But they were/are hardly an institution created by the empire. Well, not a bureaucratic institution, anyway ;).
Also technically speaking that dynastic name should have gone extinct in 1780 with the death of Maria Theresa ( it went extinct in the male line back in 1740 ). But for emotive/propaganda reasons the succeeding house of Lorraine adopted the name Hapsburg-Lorraine. So there actually aren’t any patriline-descent Hapsburgs around anymore - the modern branches are all descended only through the matriline via Maria Theresa.
There will be any number of towns and cities chartered by this or that Emperor which are still in existence (but usually it would be the Emperor acting in some other capacity, e.g. as Archduke of Austria. And lots of people still claim, and use, titles of nobility granted by one of the Emperors. I doubt that these have any legal significance anywhere today, but they may still have some social significance. Oh, and Monaco was founded by the Emperor Henry VI. It is still a going concern.
The empire, though, was mostly about co-ordinating relationships between sovereigns. It didn’t do a lot of direct governing, so it wasn’t in the business of establishing institutions all that often.
The Holy Roman Empire was a curious thing, it was not ‘holy’ and it was not ‘Roman’, also as the thing was something of a conglomeration of states rather than a centrally controlled entity, it wasn’t even much of an ‘Empire’.
Given that the Romans had a bit of a problem in what is now Germany (sort of Legions going missing), and the HRE was mainly what is now Germany, one could wonder whether its name was something of a metaphorical ‘finger’.
Given that the name was invented by Charlemagne, who was a Frank and called it “Holy” because he asked for the Pope’s blessing to start it, “Roman” see above, and “Empire” because that’s what he wanted to build… maybe there were no fingers involved (other than those of the Pope whose ring Charlemagne kissed).
Actually, I believe that what Charlemagne did was introduce a compulsory and free education system in his empire. It wasn’t the first time in history this was done, but it’s the most famous example of public schools in the Medieval era. I don’t think his system lasted to the present day though. But that won’t stop French kids (who probably learned about him as one of the founders of their nation) from jokingly blaming him for school.
What Charlemagne did, under the direction of his adviser and theologian Alcuin, was to ask the churches and monasteries to establish schools to teach writing, arithmetic and religion, and to do so without charging the payment of fees.
According to legend, Alcuin had signs posted in front of the taverns of Strasbourg, saying “Choose, O traveller; if thou wilt drink thou must also pay money, but if thou wilt learn thou wilt have what thou seekest for nothing.”
Not an ‘institution’ per se, but there are about three titles of “Count” (not “Earl”) in the side branches of the British Royal Family which derive from grants by Holy Roman Emperors a couple of centuries back.
What about Carolingian miniscule? Anyone who has attempted to transcribe older scripts realizes the advantages of capital letters and the spaces between words. Of course, this all assumes we are equating the Holy Roman and Carolingian empires. There is the argument that it is no longer used per se, but I think many of its ideas persist in modern scripts.
No. Bavaria did pre-date the HRE as a tribal state, but Austria did not. Austria was an offshoot of Bavaria, a march created out of Bavarian territory on the borders with Bohemia and Hungary that became a quasi-autonomous entity in the late 10th century. In the 12th century it was broken off Bavaria for good and elevated to a separate duchy as a recompense for the ruling Babenberg family having been deprived of Bavaria proper ( which had earlier been taken from the Welf family and handed to the Babenbergs, then returned to the Welfs again, causing the territorial split ).
