finlay wrote:
Eddy wrote:
@Guitarplayer: But wasn't the Holy Roman Empire basically one country, albeit with a great deal of internal division and such?
It's more akin to the modern EU; independent states
sort of under a common banner. It was probably an even looser connection than the EU.
As far as I know, at least. I still don't understand how it managed to get
so fragmented and disjointed, especially with the amount of exclaves that you can see in the map.
Think of each duke, earl, or baron as the analogue of a modern real estate agent who trades possessions in various cities and regions. The main difference is that the preferred methods of trade were marriage, inheritance, and receiving rewards from the emperor for supporting him in times of trouble. With a central authority that's not much more than a banner and a name, and with the addition of religious strife between catholic and protestant lords, who were often neighbours but preferred to do business with lords of their own denomination instead, you have all the ingredients for a fragmented political geography.