Quote Originally Posted by Aedilred View Post
They would most likely just have referred to him simply as "the Emperor". There was only one* at the time so everyone would know who was meant. It's unlikely that the numeral would have been used at all except in official documents: Charles IV had died over a hundred years before so there was little need to distinguish them. Early in his reign and to avoid confusion with his grandfather, he might have been "the Emperor Charles". He could conceivably also have been "King Charles" or "King [Charles] of Spain", especially between 1516 and 1519, before he was Emperor. Again, though, it's unlikely a numeral would have been habitually used.

In much the same way as Commonwealth citizens tend to refer merely to "the Queen" and everyone understands who is meant, while it's relatively rare for the name and numeral to get used unless it's needed for clarity or formality, I suspect it was much the same in the 16th century.


*In Europe, at least. The Emperors of China, Japan, Persia, Ethiopia, and the Mughal Emperor, when mentioned at all, most likely were referred to as such, or by some other title (e.g. "Sultan").
This, while interesting, is conjecture. I was asking for historical data. I apologise for the confusion. I'm not really expecting anyone to be able to pull this data out of a hat, but surely some correspondence has survived that spoke of the Holy Roman Emperor rather than to him. I will admit that it is a bit of a stretch since he pre-dates Shakespeare by about 50 years.

The other question that we might find worth answering is how people have referred to him in the centuries since his death. We, looking back 500 years might have one view of how he should have been called, whereas historians have doubtless been writing about him for most of that intervening time. How do they call him?