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.
Well, my small hypothesis that probably isn't all that accurate is that there are a lot of players vying for power and that's exactly how I'm going to fragment my states.
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.
I think all of these historical examples and counterexamples point to the fact that there are gazillions of reasons why smaller states might or might not exist anywhere in a world.
As the examples with the Holy Roman Empire demonstrate, the exact definition of a state might be different depending on how your world works. Historically, states we would nowadays consider as "independent" were in fact vassals or under the domination of another, more powerful state. The vice versa also occured - little states that were de jure vassals or under the domination of a bigger state were, in fact, independent for the most part. The main issue especially the earlier you go, in my opinion, is because the definitions of what constitutes a nation, a state, or some kind of political entity, differs, it's harder to say exactly "so and so state existed here at this time" or "so and so state was actually province of so and so state".
Anyhow, I think there are a lot of good reasons why a small state might exist, and you just have to find ones that make sense in the context of your conworld.
Ocean currents direct climate. The Sahara was rain forest. Then the gulf stream shifted and caused a desert to form. But only the largest in the world.
