Flag of the Holy Roman Empire

**Rex_Romanorum** · March 03, 2012, 05:00 AM

I've been wondering about this for quite a while; does anyone have any idea why CA reversed the colours on the flag of the HRE? The actual Imperial flag was a black eagle inset into a yellow background, but in the game this is portrayed as a yellow eagle inset onto a black background.

One theory I've thought of is that maybe they did it to make the Empire's main colour black, so as not to confuse their units on the campaign map with Spain's. Apart from that, though, does anyone have any insight as to why this is?

**King William the Conqueror** · March 03, 2012, 06:43 AM

nope. No Idea. You could do some modding to change that.

**Shrigs** · March 03, 2012, 06:05 PM

I think you have the right answer already. They take some liberties with that kind of stuff to provide easier distinction between factions

**Silverheart** · March 03, 2012, 08:28 PM

The Yellow eagle on a black background was the symbol of the Holy Roman Empire early on, if I remember correctly, and was later changed.
You have to remember that the Holy Roman Empire was a patchwork of constantly feuding nobles, and ownership of the imperial throne did change several times between different noble families over time - as such, the imperial standard changed as well as the ages went on, since every noble family had it´s own standard and symbol.

**Aeratus** · March 03, 2012, 11:17 PM

A lot of the faction symbols aren't accurate. For example, Scotland and Turks. The developers took liberties to made the symbols symbol and recognizable.

I've never seen a yellow eagle on an HRE coat of arms or insignia.

**fkizz** · March 04, 2012, 08:42 PM

Historical Inaccuracies aswell, not just flags. Spain didn't even exist in the game initial timeset.

**Silverheart** · March 05, 2012, 05:56 AM

Originally Posted by fkizz

Historical Inaccuracies aswell, not just flags. Spain didn't even exist in the game initial timeset.

Not as an official, unified country, no, but the "spanish" culture already existed among the christians in Iberia. That was the foundation upon which the unified Spain was created.

Also, I´ll have to budge to what others have said about the Holy Roman Empire flag, since I can´t find any sources supporting my theory of the eagle being yellow in the 1000s and then changed later in the medieval age.
Off-topic, you have to admit, though, that the banner does make you think "german" when you see it.

**fkizz** · March 09, 2012, 02:00 PM

Originally Posted by Silverheart

Not as an official, unified country, no, but the "spanish" culture already existed among the christians in Iberia. That was the foundation upon which the unified Spain was created.

Not really, the whole concept of "spanish culture" as a way to say spain existed before spain is very questionable considering what was going on there before 1492 (when spain was finally formed) was basically a very long religious war.

The unification of Spain was not on cultural purposes but mainly focused on finally expelling the moors (muslims) and royal marriages intrigue.

Even nowadays several regions of spain want/demand independence from madrid and say they are not true spanish, like cataluna and the basque, and even some in gaelicia. There were even several organized terrorism incidents with the basque against madrid/spain, as you probably know and have heard of several times. I guess that might be a smaaall hint that even today the basque don't feel very culturally spanish.

Same goes for the cataluna, although it never resorted to condemnable practices for independence.

But sure, you can have your opinion.

**Silverheart** · March 09, 2012, 03:29 PM

Originally Posted by fkizz

Not really, the whole concept of "spanish culture" as a way to say spain existed before spain is very questionable considering what was going on there before 1492 (when spain was finally formed) was basically a very long religious war.

The unification of Spain was not on cultural purposes but mainly focused on finally expelling the moors (muslims) and royal marriages intrigue.

Even nowadays several regions of spain want/demand independence from madrid and say they are not true spanish, like cataluna and the basque, and even some in gaelicia. There were even several organized terrorism incidents with the basque against madrid/spain, as you probably know and have heard of several times. I guess that might be a smaaall hint that even today the basque don't feel very culturally spanish.

Same goes for the cataluna, although it never resorted to condemnable practices for independence.

But sure, you can have your opinion.

This appears to be an off-topic discussion, so I hope I won´t get a notification or something for engaging in it.
In any case:
The unified kingdom of Spain was officially formed with the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella, which did happen in late 15th century, but the culture of the land existed before that nonetheless - in the same way that you would talk about a "scandinavian" culture or an "arabic" culture, I´m referring to a general thing and not any of the minor versions of it that exist all over the particular area.
Of course there are differences in culture between different parts and cities of Spain, but they still share the same general culture nonetheless.
I can give you that the culture changed dramatically after the creation of the unified kingdom, what with Ferdinand and Isabellas´ changes in internal policy.

Also, the small hint you´re talking about is not as tell-tale as you think.
In the late 19th century, when nationalism and the "one people, one country"-way of thinking was all the latest fad, the people of the Iberian peninsula were all screaming for more unification in the area (just like they were in Germany and many other parts of the world).
Now, today, when the latest international fad is all about claiming independence due to the slightest hint of difference between any and all the smaller parts of the land, they are naturally following suit.
We have debates of the same kind here in Scandinavia, too - in Sweden alone, Skåne, Norrland and the Sami all have dissidents pushing policies of independence.
So THAT is my opinion of the matter.

Now, if you wish to continue this discussion, I invite you to come to the Vestigia Vetustatis section where this would be more appropriate.
Otherwise, I plea that you post something about the topic of this thread - the flag of the Holy Roman Empire (although it seems most has been said already

)

**fkizz** · March 10, 2012, 07:54 AM

Originally Posted by Silverheart

Also, the small hint you´re talking about is not as tell-tale as you think.
In the late 19th century, when nationalism and the "one people, one country"-way of thinking was all the latest fad, the people of the Iberian peninsula were all screaming for more unification in the area (just like they were in Germany and many other parts of the world).
Now, today, when the latest international fad is all about claiming independence due to the slightest hint of difference between any and all the smaller parts of the land, they are naturally following suit.
We have debates of the same kind here in Scandinavia, too - in Sweden alone, Skåne, Norrland and the Sami all have dissidents pushing policies of independence.
So THAT is my opinion of the matter.

Now, if you wish to continue this discussion, I invite you to come to the Vestigia Vetustatis section where this would be more appropriate.
Otherwise, I plea that you post something about the topic of this thread - the flag of the Holy Roman Empire (although it seems most has been said already

)

Since this is off-topic (is it?) I will try to be brief as possible then - the early XIX century was a period of strong post-war devastation in continental Portugal, after fending off 3 Napoleonic armeé invasions with scorched earth policy and losing the most important income colony, brazil, severely crippling recovery processes. It was soon naturally followed by a bounceback of strong nationalism, the people pressuring the republic government itself to fight for the Portuguese colonies even if it meant joining WWI.

Portugal has been around way before the post-WWI nationalistic fad you suggested, in fact has been around 300-400 years before spain appeared.

On XX century the huge spanish civil war with millions of casualties in death-toll was also more than ideology-driven, regionalism and de-centralization vs centralization wishes obviously played its part. Dictator Franco enforced centralization after winning the war.

The Basque and Cataluna have a dislike of being under Madrid control, a rather surprising fact I found when visiting those areas. Gaelicia too. Even Gibraltar today in XXI century is still part of UK overseas terrain, on the will of gibraltar residents.

Spain has been around since 1492.

Main Note/Disclaimer: This isn't really off-topic, just made another remark on the vanilla historical innacuracies which suposedly was what the topic was about, but seems I unwillingly struck the nerve of someone mentioning the year of spain foundation. Will stop here anyway.

Not joining the section you mentioned to discuss more because this is as far as I go, want to avoid an argue if possible. And as I said, you are entitled to your opinion.