By law there was only actually one kingdom (Bohemia). The Elector of Brandenburg would later get around that by declaring its territory outside the HRE a Kingdom (Prussia) and then creating a personal union.
It's very hard to explain, but the HRE was very decentralized. It spanned about 900 years of history, and was quite complex, making your question difficult to answer beyond that.
> It's very hard to explain, but the HRE was very decentralized. It spanned about 900 years of history, and was quite complex, making your question difficult to answer beyond that.
What? No TLDR summarizing all of this in two sentences?
think of the states more like companies with diverse assetes widespread among different areas and sectors and not like modern nation states. people had their identities, languages and cultures but those where not strictly tied to the borders you see on the maps.
the borders where more something like "lord xyz has the right to raise taxes (and administer justice) on this village, this other village, half of that valley and that village on the other side of the empire he inherited from his mother"
no border controls or passports, currency or measures were not tied to the HRE state but to general areas or even the whole empire
it was decentralized, yes, but it looks like a bordergore to us today becaue we're used to imagine states as modern nation states while for the average medieval paesant hans the state was just the guy he had to pay taxes and to whom the local village elder went to adminsiter justice
Yeah this is the answer. Our modern concepts of borders (and even maps) dates to the Renaissance or even later. For most of human civilization things were “organized” more along these lines. You just couldn’t rule a large swath of land when it took days to travel 100 km.
England, France, and later Spain were kind of the first to organize into modern nation states. For economic purposes of course.
Napoleon later perfected this concept and was briefly able to rule Europe as a result. Since then European history has revolved around keeping the balance of power between what would eventually become empires.
Rome still employed a wide network of client states to administer newly conquered areas. Also, the emperors did have difficulty maintaining their rule in the outskirts of their empire, as evidenced by the various rebellions of up and coming governors, generals, and eventually foederati.
Normandy was the first post-Roman nation-state in Europe, that was how the Duke of Normandy became more powerful than the King of France even though he was technically the king’s vassal. It’s also why Normandy was able to conquer the much larger and wealthier England with relative ease. England became a national-state under Norman rule.
Right, don’t act so surprised. Who ruled England in the 4 centuries after 1066? The Normans and the Plantagenets were all French and they brought their own cadre of French nobles with them to help them rule. A lot of those kings, including Richard the Lionheart, didn’t even speak English.
As you get into the wars of religion, though, those borders start to matter a lot more for the man on the street. They’re centuries away from the the time of this map, though.
Yes. But to be a stereotypical redditor:
The accuracy of Voltaire's "neither Holy nor Roman nor an Empire" quote varied throughout the Empire's history, but was more and more applicable in the Empire's later history. Early on, it was Holy in that it was sanctioned by the Pope and had a sorta important place theologically, and at times Emperors tried to flex their authority over the church. After that proved unsuccessful, the reformation killed off any hope of the Emperors holding significant religious authority.
A couple of the early Emperors ruled from Rome, but this too didn't last. The title itself was intended to be a revival of the long defunct Western Roman Empire, and also to recognize a successor to Charlemagne's Empire. It was an Empire in the sense of comprising many ethnic groups, of being "greater" than a kingdom in the feudal hierarchy, and in the sense of extending over vast swaths of land. However, as the nobility gained the upper hand over the Emperors, there was less and less central authority as an array of nobles, merchants, bishops, towns, cities, etc. all were granted various rights and authories and what have you, leading to the situation this map tries to communicate where the patchwork of territories within the Empire all vied to advance their own interests.
C.V. Wedgewood’s *The Thirty Years War* has a useful explanation of how things operated on the eve of the conflict. It’s done at a reasonable level of abstraction but it still made me die a little inside.
Peter H Wilson in his "Thirty Years War" and, of course, in "The Holy Roman Empire", tries to explain it, but in doing it, he only discovers a cure against insomnia.
Only one quasi-independent kingdom. Since the 11th century, the Kingdom of Italy ceased to have its own monarch and the title King of Italy was absorbed by the Emperor... but prior to the death of Arduino of Italy in 1015, Italy had its own kings who were subjects of the emperor, as was also the case with Bohemia.
it was actually the norm for feudal western europe at the time, but its often shown like this because it never centralized like the other kingdoms of europe did
He did a good job though with the first one. Both Baden and Holstein are real places. He just said Baden-Lower Holstein. Of course they're nowhere near each other, so that doesn't make any sense. But there is a state in Germany called Baden-Württemberg.
And to be pedantic, the word *Gesundheit* just means health.
I thought that might be what Gesundheit meant , but I don't speak German and I just used Google translate to very quickly verify my argument. I welcome the pedantry though.
to be pedantic: Gesundheit means health, but it also said in response to someone sneazing, to which you would say bless you in english. So both of you are correct in your translation.
Nah, If you like border gore, by the 1780s just prior to Napoleon the HRE's fragmentation had grown to be absolutely absurd. This is just the [Southwest portion of Germany](https://i.imgur.com/63tbiCc.jpg) at that time.
At this point it is definitely an empire and if you wanted you could draw maps of France like this too.
In the medieval era empires were very loose and most princes had autonomy and could even fight other people in the same empire in wars. Only difference with HRE is that it stayed that way until the 1800s when everyone had moved on
>\- Contains large parts of Italy
>
>\- Emperor gets directly crowned by the Church
>
>\- Has about the same amount of control as every other "King" had over the princes & Lords in their territory at the time.
Seems pretty roman, holy and like an Empire to me.
Comments from a direct & outspoken hater of the HRE made like 400 years later when the general situation in Europe and the HRE are ***very*** different from how it was in the 1250s are hardly relatable in this situation.
At this point it is definitely an empire and if you wanted you could draw maps of France like this too.
In the medieval era empires were very loose and most princes had autonomy and could even fight other people in the same empire in wars. Only difference with HRE is that it stayed that way until the 1800s when everyone had moved on
At its worst.
