Coronation of the Holy Roman Emperor

The Coronation of the Holy Roman Emperor refers to a ceremony in which the ruler of Europe's then-largest political entity received the Imperial Regalia at the hands of the Pope, symbolizing the pope's alleged right to crown Christian sovereigns, and the emperor's role as protector of the Roman Catholic Church. The Holy Roman Empresses were crowned as well.

The Holy Roman Empire was established in the year 800 under Charlemagne, Later emperors were also crowned by the pope or other Catholic bishops, until Charles V became the last Holy Roman Emperor to be crowned by a pope, by Clement VII at Bologna, in 1530. Thereafter, until the abolition of the empire in 1806, no further crownings by the Pope were held. Later rulers simply proclaimed themselves Imperator Electus Romanorum or "Elected Emperor of the Romans" after their election and coronation as German king, without the ultimate formality of an imperial coronation by the Pope in Rome.

Successors of Charlemagne were crowned in Rome for several centuries, where they received the imperial crown in St. Peter's from the pope. The Iron Crown of Lombardy was conferred in the Church of St. Ambrose at Milan or at the cathedral of Monza, that of Burgundy at Arles, and the German crown—which came to be the most important of all—was usually given at Aachen, until 1562 when, until the last German coronation in 1792, the Emperors-elects were crowned Kings in Germany in Frankfurt Cathedral, which had already in 1356 also become the established site for the imperial elections.

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