Chapter VIII: The Imperial Kingdoms (1)

♦The Kingdom of the _East-Franks_ or of _Germany_.♦

The division of 887 parted off from the general mass of the Frankish dominions a distinct _Kingdom of the East-Franks_, the acknowledged head of the Frankish kingdoms, which, as being distinguished from its fellows as the _Regnum Teutonicum_, may be best spoken of as a _Kingdom of Germany_. ♦Merging of the Kingdom in the Empire.♦ But the lasting acquisition of the Italian and Imperial crowns by the German kings, and their later acquisition of the kingdom of Burgundy, gradually tended to obscure the notion of a distinct German kingdom. The idea of the Kingdom was merged in the idea of the Empire of which it formed a part. Later events too tended in the same direction. ♦The Emperors lose Italy and Burgundy, but keep Germany.♦ The Italian kingdom gradually fell off from any practical allegiance to its nominal king the Emperor. So did the greater part of the Burgundian kingdom. Meanwhile, though the powers of the Emperors as German kings were constantly lessening, their authority was never wholly thrown off till the present century. The Emperors in short lost their kingdoms of Italy and Burgundy, and kept their kingdom of Germany. In the fifteenth century the coronation of the Emperor at Rome had become a mere ceremony, carrying with it no real authority in Italy. In the sixteenth century the ceremony itself went out of use. ♦Charles the Fourth crowned at Arles, 1365.♦ The Burgundian coronation at Arles became irregular at a very early time, and it is last heard of in the fourteenth century. ♦1792.♦ But the election of the German kings at Frankfurt, their coronation, in earlier times at Aachen, afterwards at Frankfurt, went on regularly till the last years of the eighteenth century. ♦Endurance of the German Diet.♦ So, while the national assemblies of Italy and Burgundy can hardly be said to have been regularly held at all, while they went altogether out of use at an early time, the national assembly of Germany, in one shape or another, never ceased as long as there was any one calling himself Emperor or German King. The tendency in all three kingdoms was to split up into separate principalities and commonwealths. ♦Comparison of Germany, Italy, and Burgundy.♦ But in Germany the principalities and commonwealths always kept up some show of connexion with one another, some show of allegiance to their Imperial head. In Italy and Burgundy they parted off altogether. Some became absolutely independent; were incorporated with other kingdoms or became their distant dependencies; some were even held by the Emperors themselves in some other character, and not by virtue either of their Empire or of their local kingship. ♦The Empire identified with Germany.♦ Thus, as the Empire became more and more nearly coextensive with the German Kingdom, the distinction between the two was gradually forgotten. The small parts of the other kingdoms which kept any trace of their Imperial allegiance came to be looked on as parts of Germany. ♦The Empire becomes a Confederation.♦ In short, the Western Empire became a German kingdom; or rather it became a German Confederation with a royal head, a confederation which still kept up the forms and titles of the Empire. ♦1530.♦ As no German king received an Imperial coronation after Charles the Fifth, it might in strictness be said that the Empire came to an end at his abdication. ♦1556.♦ And in truth from that date the Empire practically became a purely German power. But, as the Imperial forms and titles still went on, the Western Empire must be looked on as surviving, in the form of a German kingdom or confederation, down to its final fall.

