Religion and politics: They were the two subjects that people in polite society were told to avoid when I was growing up. Yet, when studying the history of the Holy Roman Empire in high school, I began to understand that politics and religion go together as naturally as butter goes with bread.
Since ancient Babylon, when Nimrod and his mother-wife, Semiramis, sought to establish the first imperial state under the control of a universal religion, each—church and state—has either sought to use the other for mutual gain and influence, or one has competed with the other to hold sway over entire nations or even whole empires. The Holy Roman Empire is the quintessential example in both the former and the latter sense.