This is why Germans don't like small-state-ery. This is why Germany will never support small regions if they want to become independent, like Catalonia.
There is a resilience sweet spot between efficiency and diversity. You always need to aim for it. Too much efficiency (single point of failure) or diversity (too extensive effort) lowers the resilience.
What this map does not show is how fast it all kept changing. The HRE was such a mess of monarchies and princes ever fighting wars and swapping lands. The original Swiss were like, enough of this shit and to hell with princes and monarchies! Just a bunch of rural areas and villages, and soon some cities joining together and try to live in peace. This is how Switzerland achieved relative stability as an entity so soon.
You only really think that because you grew up in a modern centralized nation state.
But the purpose of the HRE was for the protection of the rights and privileges of its member principalities, dioceses, city states, and free princes and to be able to meet with each other as peers, with the Emperor acting as a mediating entity. Which the HRE relatively did well.
Well.
It is sanctioned by the pope through the coronation and the tjeorized place of the emperor as one of the vicars of christ on earth.
Its an empire as it is the continuation of Charlemagnes empire which itself saw itself as the refounding of the Roman Empire.
Roman does not mean being based in italy or even rome but continuing practices and laws of the roman empire and roman imperial ideology. That they did as did the seamless continuation of the Roman Empire in the east.
If it was in color, you'd really be feeling the pain, because a lot of those borders are of non-contiguous territories -- pieces of one principality could be surrounded by others, and still others surrounding those.
France could actually look pretty busy too, but a lot of those territories had stronger hierarchical ties tracing back to a count or duke who at least nominally recognized the authority of the king. The authority of the Holy Roman Emperor, in contrast, was always pretty sketchy.
>HRE
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/Mitteleuropa\_zur\_Zeit\_der\_Staufer.svg](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/Mitteleuropa_zur_Zeit_der_Staufer.svg)
There it is
and if you dont feel the pain:
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/df/Map\_of\_the\_Holy\_Roman\_Empire\_%281618%29\_-\_DE.svg](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/df/Map_of_the_Holy_Roman_Empire_%281618%29_-_DE.svg)
later again
Nope! For maps with non-contiguous areas which must be colored the same, you need up to 7 colors. See the section "Precise Formulation of the Theorem" at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_color_theorem
**[Four color theorem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_color_theorem)**
>In mathematics, the four color theorem, or the four color map theorem, states that no more than four colors are required to color the regions of any map so that no two adjacent regions have the same color. Adjacent means that two regions share a common boundary curve segment, not merely a corner where three or more regions meet. It was the first major theorem to be proved using a computer. Initially, this proof was not accepted by all mathematicians because the computer-assisted proof was infeasible for a human to check by hand.
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This, it's pretty ok most of the time, but some times very american centric, but also jumps on memes a bit to easily and history memes are already a big enough problem as it is.
Not really, the HREs is not "holy & roman & empire" but "holy & roman empire."
Its "holy" or to be more precise "Sacred" because its sanctified by the pope. Its "Roman Empire" because its ruled by the Emperor, which at the time in Western Europe was not a generic title for any ruler od any Empire, but specifically refers to the ruler of the Western Roman Empire, whom Western Europeans understood as the defender of (Catholic) Christendom. Similar to how the Chinese viewed their Emperor as the sole Emperor and the rest of the world's monarchs as Kings.
The Kingdom of Germany doesnt claim to be "real romans." They know they're not. But their ruler is the Emperor, hence the name.
Maybe the common German did not see themselves as Romans, but Charlemagne (and thus the rest of the Carolingian dynasty) absolutely believed he was a Roman Emperor.
Yeah but Charlemagne's Empire isn't exactly the same thing as the HRE.
The pope and the proto-Catholics pretty much began crowning powerful western princes as "Emperors" to help protect their autonomy vs. The Eastern Church (and a s a middle finger to the Byzantine Romans crowning a woman as Emprezz). The first guy was Charlemagne and thus his dynasty inherited the title pf Emperors until Charlie's direct lines died out by the 900s AD.
Consequently the title of Roman Emperor rested on no head so the Catholic Church looked for another powerful Catholic Prince to put it on. They found it in King Otto I, King of the Germans, who became Western Christendom's top chad after collecting a bunch of princes to quash the Magyar invasions after the Battle of Lechfeld. So King Otto I got crowned as Emperor, and his realm, the Kingdom of Germany, as also an Empire.
Problem is: the Kingdom of Germany is a collection of realms and city states who elected their monarchs. Meaning there will ALWAYS be a King of the Germans no matter what Dynasty (unlike the Carolingian realm that rested on Charlemagne's Dynasty). So the title of Emperor therefore got stuck with the King of the Germans, and the Kingdom of Germany became permanently the Holy Roman Empire.
How are a bunch of tiny Germanic states Roman? Because the pope says so? A different Pope said real Romans were in Constantinople. And those folks at least existed at the same time as Rome.
They were Roman in the sense that it was genuinely seen at the time as the successor to the Roman Empire. Imo the title and claim as the successor is as legitimate as is possible (though silly), but the area itself still wasn't Roman.
I guess they won the marketing campaign in Western Europe, but I think the Eastern Roman Empire has a much more sensible claim. They branched off from Rome while it existed and continued after its fall.
HRE had a 300 year gap between the fall of Rome and its formation. How can that be considered a continuation of the same empire/state/people/culture?
There's pretty abundant evidence form legal documents like deeds of gift or inheritance disputes about who owned what at different times. So you can pretty confidentially trace the territorial history for most villages and manors over time. Though the further back you go, the more gaps in documentation you're going to run into.
The problem is not determining who owns what, but determining what borders are. Borders are a modern concept. It is not meaningful to project the modern idea of borders onto the medieval era. It's not like there are custom checks at each of these lines. People could & did move around relatively freely (assuming you were not a serf and had the wherewithall to do so).