♦The German Kingdom represents the Empire.♦

The Kingdom of Germany then may be looked on as representing the Western Empire, as being what was left of the Western Empire after the other parts of it had fallen away. But the German kingdom itself underwent, though in a smaller degree, the same fate as the other two Imperial kingdoms. ♦Separation of parts of the Kingdom.♦ While all Italy and all Burgundy, with some very trifling exceptions, fell away from the Empire, the mass of Germany remained Imperial. Still large parts of Germany were lost to the Empire no less than Italy and Burgundy. A considerable territory on the western and south-western frontier of Germany gradually fell away. Part of this territory has grown into independent states; part has been incorporated with the French kingdom. The Swiss Confederation has grown up on lands partly German, partly Burgundian, partly Italian, but of which the oldest and greatest part belonged to the German kingdom. The Confederation of the United Provinces, represented by the modern kingdom of the Netherlands, lay wholly[12] within the old German kingdom: so did by far the greater part of the modern kingdom of Belgium. ♦Modern Austria.♦ In our own day the same tendency has been shewn in south-eastern as well as south-western Germany; several members of the ancient kingdom have fallen away to form part of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. ♦Extension of Germany to the north-east.♦ But on the northern and north-eastern frontier the tendency to extension, with some fluctuations, has gone on from the beginning of the kingdom to our own day. ♦Geographical contrast of the earlier and later Empire.♦ This tendency to lose territory to the west and south, and to gain territory to the east and north, had the effect of gradually cutting off the Western Empire, as represented by the German kingdom, from any close geographical connexion with the earlier Empire of which it was the historical continuation. The Holy Roman Empire, at the time of its final fall, contained but little territory which had formed part of the Empire of Trajan. It contained nothing which had formed part of the Empire of Justinian, save some small scraps of territory in the north-eastern corner of the old Italian kingdom.

§ 1. _The Kingdom of Germany._

♦Change in the geography and nomenclature of Germany.♦

In tracing out, for our present purpose, the geographical revolutions of Germany, it will be enough to look at them, as far as may be, mainly in their European aspect. Owing to the gradual way in which the various members of the Empire grew into practical sovereignty—owing to the constant division of principalities among many members of the same family—no country has undergone so many internal geographical changes as Germany has. In few countries also has the nomenclature shifted in a more singular way. ♦Ancient and modern Saxony and Bavaria.♦ To take two obvious examples, the modern kingdom of _Saxony_ has nothing but its name in common with the Saxony which was brought under the Frankish dominion by Charles the Great. The modern kingdom of _Bavaria_ has a considerable territory in common with the ancient Bavaria; but it has gained so much at one end and lost so much at the other that the two cannot be said to be in any practical sense the same country. ♦Uses of the name Austria.♦ The name of _Austria_ has shifted from the eastern part of the old _Francia_ to the German mark against the Magyar, and it has lately wandered altogether beyond the modern German frontier. ♦Burgundy.♦ The name of _Burgundy_ has borne endless meanings, both within the Empire and beyond it. ♦Prussia.♦ Lastly, the ruling state of modern Germany, a state stretching across the whole land from east to west, strangely bears the name of the conquered and extinct _Prussian_ race. Many of these changes affect the history of Europe as well as the history of Germany; but many of the endless changes among the smaller members of the Empire are matters of purely local interest, which belong to the historical geography of Germany only, and which claim no place in the historical geography of Europe. I shall endeavour therefore in the present section, first to trace carefully the shiftings of the German frontier as regards other powers, and then to bring out such, and such only, of the internal changes as have a bearing on the general history of Europe.

