The Holy Roman Empire was built on the marriage of a powerful military to the Frankish state and blessed by the financial support of the Roman Churchand itsconversion-by-the-sword it brought for millions in early Medieval Western Europe. This course looks at the visual cues which it took from the world's last great superpower, Imperial Rome, as well as from the Byzantine Empire in the East. The patronage of this solid union between Church and State led to the flourishing of distinct artistic and architectural phenomena. From the collapse of Rome in the West, several royal dynasties emerged which controlled the regional interests of the territories which had formally been under imperial Roman administration. However, none of these dynasties achieved what was given to the children of Charles Martel, the savior of Christianity and European autonomy from the Islamic threat: the divine investiture to unify the lands of Europe- and ideologically, the whole world- as a new empire. In 800 C.E., the Holy Roman Empire came into being as a concept which would direct the course of European politics, and the relationship of Church to State in the West, for centuries through the present day. Although the Carolingian Dynasty did not rule for long, any future ruler would find a necessary precondition of legitimacy to perpetuate the culture and religion of his predecessors. By this means, Greco-Roman and Byzantine visual arts and architecture made their way into Frankish, Gallic, Germanic, and Saxon lands (to name only the major ethnic groups which inhabited the large area of land this covered).