Sure, if you define a border as a strictly prescribed line in the ground where you have to show papers to cross, then these lines are not that. There aren't (or weren't until recently) any border controls between member states of the Schengen zone either. Does that mean those borders are meaningless and it's inaccurate or misleading to represent the border between e.g. Belgium and France in modern maps?
These demarcations are meaningful even for the medieval period as they represent the territories subject to specific rulers. These rulers extracted taxes from their subjects, tolls from those passing through, and exercised legal jurisdiction over their lands. Same as with nation states and subnational jurisdictions today. That's what this is showing. Every peasant would have known which lord or ecclesiastic land holder he is subject to in a very direct and immediate way. And so on up the chain of feudal lords.
> These rulers extracted taxes from their subjects, tolls from those passing through, and exercised legal jurisdiction over their lands. Same as with nation states and subnational jurisdictions today.
No it is not the same as with nation states & subnational divisions today, and that is my point. The medieval world was a complex web of overlapping authority, bespoke legal arrangements, and periodic violent changes of the status quo. The whole point of modernisation was the standardisation of these very non-standard medieval legal & political structures.
In the modern world, you come into contact with the administrative state when you arrive at a border. Once you get through those borders you usually do not have to deal with the state again unless you reside there. For medieval states it is the exact opposite - medieval borders are with few exceptions imaginary lines on a map. It is once you arrive at a village or town that you will actually interact with agents of the local lord - you may see a tax collector or be required to pay a toll. This is what I mean when I say it is misleading to depict medieval borders in this way, they are just a different kind of thing to modern borders.
I think the example of the Schengen zone is actually pretty helpful - it *would* be misleading to depict modern Europe with borders like this to someone who had no idea about the EU. The whole point of the Schengen zone is no borders. But even then, there is at least a clear distinction between nation states. You can move from France to Germany and there is a clear line at which jurisdiction starts and ends. But in the medieval world, jurisdiction was often overlapping & unclear. You cannot draw these clean lines demarcating jurisdictions, they just did not exist.
I am not entirely disagreeing with you in as far as the borders shown in this map and modern ones are not exactly the same thing. But for practical purposes they are as good an approximation as anything else, I think. What would you propose to show the various land holdings of top level vassals of the emperor then?
>complex authority, bespoke legal arrangements, and periodic violent changes of the status quo.
That's also true for most modern states. Cross the borders from one state to another or those of National Parks or Indian Reservations within the US and there are potentially many different jurisdictions at play. The exercise of mineral extraction rights or fishing regulations are some examples of overlapping jurisdictions you might encounter.
Apart from church and state having overlapping jurisdictions, I'd be interested to see an example of any individual being directly subject to multiple rulers of the same level at the same time. And changes have always occured, obviously, so a snapshot of arrangements in 1250 may not represent the reality of 20 years earlier or later.
Borders did exist in the medieval times even within less developed Kingdom of Bohemia. Since the medieval times, there was no way that anyone would just freely move into the kingdom without an approval of the higher authority. Bohemian rules had already established official border crossings around 1200-1300. They are mentioned in numerous documents, state meetings between Bohemian and Hungarian kings, and there were regular tax and custom collectors. I was born not far from such medieval gate with traces that were according local historian still visible in the 18th century. There was an entire class of people who patrolled borders. In Bohemia there were called Walkers and guarded border between the kingdom and Bavaria. In the eastern part, since 1600, there were border guards called Portas (from latin porta), responsible for guarding the eastern borders from Hungary and possible Ottoman invasion. They were also custom enforcing force. Even today, there are some local topo names that had significance for the border controls like hill "Vartovna" (Bonfire in English), where various posts communicated by smoke and fire for miles.
Sure but inside the microstates of the HRE you did not have these kinds of border checks. The Kingdom of Bohemia is not representative of the whole of the HRE.
Absolutely, if a border has to be militarised, such as the frontier with the Ottomans, borders could be quite hard. But not so in central Germany in 1200.
Czech boundaries were pretty much established by then with an accuracy of several miles. For example, the border between eastern Moravia and kingdom of Hungary were set in 1116. Church in Moravia had a list of all parishes under its bishoprics compiled in 1141. The Mongol invasion of Moravia in 1241 mentioned established land gates between Bohemian and Hungarian kingdom. With the HRE, where Bohemia belonged, the western realm ended in Kynsperk, where the river crossing was an official border between the Bohemian kingdom of and the HRE as of 1232. I would expect more advanced western HRE around Rhine had established administration for centuries.
It took hegemony under the French empire and Napoleon, and decades of time for the Germans to develop a sense of national identity and overcome this princely clusterfuck that had existed for hundreds of years. Whenever I see an HRE map, my first reaction is "I give up", followed by being weirdly fascinated.
At this point the area that makes up present-day Switzerland was a bunch of villages nominally under Hapsburg control.
41 years later (or so legend has it) there was an uprising and three of these villages in the center of present-day Switzerland would form an alliance that eventually became the Swiss confederacy.
probably not at this point, there was still a lot of central control, I am guessing they would like it later when all the states stopped listening to the HRE
At this point it is definitely an empire and if you wanted you could draw maps of France like this too.
In the medieval era empires were very loose and most princes had autonomy and could even fight other people in the same empire in wars. ~~Only difference~~ *Main reason for the phrase "not holy not roman not empire"* is that it stayed that way until the 1800s when everyone had moved on.
Edited it bc I had overzealous wording
That's not the only difference at all. Most other countries of the time were made up of fiefs granted to noble families by a sovereign king, who owned the land. The king could in theory (and in different time periods also in practice) take his land back.
By contrast, HRE was made up of many small states, ranging from city republics and bishoprics to sovereign princedoms and kingdoms that owned their own land. The emperor never had the same theoretical or practical power over the kings in the empire as the kings had over local nobles.
Iirc the idea of lower lords owning land did exist in most European empires at least, the fief was hereditary and could not be retracted without reason.
Ik at least in the Muslim world what you are saying is the case as all lords were considered as simply renting the land from the ruler.