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♦Extent of the Kingdom.♦

The extent of the German kingdom as it stood after the division of 887 has been roughly traced already. ♦Boundaries under the Ottos, 936-1002.♦ It will now be well to go over its frontiers somewhat more minutely, as they stood at the time of final separation between the Empire and the West-Frankish kingdom, the time of final union between the Empire and the East-Frankish kingdom. This marks the great age of the Saxon Ottos. ♦Boundary towards the West.♦ The frontier towards the Western kingdom was now fairly ascertained, and it was subject to dispute only at a few points. ♦Lotharingia.♦ It is hardly needful to insist again on the fact that all Lotharingia, in the sense of those days, taking in all the southern Netherlands except the French fief of Flanders, was now Imperial. ♦Encroachments of France.♦ It is along this line that the German border has in later times most largely fallen back. The advance of France has touched Burgundy more than Germany; but it has, first swallowed up, and afterwards partly restored, a considerable part of the German kingdom. ♦The Netherlands.♦ The Netherlands had been practically so cut off from Germany before the annexations of France in that quarter began, that they will be better spoken of in another section. ♦Lorraine and Elsass.♦ The other points at which the frontier has fluctuated on a great scale have been the border land of _Lorraine_—as distinguished from the Lower _Lotharingia_ which has more to do with the history of the Netherlands—and the Swabian land of _Elsass_. ♦Fluctuations of Bar.♦ The Duchy of _Bar_, the borderland of the borderland, fluctuated more than once. ♦1473.♦ After its union with the Duchy of Lorraine, it followed the fortunes of that state. ♦The Three Bishoprics, 1552.♦ In the next century came the annexation of the three Lotharingian bishoprics of _Metz_, _Toul_, and _Verdun_, which gave France three outlying possessions within the geographical borders of the Lotharingian duchy. ♦Loss of Austrian Elsass, 1648.♦ In the next century, as the result of the Thirty Years’ War, France obtained by the Peace of Westfalia the formal cession of these conquests, and also the great advance of her frontier by the dismemberment of _Elsass_. The cession now made did not take in the whole of Elsass, but only the possessions and rights of the House of Austria in that country. This cession still left both Strassburg and various smaller towns and districts to the Empire; but it naturally opened the way to further French advances in a land where the frontier was so complicated and where difficulties were so easily raised as to treaty-rights. ♦Gradual annexation of Elsass, 1679-1789.♦ A series of annexations, _réunions_ as they were called, gradually united nearly all Elsass to France. ♦Seizure of Strassburg, 1681.♦ _Strassburg_, as all the world knows, was seized by Lewis the Fourteenth in time of peace. ♦Seizure of Lorraine, 1678-1697.♦ During the wars with the same prince, the duchy of Lorraine was seized and restored. ♦Its final annexation. 1766.♦ In the next century it was separated from the Empire to become the life-possession of the Polish king Stanislaus, and on his death it was finally added to France just before a far greater series of French annexations began. ♦Loss of the left bank of the Rhine, 1801.♦ The wars of the French Revolution, confirmed by the Peace of _Luneville_, tore away from Germany and the Empire all that lay on the left bank of the Rhine. In other words, the Western _Francia_, the duchy of the lords of Paris, advanced itself to the utmost limits of the Gaul of Cæsar. This was the last annexation of France at the expense of the old German kingdom. ♦Dissolution of the Kingdom and Empire, 1806.♦ It was indeed the main cause of the formal dissolution of the kingdom which happened a few years later. The utter transformation of Germany within and without which now followed must be spoken of at a later stage.

♦Frontier of Germany and Burgundy.♦

The frontier of Germany and Burgundy, while they still remained distinct kingdoms, fluctuated a good deal, especially in the lands which now form Switzerland. ♦Union of Burgundy with the Empire, 1033.♦ But this frontier ceased to be of any practical importance when the Burgundian kingdom was united with the Empire. The later history of Burgundy, consisting of the gradual incorporation by France of the greater part of the kingdom, and the growth of the remnant into the western cantons of the Swiss Confederation, will be told elsewhere.

♦Frontier of Germany and Italy.♦

Towards Italy again the frontier was sometimes doubtful. _Chiavenna_, for instance, sometimes appears in the tenth and eleventh centuries as German; so do the greater districts of _Trent_, _Aquileia_, _Istria_, and even _Verona_. ♦The Marchland.♦ All these formed a marchland, part of which in the end became definitely attached to Germany and part to Italy. ♦Union of the Crowns, 961-1530. | 961-1250.♦ But here again, as long as the German and Italian crowns were united, and as long as their common king kept any real authority in either kingdom, the frontier was of no great practical importance. So in later times, both before and after the dissolution of the German Kingdom, the question has practically been a question between Italy and the House of Austria rather than between Italy and Germany as such. These changes also will better come in another section.

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♦Eastern and Northern frontiers.♦

The case is quite different with regard to the eastern and northern frontiers, on which the really greatest changes took place, and where Germany, as Germany, made its greatest advances. ♦Advance of the Empire.♦ Along this line the Roman Empire and the German Kingdom meant the same thing. On this side the frontier had to be marked, so far as it could be marked, against nations which had had nothing to do with the elder Empire. Here then for many ages the Roman Terminus advanced and fell back according to the accidents of a long warfare.

