From James Bryce, The Holy Roman Empire, "Theory of the Mediaeval Empire"
From Geoffrey Barraclough, The Origins of Modern Germany, "The Formation of Mediaeval Germany"
Professor Lynn Nelson (University of Kansas), Why the Holy Roman Empire Disappeared from American Classrooms, from the MEDIEV-L listserv.
See also the Sullivan text: ch 16, p. 215; ch 19, pp. 251 - 256; ch 23, pp. 320 - 321; *ch 27, pp. 365 (map), 366 - 368; *ch 30, pp. 400 - 403. *Note that these last two readings are extremely hostile to the concept of a universal Christian commonwealth. Until very recently most historians disdained as anachronistic and doomed-to-failure such non-centralized institutions as the Holy Roman Empire, but championed the emergence of centralized and territorial nation states.