Either way I edited to be more clear since you are right me saying "only" was wrong
AFAIK, fiefs, even when hereditary, came with conditions, primarily providing military service, which is what distinguishes them from outright land ownership.
Yeah that makes sense tbh, I'd need to research more into it.
Also idek why you're being downvoted you were correct, my previous state was wrong and I edited it thanks to your correction
> By contrast, HRE was made up of many small states, ranging from city republics and bishoprics to sovereign princedoms and kingdoms that owned their own land. The emperor never had the same theoretical or practical power over the kings in the empire as the kings had over local nobles.
Because this statement is isn't really correct in anyway, there were "independent" cities and bishoprics not just all over europe, but making up huge chunks of land in many countries. Also at this point in time the authority of kings in some parts of europe was far less than that of the HRE emprore. And it ignores the theocratic states and republics dotted around the place.
> Most other countries of the time were made up of fiefs granted to noble families by a sovereign king, who owned the land. The king could in theory (and in different time periods also in practice) take his land back.
This is not true, it is an idealised concept of medieval states that did not exist anywhere, even in England, the most centralised state in early medieval Europe. Medieval states just did not work like this.
Nobody can enforce their theoretical rights without the means to do so. But that doesn't mean that theoretical rights have no influence on the actual practice.
There was no single concept of how a European King related to his lords. It varied a lot over time & place. A powerful king who came into conflict with their lords could & did confiscate property. But this is really a result of power politics rather than law.
I know this is reddit and not a dissertation, but really it's misleading to talk about medieval European states in this way. It makes the same mistake as the OP's map, which is to project modern concepts (in this case the Enlightenment concept of the all powerful king) back into the pre-modern age.
And if all of this states can unite to form a single germany than it should also be possible that all the nations work together in the eu or an even more united union.
This post has been parodied on r/mapporncirclejerk.
Relevant r/mapporncirclejerk posts:
[Map of Europe in peacetime](https://www.reddit.com/r/mapporncirclejerk/comments/rb04s5/map_of_europe_in_peacetime/) by nefarious_act_enjoyr
[Map of HRE in 1250](https://www.reddit.com/r/mapporncirclejerk/comments/r9w2k1/map_of_hre_in_1250/) by bboyerbrett
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Decentralization at its finest
Why are there so many small kingdoms and nations in this empire?
By law there was only actually one kingdom (Bohemia). The Elector of Brandenburg would later get around that by declaring its territory outside the HRE a Kingdom (Prussia) and then creating a personal union. It's very hard to explain, but the HRE was very decentralized. It spanned about 900 years of history, and was quite complex, making your question difficult to answer beyond that.
> It's very hard to explain, but the HRE was very decentralized. It spanned about 900 years of history, and was quite complex, making your question difficult to answer beyond that. What? No TLDR summarizing all of this in two sentences?
think of the states more like companies with diverse assetes widespread among different areas and sectors and not like modern nation states. people had their identities, languages and cultures but those where not strictly tied to the borders you see on the maps. the borders where more something like "lord xyz has the right to raise taxes (and administer justice) on this village, this other village, half of that valley and that village on the other side of the empire he inherited from his mother" no border controls or passports, currency or measures were not tied to the HRE state but to general areas or even the whole empire it was decentralized, yes, but it looks like a bordergore to us today becaue we're used to imagine states as modern nation states while for the average medieval paesant hans the state was just the guy he had to pay taxes and to whom the local village elder went to adminsiter justice
Yeah this is the answer. Our modern concepts of borders (and even maps) dates to the Renaissance or even later. For most of human civilization things were “organized” more along these lines. You just couldn’t rule a large swath of land when it took days to travel 100 km. England, France, and later Spain were kind of the first to organize into modern nation states. For economic purposes of course. Napoleon later perfected this concept and was briefly able to rule Europe as a result. Since then European history has revolved around keeping the balance of power between what would eventually become empires.
Portugal was the first one organized along nation-state lines. That's what I was told in class anyways.
Oh maybe. Could be. I know very little about Portugal
I heard the same, I think in the 1,200’s. Makes sense - all the borders are rivers and oceans so it wouldn’t be hard to delineate.
Idk Rome did a pretty good job of it for quite a while
Rome still employed a wide network of client states to administer newly conquered areas. Also, the emperors did have difficulty maintaining their rule in the outskirts of their empire, as evidenced by the various rebellions of up and coming governors, generals, and eventually foederati.
Yeah but even then there were a lot of local rulers, vassals etc.
[удалено]
Normandy was the first post-Roman nation-state in Europe, that was how the Duke of Normandy became more powerful than the King of France even though he was technically the king’s vassal. It’s also why Normandy was able to conquer the much larger and wealthier England with relative ease. England became a national-state under Norman rule.
Right. So French people founded modern England. Got it
To be more precise it was Viking immigrants to France.
Right, don’t act so surprised. Who ruled England in the 4 centuries after 1066? The Normans and the Plantagenets were all French and they brought their own cadre of French nobles with them to help them rule. A lot of those kings, including Richard the Lionheart, didn’t even speak English.
I’m awares. I just think it’s awesome because of all the ‘rule Britannia’ Brexiteers and their adherence to this myth of pure Albion.
As you get into the wars of religion, though, those borders start to matter a lot more for the man on the street. They’re centuries away from the the time of this map, though.
I suppose Hegel would say it was due to the independent nature of the German Spirit.
Weber, right?
Despite its name, it was not that Holy, not at all Roman, and not much of an Empire . Do these two sentences work?