The whole frontier of the kingdom towards its northern and eastern neighbours was defended by a series of _marks_ or border territories whose rulers were clothed with special powers for the defence and extension of the frontier.[13] They had to guard the realm against the Dane in the north, and against the Slave during the whole remaining length of the eastern frontier, except where, in the last years of the ninth century, the Magyar thrust himself in between the northern and southern Slaves. ♦Hungarian frontier. | Mark of Austria.♦ Here the frontier, as against Hungary and Croatia, was defended by the marks of _Krain_ or _Carniola_, _Kärnthen_ or _Carinthia_, _Austrian_ mark to the north of them. ♦Little change on this frontier.♦ This frontier has changed least of all. It may, without any great breach of accuracy, be said to have remained the same from the days of the Saxon Emperors till now. The part where it was at all fluctuating was along the Austrian mark, rather than along the two marks to the south of it. ♦Occasional homage of Hungary to the Emperors.♦ The Emperors claimed, and sometimes enforced, a feudal superiority over the Hungarian kings. But this kind of precarious submission does not affect geography. Hungary always remained a separate kingdom; the Imperial supremacy was something purely external, and it was always thrown off on the first opportunity.

♦Frontier towards Denmark.♦

The same may be said of _Denmark_. For a short time a German mark was formed north of the Eider. ♦The Danish Mark, 934-1027. | Boundary of the Eider, 1027-1806.♦ But, when the Danish kingdom had grown into the Northern Empire of Cnut, the German frontier fell back here also, and the _Eider_ remained the boundary of the Empire till its fall. ♦Occasional homage of the Danish Kings.♦ As with Hungary, so with Denmark; more than one Danish king became the man of Cæsar; but here again the precarious acknowledgement of Imperial supremacy had no effect on geography.

♦Slavonic frontier.♦

It is in the intermediate lands, along the vast frontier where the Empire marched on the northern _Slavonic_ lands, that the real historical geography of Germany lies for some ages. ♦Fluctuation of territory.♦ Here the boundary was ever fluctuating. ♦Extent of the Slaves.♦ At the time of the division of 887, the Slaves held all east of the Elbe and a good deal to the west. How far they had during the Wandering of the Nations stepped into the place of earlier Teutonic inhabitants is a question which belongs to another field of inquiry. We must here start from the geographical fact that, at the time when the modern states of Europe began to form themselves, the Slaves were actually in possession of the great North-Eastern region of modern Germany. Their special mention will come in their special place; we must here mark that modern Germany has largely formed itself by the gradual conquest and colonization of lands which at the end of the ninth century were Slavonic. The German kingdom spread itself far to the North-East, and German settlements and German influences spread themselves far beyond the formal bounds of the German kingdom. Three special instruments worked together in bringing about this end. The Saxon Dukes came first. In after times came the great league of German cities, the famous _Hansa_ which, like some other bodies originally commercial, became a political power, and which spread German influences over the whole of the shores of the Baltic. Along with them, from the thirteenth century onwards, worked the great military order of the Teutonic knights. Out of their conquests came the first beginnings of the Prussian state, and the extension of German rule and the German speech over much which in modern geography has become Russian. In a history of the German nation all these causes would have to be dealt with together as joint instruments towards the same end. In a purely geographical view the case is different. Some of these influences concern the formation of the actual German kingdom; others have geographically more to do with the group of powers more to the north-east, the Slavonic states of Poland and Russia, and their Lithuanian and Finnish neighbours. The growth and fall of the military orders will therefore most naturally come in another section. We have here to trace out those changes only which helped to give the German kingdom the definite geographical extent which it held for some centuries before its final fall.

