elected by the German dukes, and it is not known precisely when the system of seven prince-electors was established. The papal decree Venerabilem by Innocent III (1202), addressed to Berthold V, Duke of Zähringen, establishes the election procedure by (unnamed) princes of the realm, reserving for the pope the right to approve of the candidates. A letter of Pope Urban IV (1263), in the context of the disputed vote of 1256 and the subsequent interregnum, suggests that by "immemorial custom", seven princes had the right to elect the king and future emperor. The seven prince-electors are named in the Golden Bull of 1356: the archbishop of Mainz, the archbishop of Trier, the archbishop of Cologne, the king of Bohemia, the count palatine of the Rhine, the duke of Saxony and the margrave of Brandenburg.

After 1438, the kings remained in the House of Habsburg and Habsburg-Lorraine, with the brief exception of Charles VII, who was a Wittelsbach. Maximilian I (emperor 1508–1519) and his successors no longer travelled to Rome to be crowned as emperor by the pope. Maximilian, therefore, named himself elected Roman emperor (Erwählter Römischer Kaiser) in 1508 with papal approval. This title was in use by all his uncrowned successors. Of his successors, only Charles V, the immediate one, received a papal coronation.

The elector palatine's seat was conferred on the duke of Bavaria in 1621, but in 1648, in the wake of the Thirty Years' War, the elector palatine was restored, as the eighth elector. The Electorate of Hanover was added as a ninth elector in 1692, confirmed by the Imperial Diet in 1708. The whole college was reshuffled in the German mediatization of 1803 with a total of ten electors, a mere three years before the dissolution of the Empire.

List of emperors
This list includes all 47 German monarchs crowned from Charlemagne until the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire (800–1806).

Several rulers were crowned king of the Romans (king of Germany) but not emperor, although they styled themselves thus, among whom were: Conrad I and Henry the Fowler in the 10th century, and Conrad IV, Rudolf I, Adolf and Albert I during the interregnum of the late 13th century.

Traditional historiography assumes a continuity between the Carolingian Empire and the Holy Roman Empire, while a modern convention takes the coronation of Otto I in 962 as the starting point of the Holy Roman Empire (although the term Sacrum Imperium Romanum was not in use before the 13th century).

Frankish emperors
On Christmas Day, 800, Charlemagne, King of the Franks, was crowned Emperor of the Romans (Imperator Romanorum) by Pope Leo III, in opposition to Empress Irene, who was then ruling the Roman Empire from Constantinople. Charlemagne's descendants from the Carolingian Dynasty continued to be crowned Emperor until 899, excepting a brief period when the Imperial crown was awarded to the Widonid Dukes of Spoleto. There is some contention as to whether the Holy Roman Empire dates as far back as Charlemagne, some histories consider the Carolingian Empire to be a distinct polity from the later Holy Roman Empire as established under Otto I in 962.

Holy Roman Emperors
While earlier Frankish and Italian monarchs had been crowned as Roman emperors, the actual Holy Roman Empire is often considered to have begun with the crowning of Otto I, at the time Duke of Saxony and King of Germany. Because the King of Germany was an elected position, being elected King of Germany was functionally a pre-requisite to being crowned Holy Roman Emperor. By the 13th century, the Prince-electors became formalized as a specific body of seven electors, consisting of three bishops and four secular princes. Through the middle 15th century, the electors chose freely from among a number of dynasties. A period of dispute during the second half of the 13th century over the kingship of Germany led to there being no emperor crowned for several decades, though this ended in 1312 with the coronation of Henry VII, Holy Roman Emperor. The period of free election ended with the ascension of the Austrian House of Habsburg, as an unbroken line of Habsburgs held the imperial throne until the 18th century. Later a cadet branch known as the House of Habsburg-Lorraine passed it from father to son until the abolition of the Empire in 1806. Notably, from the 16th century, the Habsburgs dispensed with the requirement that emperors be crowned by the pope before exercising their office. Starting with Ferdinand I, all successive emperors forwent the traditional coronation.

1220–1250: Staufen dynasty
The interregnum of the Holy Roman Empire is taken to have lasted from the deposition of Frederick II by Pope Innocent IV in 1245 (or alternatively from Frederick's death in 1250 or from the death of Conrad IV in 1254) to the election of Rudolf I of Germany (1273). Rudolf was not crowned emperor, nor were his successors Adolf and Albert. The next emperor was Henry VII, crowned on 29 June 1312 by Pope Clement V.

1440–1740: House of Habsburg
In 1508, Pope Julius II allowed Maximilian I to use the title of Emperor without coronation in Rome, though the title was qualified as Electus Romanorum Imperator ("elected Emperor of the Romans"). Maximilian's successors each adopted the same titulature, usually on becoming the sole ruler of the Holy Roman Empire. Maximilian's predecessor Frederick III was the last to be crowned Emperor by the Pope in Rome, while Maximilian's successor Charles V was the last to be crowned by the pope, though in Bologna, in 1530.

Coronation
The Emperor was crowned in a special ceremony, traditionally performed by the Pope in Rome. Without that coronation, no king, despite exercising all powers, could call himself Emperor. In 1508, Pope Julius II allowed Maximilian I to use the title of Emperor without coronation in Rome, though the title was qualified as Electus Romanorum Imperator ("elected Emperor of the Romans"). Maximilian's successors adopted the same titulature, usually when they became the sole ruler of the Holy Roman Empire. Maximilian's first successor Charles V was the last to be crowned Emperor.

title: Holy Roman Emperor