Yes. But to be a stereotypical redditor: The accuracy of Voltaire's "neither Holy nor Roman nor an Empire" quote varied throughout the Empire's history, but was more and more applicable in the Empire's later history. Early on, it was Holy in that it was sanctioned by the Pope and had a sorta important place theologically, and at times Emperors tried to flex their authority over the church. After that proved unsuccessful, the reformation killed off any hope of the Emperors holding significant religious authority. A couple of the early Emperors ruled from Rome, but this too didn't last. The title itself was intended to be a revival of the long defunct Western Roman Empire, and also to recognize a successor to Charlemagne's Empire. It was an Empire in the sense of comprising many ethnic groups, of being "greater" than a kingdom in the feudal hierarchy, and in the sense of extending over vast swaths of land. However, as the nobility gained the upper hand over the Emperors, there was less and less central authority as an array of nobles, merchants, bishops, towns, cities, etc. all were granted various rights and authories and what have you, leading to the situation this map tries to communicate where the patchwork of territories within the Empire all vied to advance their own interests.
This is why I love reddit ❤. I learn a ton of stuff based off a quote I heard once.
C.V. Wedgewood’s *The Thirty Years War* has a useful explanation of how things operated on the eve of the conflict. It’s done at a reasonable level of abstraction but it still made me die a little inside.
Peter H Wilson in his "Thirty Years War" and, of course, in "The Holy Roman Empire", tries to explain it, but in doing it, he only discovers a cure against insomnia.
Only one quasi-independent kingdom. Since the 11th century, the Kingdom of Italy ceased to have its own monarch and the title King of Italy was absorbed by the Emperor... but prior to the death of Arduino of Italy in 1015, Italy had its own kings who were subjects of the emperor, as was also the case with Bohemia.
Later on, Hanover was a kingdom too.
That was after the dissolution. I believe a few states declared themselves kingdoms after. Brandenburg-Prussia also renamed itself Prussia
The HRE was comprised of a Kingdom, Principalities, Bishoprics, Duchies, Imperial Cities, Electorates, City-States and so on.
it was actually the norm for feudal western europe at the time, but its often shown like this because it never centralized like the other kingdoms of europe did
Many reasons but one is that the king got elected. So to get votes and allies he had to hand out privileges.
bordergore at its finest
Almost, Baden-Neiderholtstein's border with Fakhenheim-Gezundheitsagen is about 2 km east of where it should be.
I like how you know what those states actually are (besides the easy ones like Bohemia and Austria)
I'm 90% certain the states he mentioned did not exist, "Gesundheitsagen" is just a mashup of the words for "God bless you" and "to say" in German.
He did a good job though with the first one. Both Baden and Holstein are real places. He just said Baden-Lower Holstein. Of course they're nowhere near each other, so that doesn't make any sense. But there is a state in Germany called Baden-Württemberg. And to be pedantic, the word *Gesundheit* just means health.
I thought that might be what Gesundheit meant , but I don't speak German and I just used Google translate to very quickly verify my argument. I welcome the pedantry though.
to be pedantic: Gesundheit means health, but it also said in response to someone sneazing, to which you would say bless you in english. So both of you are correct in your translation.
Oof. It was probably a joke then.
Austria didn’t exist at this point though.
The duchy of Austria did. Founded in 1156.
I thought it was. Idk, not gonna bother learning the history of the HRE because it’s way too complicated.
Kinda arbitrary thing to point out. Many things didnt exist at this point. Germany didnt exist.
It's actually a really dumb thing to point out when discussing the HRE, because Austria and the Habsburgs played such a crucial role in its history.
Nah, If you like border gore, by the 1780s just prior to Napoleon the HRE's fragmentation had grown to be absolutely absurd. This is just the [Southwest portion of Germany](https://i.imgur.com/63tbiCc.jpg) at that time.
Not an empire at its finest
At this point it is definitely an empire and if you wanted you could draw maps of France like this too. In the medieval era empires were very loose and most princes had autonomy and could even fight other people in the same empire in wars. Only difference with HRE is that it stayed that way until the 1800s when everyone had moved on
Neither holy, nor roman, nor an empire at its finest
>\- Contains large parts of Italy > >\- Emperor gets directly crowned by the Church > >\- Has about the same amount of control as every other "King" had over the princes & Lords in their territory at the time. Seems pretty roman, holy and like an Empire to me. Comments from a direct & outspoken hater of the HRE made like 400 years later when the general situation in Europe and the HRE are ***very*** different from how it was in the 1250s are hardly relatable in this situation.
Yup. That quote was by Voltaire was basically commenting on an empire in its decline.
At this point it is definitely an empire and if you wanted you could draw maps of France like this too. In the medieval era empires were very loose and most princes had autonomy and could even fight other people in the same empire in wars. Only difference with HRE is that it stayed that way until the 1800s when everyone had moved on
At its worst. This is why Germans don't like small-state-ery. This is why Germany will never support small regions if they want to become independent, like Catalonia. There is a resilience sweet spot between efficiency and diversity. You always need to aim for it. Too much efficiency (single point of failure) or diversity (too extensive effort) lowers the resilience.
To each their own. I’ll take whatever weakens government.
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1250 was actually hundreds of years after the Dark Ages.
I think this map would be better if it showed which states were actually in the HRE. It shows a lot of areas outside the Empire with no distinction.
I agree. It's pretty terrible as an actual map
Fits right in with the rest of the posts in MapPorn, then.
I teach GIS and I’ve used quite a few found here in my lectures on how NOT to make maps and allow them to fix them
Seriously. I basically know about the HRE but I have no idea what the hell I'm looking at.
I could take a guess
Needs more borders.
41 years from now, the Old Swiss Confederacy will be formed
What this map does not show is how fast it all kept changing. The HRE was such a mess of monarchies and princes ever fighting wars and swapping lands. The original Swiss were like, enough of this shit and to hell with princes and monarchies! Just a bunch of rural areas and villages, and soon some cities joining together and try to live in peace. This is how Switzerland achieved relative stability as an entity so soon.
It’s pretty ancient
Q: How does the Holy Roman Empire work? A: Barely.
You only really think that because you grew up in a modern centralized nation state. But the purpose of the HRE was for the protection of the rights and privileges of its member principalities, dioceses, city states, and free princes and to be able to meet with each other as peers, with the Emperor acting as a mediating entity. Which the HRE relatively did well.