♦The Saxon Mark.♦

Beginning at the north, in the lands where German, Slave, and Dane came into close contact, in _Saxony beyond the Elbe_, the modern _Holstein_, the Slaves held the western coast, and the narrow _Saxon mark_ fenced off the German land. ♦Mark of the Billungs, 960-1106.♦ The Saxon dukes of the house of Billung formed a German mark, which took in the lands reaching from the Elbe to the strait which divides the isle of Rügen from the mainland. But this possession was altogether precarious. ♦Its fluctuations.♦ It again became a Slavonic kingdom; then it was a possession of Denmark; it cannot be looked on as definitely becoming part of the German realm till the thirteenth century. ♦Slavonic princes continue in Mecklenburg.♦ The chief state in these lands which has lasted till later times is the duchy of _Mecklenburg_, the rulers of which, in its two modern divisions, are the only modern princes who directly represent an old Slavonic royal house. Meanwhile a way was opened for a vast extension of German influence through the whole North, by the growth of the city of _Lübeck_. ♦Foundation of Lübeck, 1140-1158.♦ Twice founded, the second time by Henry the Lion Duke of Saxony, it gradually became the leading member of the great merchant League. ♦The Hanse Towns.♦ To the south of these lands come those Slavonic lands which have grown into the modern kingdom of Saxony and the central parts of the modern kingdom of Prussia. ♦Marchlands.♦ These were specially marchlands, a name which some of them have kept down to our own day. ♦Brandenburg. | Lausitz. | Meissen.♦ The mark of _Brandenburg_ in its various divisions, the mark of _Lausitz_ or _Lusatia_, where a Slavonic remnant still lingers, and the mark of _Meissen_, long preserved the memory of the times when these lands, which afterwards came to play so great a part in the internal history of Germany, were still outlying and precarious possessions of the German realm.

To the south-east lay the _Bohemian_ lands, whose history has been somewhat different. ♦Bohemia a fief, 928.♦ The duchy, afterwards kingdom, of _Bohemia_, became, early in the tenth century, a fief of the German kingdom. ♦Becomes a kingdom, 1198. | 1003.♦ From that time ever afterwards, save during one moment of passing Polish annexation, it remained one of its principal members, ruled, as long as the Empire lasted, by princes holding electoral rank. The boundaries of the kingdom itself have hardly varied at all. ♦Moravia. | 1019.♦ The dependent marchland of _Moravia_ to the east, the remnant of the great Moravian kingdom whose history will come more fittingly in another chapter, fluctuated for a long while between Hungarian, Polish, and Bohemian supremacy. But from the early part of the eleventh century it remained under Bohemian rule, and therefore under Imperial superiority. ♦More distant Slavonic states.♦ To the east of this nearer zone of Slavonic dependencies, lay another range of Slavonic states, some of which were gradually incorporated with the German kingdom, while others remained distinct down to modern times. ♦Pomerania.♦ _Pomerania_ on the Baltic coast is a name which has often changed both its geographical extent and its political allegiance. The eastern part of the land now so called lay open, as will be hereafter seen, to the occupation of the Pole, and its western part to that of the Dane. ♦Native princes go on.♦ But in the end it took its place on the map in the form of two duchies, ruled, like Mecklenburg, by native princes under Imperial supremacy. ♦Polish frontier.♦ South of Pomerania, the German march bordered on the growing power of _Poland_, and between Poland and Hungary lay the northern _Croatia_ or _Chrobatia_. The German supremacy seems sometimes to have been extended as far as the Wartha, and, in the Chrobatian land, even beyond the Vistula. ♦Occasional homage of the Polish kings.♦ But this occupation was quite momentary; Poland grew up, like Hungary, as a kingdom, some of whose dukes and kings admitted the Imperial supremacy, but which gradually became wholly independent. ♦Silesia Polish, 999.♦ The border province of _Silesia_, after some fluctuations between Bohemia and Poland, became definitely Polish at the end of the tenth century. ♦Bohemian, 1289-1327.♦ Afterwards it was divided into several principalities, whose dukes passed under Bohemian vassalage, and so became members of the Empire. Thus in the course of some ages, a boundary was drawn between Germany and Poland which lasted down to modern times.

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♦Extension of the Empire to the east.♦

The result of this survey is to show how great, and at the same time how gradual, was the extension of the German power eastward. A Roman Empire with a long Baltic coast was something that had never been dreamed of in earlier days. If the extension of the German name was but the recovery of long lost Teutonic lands, the extension to them of the Imperial name which had become identified with Germany was at least wholly new. ♦The Slavonic lands Germanized.♦ In all the lands now annexed, save in a few exceptional districts, German annexation meant German colonization, and the assimilation of the surviving inhabitants to the speech and manners of Germany. Colonists were brought, specially from the Frisian lands, by whose means the Low-Dutch tongue was spread along the whole southern coast of the Baltic. German cities were founded. The marchlands grew into powerful German states. At last one of these marchlands, united with a German conquest still further cut off from the heart of the old German realm, has grown into a state which in our own days has become the Imperial power of Germany.

