Henry VII (ca. 1274-1313) was Holy Roman emperor and king of Germany from 1308 to 1313. He is often called the last medieval emperor, since his vision of the grandeur of the imperial office resembled that of his much more powerful predecessors.

When he was elected Holy Roman emperor in November 1308, Henry, Count of Luxemburg, was the ruler of a modest territory between Germany, France, and Flanders. The German ecclesiastical and lay princes to whom fell the lot of electing the emperor had established the policy since 1273 of electing a comparatively obscure candidate to the imperial throne in order to avoid the creation of too powerful an imperial monarchy. In that year they had elected Rudolf I of Hapsburg, and in 1291 Adolf of Nassau. Henry was elected precisely because of his meager personal resources, and, like his predecessors, he used some of the imperial resources to increase the wealth and...