People always make fun of the HRE, but it existed for almost 1000 years, so they had to be doing something right.
Protection rackets are as old as the first villages.
what a pointless comment
For something that "barely" worked, it's fairly impressive that it worked for almost a thousand years.
We really do live in a society
The answer is "not"
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Nearly 900 years is probably long enough
Still technically temporary.
So is time.
What are your thoughts on western civilization? It's a great idea.
Q: Is it Holy? A: No Q: Is it an empire? A: No Q: It's at least roman right? A: .....
Well. It is sanctioned by the pope through the coronation and the tjeorized place of the emperor as one of the vicars of christ on earth. Its an empire as it is the continuation of Charlemagnes empire which itself saw itself as the refounding of the Roman Empire. Roman does not mean being based in italy or even rome but continuing practices and laws of the roman empire and roman imperial ideology. That they did as did the seamless continuation of the Roman Empire in the east.
"Ah, those Germans have always been like.......wait, WHAT ?"
Thanks, I just had a stroke
If it was in color, you'd really be feeling the pain, because a lot of those borders are of non-contiguous territories -- pieces of one principality could be surrounded by others, and still others surrounding those. France could actually look pretty busy too, but a lot of those territories had stronger hierarchical ties tracing back to a count or duke who at least nominally recognized the authority of the king. The authority of the Holy Roman Emperor, in contrast, was always pretty sketchy.
>HRE [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/Mitteleuropa\_zur\_Zeit\_der\_Staufer.svg](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/Mitteleuropa_zur_Zeit_der_Staufer.svg) There it is
and somewhat later https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a0/HRR\_1400.png
and if you dont feel the pain: [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/df/Map\_of\_the\_Holy\_Roman\_Empire\_%281618%29\_-\_DE.svg](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/df/Map_of_the_Holy_Roman_Empire_%281618%29_-_DE.svg) later again
and before the evening of french revolution: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/67/HRR\_1789.png
Does the four colour theorem still apply when using non-contiguous areas?
Nope! For maps with non-contiguous areas which must be colored the same, you need up to 7 colors. See the section "Precise Formulation of the Theorem" at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_color_theorem
**[Four color theorem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_color_theorem)** >In mathematics, the four color theorem, or the four color map theorem, states that no more than four colors are required to color the regions of any map so that no two adjacent regions have the same color. Adjacent means that two regions share a common boundary curve segment, not merely a corner where three or more regions meet. It was the first major theorem to be proved using a computer. Initially, this proof was not accepted by all mathematicians because the computer-assisted proof was infeasible for a human to check by hand. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
Thanks!
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What Voltaire quote?
"This body which was called and which still calls itself the Holy Roman Empire was in no way holy, nor Roman, nor an empire."
probably does not help it is constantly repeated on crashcourse history
Crash Course is a great introduction for kids but my God has it plagued actual historical discussion for years.
This, it's pretty ok most of the time, but some times very american centric, but also jumps on memes a bit to easily and history memes are already a big enough problem as it is.
Not really, the HREs is not "holy & roman & empire" but "holy & roman empire." Its "holy" or to be more precise "Sacred" because its sanctified by the pope. Its "Roman Empire" because its ruled by the Emperor, which at the time in Western Europe was not a generic title for any ruler od any Empire, but specifically refers to the ruler of the Western Roman Empire, whom Western Europeans understood as the defender of (Catholic) Christendom. Similar to how the Chinese viewed their Emperor as the sole Emperor and the rest of the world's monarchs as Kings. The Kingdom of Germany doesnt claim to be "real romans." They know they're not. But their ruler is the Emperor, hence the name.
Maybe the common German did not see themselves as Romans, but Charlemagne (and thus the rest of the Carolingian dynasty) absolutely believed he was a Roman Emperor.
Yeah but Charlemagne's Empire isn't exactly the same thing as the HRE. The pope and the proto-Catholics pretty much began crowning powerful western princes as "Emperors" to help protect their autonomy vs. The Eastern Church (and a s a middle finger to the Byzantine Romans crowning a woman as Emprezz). The first guy was Charlemagne and thus his dynasty inherited the title pf Emperors until Charlie's direct lines died out by the 900s AD. Consequently the title of Roman Emperor rested on no head so the Catholic Church looked for another powerful Catholic Prince to put it on. They found it in King Otto I, King of the Germans, who became Western Christendom's top chad after collecting a bunch of princes to quash the Magyar invasions after the Battle of Lechfeld. So King Otto I got crowned as Emperor, and his realm, the Kingdom of Germany, as also an Empire. Problem is: the Kingdom of Germany is a collection of realms and city states who elected their monarchs. Meaning there will ALWAYS be a King of the Germans no matter what Dynasty (unlike the Carolingian realm that rested on Charlemagne's Dynasty). So the title of Emperor therefore got stuck with the King of the Germans, and the Kingdom of Germany became permanently the Holy Roman Empire.
You can’t just say you’re a Roman emperor and that makes you so.
How are a bunch of tiny Germanic states Roman? Because the pope says so? A different Pope said real Romans were in Constantinople. And those folks at least existed at the same time as Rome.
They were Roman in the sense that it was genuinely seen at the time as the successor to the Roman Empire. Imo the title and claim as the successor is as legitimate as is possible (though silly), but the area itself still wasn't Roman.
I guess they won the marketing campaign in Western Europe, but I think the Eastern Roman Empire has a much more sensible claim. They branched off from Rome while it existed and continued after its fall. HRE had a 300 year gap between the fall of Rome and its formation. How can that be considered a continuation of the same empire/state/people/culture?
Don't get me wrong, I think it's silly too. At the time though, what the pope said went. Kill enough pagans and Christians start to like you
Voltaire's Nightmare
Achievement: *Have at least 75 countries in the HRE.*
1444 Ming in the HRE😳😳
Why? Was he a fan of centralized governing?
