Charles V Elected Emperor

June 28, 1519

After Jakob Fugger's bank poured eight hundred thousand florins into bribes, the nineteen-year-old Charles of Habsburg was elected Holy Roman Emperor at Frankfurt. He now ruled from Vienna to Peru. No European had wielded such territory since Charlemagne, and he could not yet sleep through the night. The Fugger bank's massive bribes established a precedent for the commercialization of imperial politics that defined Habsburg governance.