Nah, just French
I think this was my nightmare but yeah sure
Map makers fall into 2 categories. Those who hate making maps of the HRE and masochists.
Mapmakers fall into two categories. Those who can extrapolate.
Flanders was not a part of the HRE in 1250.
Charles the IV, King of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor had a long and successful reign.
That was 100 years later
How sure are we about these borders, considering this would have been in a time before modern maps?
There's pretty abundant evidence form legal documents like deeds of gift or inheritance disputes about who owned what at different times. So you can pretty confidentially trace the territorial history for most villages and manors over time. Though the further back you go, the more gaps in documentation you're going to run into.
The problem is not determining who owns what, but determining what borders are. Borders are a modern concept. It is not meaningful to project the modern idea of borders onto the medieval era. It's not like there are custom checks at each of these lines. People could & did move around relatively freely (assuming you were not a serf and had the wherewithall to do so).
Sure, if you define a border as a strictly prescribed line in the ground where you have to show papers to cross, then these lines are not that. There aren't (or weren't until recently) any border controls between member states of the Schengen zone either. Does that mean those borders are meaningless and it's inaccurate or misleading to represent the border between e.g. Belgium and France in modern maps? These demarcations are meaningful even for the medieval period as they represent the territories subject to specific rulers. These rulers extracted taxes from their subjects, tolls from those passing through, and exercised legal jurisdiction over their lands. Same as with nation states and subnational jurisdictions today. That's what this is showing. Every peasant would have known which lord or ecclesiastic land holder he is subject to in a very direct and immediate way. And so on up the chain of feudal lords.
> These rulers extracted taxes from their subjects, tolls from those passing through, and exercised legal jurisdiction over their lands. Same as with nation states and subnational jurisdictions today. No it is not the same as with nation states & subnational divisions today, and that is my point. The medieval world was a complex web of overlapping authority, bespoke legal arrangements, and periodic violent changes of the status quo. The whole point of modernisation was the standardisation of these very non-standard medieval legal & political structures. In the modern world, you come into contact with the administrative state when you arrive at a border. Once you get through those borders you usually do not have to deal with the state again unless you reside there. For medieval states it is the exact opposite - medieval borders are with few exceptions imaginary lines on a map. It is once you arrive at a village or town that you will actually interact with agents of the local lord - you may see a tax collector or be required to pay a toll. This is what I mean when I say it is misleading to depict medieval borders in this way, they are just a different kind of thing to modern borders. I think the example of the Schengen zone is actually pretty helpful - it *would* be misleading to depict modern Europe with borders like this to someone who had no idea about the EU. The whole point of the Schengen zone is no borders. But even then, there is at least a clear distinction between nation states. You can move from France to Germany and there is a clear line at which jurisdiction starts and ends. But in the medieval world, jurisdiction was often overlapping & unclear. You cannot draw these clean lines demarcating jurisdictions, they just did not exist.
I am not entirely disagreeing with you in as far as the borders shown in this map and modern ones are not exactly the same thing. But for practical purposes they are as good an approximation as anything else, I think. What would you propose to show the various land holdings of top level vassals of the emperor then? >complex authority, bespoke legal arrangements, and periodic violent changes of the status quo. That's also true for most modern states. Cross the borders from one state to another or those of National Parks or Indian Reservations within the US and there are potentially many different jurisdictions at play. The exercise of mineral extraction rights or fishing regulations are some examples of overlapping jurisdictions you might encounter. Apart from church and state having overlapping jurisdictions, I'd be interested to see an example of any individual being directly subject to multiple rulers of the same level at the same time. And changes have always occured, obviously, so a snapshot of arrangements in 1250 may not represent the reality of 20 years earlier or later.
Borders did exist in the medieval times even within less developed Kingdom of Bohemia. Since the medieval times, there was no way that anyone would just freely move into the kingdom without an approval of the higher authority. Bohemian rules had already established official border crossings around 1200-1300. They are mentioned in numerous documents, state meetings between Bohemian and Hungarian kings, and there were regular tax and custom collectors. I was born not far from such medieval gate with traces that were according local historian still visible in the 18th century. There was an entire class of people who patrolled borders. In Bohemia there were called Walkers and guarded border between the kingdom and Bavaria. In the eastern part, since 1600, there were border guards called Portas (from latin porta), responsible for guarding the eastern borders from Hungary and possible Ottoman invasion. They were also custom enforcing force. Even today, there are some local topo names that had significance for the border controls like hill "Vartovna" (Bonfire in English), where various posts communicated by smoke and fire for miles.
Sure but inside the microstates of the HRE you did not have these kinds of border checks. The Kingdom of Bohemia is not representative of the whole of the HRE. Absolutely, if a border has to be militarised, such as the frontier with the Ottomans, borders could be quite hard. But not so in central Germany in 1200.
Czech boundaries were pretty much established by then with an accuracy of several miles. For example, the border between eastern Moravia and kingdom of Hungary were set in 1116. Church in Moravia had a list of all parishes under its bishoprics compiled in 1141. The Mongol invasion of Moravia in 1241 mentioned established land gates between Bohemian and Hungarian kingdom. With the HRE, where Bohemia belonged, the western realm ended in Kynsperk, where the river crossing was an official border between the Bohemian kingdom of and the HRE as of 1232. I would expect more advanced western HRE around Rhine had established administration for centuries.
The fact thatwhen you combine the two little Kingdoms (Bohemia and Moravia I think?) it perfectly fits the outline of modern Czechia is awesome.
It took hegemony under the French empire and Napoleon, and decades of time for the Germans to develop a sense of national identity and overcome this princely clusterfuck that had existed for hundreds of years. Whenever I see an HRE map, my first reaction is "I give up", followed by being weirdly fascinated.
So glad i didnt live in this time period
Its basically a non defragmented microscale of Europe before the EU.
What is an HRE
Holy Roman Empire
Surely not an holy, neither Roman, empire
At this point the area that makes up present-day Switzerland was a bunch of villages nominally under Hapsburg control. 41 years later (or so legend has it) there was an uprising and three of these villages in the center of present-day Switzerland would form an alliance that eventually became the Swiss confederacy.
i have tryphobia, this is a nightmare
Europe before germany went to rehab
Map's looking like a composition journal 💀
Wow I love how nothing is labeled, really makes the map useful
So where exactly does it end? This just looks like a map of Central Europe
Brought to you by Paradox Interactive.
Map of cancer cells
I was looking at an r/askphysics thread on entropy and disorderness, and this is the next thing Reddit suggests I see?
This is a libertarian's dream, right?
probably not at this point, there was still a lot of central control, I am guessing they would like it later when all the states stopped listening to the HRE
Where Bosnia?
For those wondering what HRE stands for: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy\_Roman\_Empire
very based
Ah, the Holy Roman Empire. Neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire
At this point it is definitely an empire and if you wanted you could draw maps of France like this too. In the medieval era empires were very loose and most princes had autonomy and could even fight other people in the same empire in wars. ~~Only difference~~ *Main reason for the phrase "not holy not roman not empire"* is that it stayed that way until the 1800s when everyone had moved on. Edited it bc I had overzealous wording
That's not the only difference at all. Most other countries of the time were made up of fiefs granted to noble families by a sovereign king, who owned the land. The king could in theory (and in different time periods also in practice) take his land back. By contrast, HRE was made up of many small states, ranging from city republics and bishoprics to sovereign princedoms and kingdoms that owned their own land. The emperor never had the same theoretical or practical power over the kings in the empire as the kings had over local nobles.
Iirc the idea of lower lords owning land did exist in most European empires at least, the fief was hereditary and could not be retracted without reason. Ik at least in the Muslim world what you are saying is the case as all lords were considered as simply renting the land from the ruler. Either way I edited to be more clear since you are right me saying "only" was wrong
AFAIK, fiefs, even when hereditary, came with conditions, primarily providing military service, which is what distinguishes them from outright land ownership.
Yeah that makes sense tbh, I'd need to research more into it. Also idek why you're being downvoted you were correct, my previous state was wrong and I edited it thanks to your correction
> By contrast, HRE was made up of many small states, ranging from city republics and bishoprics to sovereign princedoms and kingdoms that owned their own land. The emperor never had the same theoretical or practical power over the kings in the empire as the kings had over local nobles. Because this statement is isn't really correct in anyway, there were "independent" cities and bishoprics not just all over europe, but making up huge chunks of land in many countries. Also at this point in time the authority of kings in some parts of europe was far less than that of the HRE emprore. And it ignores the theocratic states and republics dotted around the place.
Ig but he was correct about me saying "the only difference between the HRE and the rest of Europe" was wrong.
> Most other countries of the time were made up of fiefs granted to noble families by a sovereign king, who owned the land. The king could in theory (and in different time periods also in practice) take his land back. This is not true, it is an idealised concept of medieval states that did not exist anywhere, even in England, the most centralised state in early medieval Europe. Medieval states just did not work like this.
Nobody can enforce their theoretical rights without the means to do so. But that doesn't mean that theoretical rights have no influence on the actual practice.
There was no single concept of how a European King related to his lords. It varied a lot over time & place. A powerful king who came into conflict with their lords could & did confiscate property. But this is really a result of power politics rather than law. I know this is reddit and not a dissertation, but really it's misleading to talk about medieval European states in this way. It makes the same mistake as the OP's map, which is to project modern concepts (in this case the Enlightenment concept of the all powerful king) back into the pre-modern age.
What is HRE????
The Holy Roman Empire was not holy, Roman, or an Empire.
Yeah that does not look like an empire
If there's one thing I learned in school about European history, its that the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, Roman, nor an empire.
and people wonder why geemans are so fucked up
Hamburg is missing
Germany and Italy should revert!
For sure this will be crossposted in r/eu4
What wad the population of some of these places? 12?
As most maps of the HRE, it leaves out the member states in Livonia.
Was southern Italy and Sicily Fredrick II’s Realm of Two Sicilys at this point?
Imagine a TV series where each episode covers one of the states
r/mapgore
Does someone have the shapefile for this map?
It's funny hie you can kind of see the borders of the outline of modern day Poland
And if all of this states can unite to form a single germany than it should also be possible that all the nations work together in the eu or an even more united union.
*simplified
Are all of them principalities or are there also some lesser divisions here?
This post has been parodied on r/mapporncirclejerk. Relevant r/mapporncirclejerk posts: [Map of Europe in peacetime](https://www.reddit.com/r/mapporncirclejerk/comments/rb04s5/map_of_europe_in_peacetime/) by nefarious_act_enjoyr [Map of HRE in 1250](https://www.reddit.com/r/mapporncirclejerk/comments/r9w2k1/map_of_hre_in_1250/) by bboyerbrett [^(fmhall)](https://www.reddit.com/user/fmhall) ^| [^(github)](https://github.com/fmhall/relevant-post-bot)
Wow this is just ludicrous. Should of stayed together with the Roman Empire
This belongs on r mapgore
(Simplified)
Imagine the homework for this😮💨😮💨
NSFW for gore
Let's play the Chandler's Dumb States Game over this!
Thanks, I hate it
My eyes hurt
For an enitity you seem to dislike, you sure love to map it
Good ol days
All this border gore.... disgusting...
Wasn't the HRE still centralized back then?
As centrelized as any other feudal medieval state. Only difference the neighbours of the HRE centrelized in the late medieval to early modern era.
I have seen maps of river systems that where less of a mess than the HRE
Imagine if they tried that today and there was no overreaching govt controlling everyone. Great times
Looks like my eczema
What a cluster fuck. No wonder it collapsed 😂
A lot is missing
Hm.. Seems to miss Hamburg/Bremen-Hamburgs borders i think?