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♦Internal geography of Germany.♦

The internal geography of the German kingdom is the greatest difficulty of such a work as the present. To trace the boundaries of the kingdom as against other kingdoms is comparatively easy; but to trace out the endless shiftings, the unions and the divisions, of the countless small principalities and commonwealths which arose within the kingdom, would be a hopeless attempt. ♦Growth of the principalities.♦ Still the growth of the dukes, counts, and other princes of Germany into independent sovereigns is the great feature of German history, as the consequent wiping out of old divisions, and shifting to and fro of old names, is the special feature of German historical geography. ♦Changes in nomenclature.♦ The dying out of the old names has a historical interest, and the growth of the new powers which have supplanted them has both an historical and a political interest. ♦Origin of Prussia and Austria.♦ It is specially important to mark how the two powers which have stood at the head of Germany in modern times in no way represent any of the old divisions of the German name. They have grown out of the outlying _marks_ planted against the Slave and the Magyar. The mark of _Brandenburg_, the mark against the Slave, has grown into the kingdom of _Prussia_, the Imperial state of Germany in its latest form. The _Eastern_ mark, the mark against the Magyar, has grown into the archduchy which gave Germany so many kings, into the so-called Austrian ‘empire,’ into the Austro-Hungarian monarchy of our own day. ♦Analogies between Brandenburg and other marchlands.♦ The growth of Brandenburg or Prussia again affords an instructive comparison with the growth of Wessex in England, of France in Gaul, and of Castile in Spain. In all these cases alike, it has been a marchland which has come to the front and has become the head of the united nation.

♦The great Duchies under the Saxon and Frankish Kings, 919-1125.♦

Starting from the division of 887, we shall find several important landmarks in the history of the German kingdom which may help us in this most difficult part of our work. Under the Saxon and Frankish kings we see the great duchies still forming the main divisions, while the kingdom is enlarged by Slavonic conquests to the east and by the definite adhesion of Lotharingia to the west. ♦Decline of the Duchies under the Swabian Kings, 1137-1254.♦ Under the Swabian kings we see the break-up of the great duchies. In the partition of Saxony the process which was everywhere silently and gradually at work was formally carried out in the greatest case of all by Imperial, and national authority. ♦End of the _Gauverfassung_. | Growth of territorial Principalities.♦ The _Gauverfassung_, the immemorial system of Teutonic communities, now finally changes into a system of territorial principalities, broken only by the many free cities and the few free districts which owned no lord but the King. ♦Growth of the march powers. 1254-1512.♦ During this period too we see the beginnings of some of the powers which became chief at a later day, the powers of the eastern marchland, _Brandenburg_, _Austria_, _Saxony_ in the later sense. The time from the so-called _Interregnum_ to the legislation under Maximilian is marked by the further growth of these powers. ♦Growth of the House of Austria.♦ It is further marked by the beginning of that connexion of the Austrian duchy, and of the Imperial crown itself, with lands beyond the bounds of the Kingdom and the Empire which led in the end to the special and anomalous position of the House of Austria as an European power. ♦Separation of Switzerland, 1495-1648. | Of the Netherlands, 1430-1648.♦ During the same period comes the practical separation of _Switzerland_ and the _Netherlands_ from the German kingdom. In short it was during this age that Germany in its later aspect was formed. ♦Legislation under Maximilian, 1495-1512.♦ The legislation of Maximilian’s reign, the attempts then made to bring the kingdom to a greater degree of unity, have left their mark on geography in the division of Germany into _circles_. ♦Division into circles, 1500-1512.♦ This division, though it was not perfectly complete, though it did not extend to every corner of the kingdom, was strictly an administrative division of the kingdom itself as such; but the mapping out of the circles, the difference of which in point of size is remarkable, was itself affected by the geographical extent of the dominions of the princes who held lands within them. ♦Thirty Years’ War, 1618-1648.♦ The seventeenth century is marked by the results of the Thirty Years’ War and of other changes. ♦Powers holding lands within and without Germany.♦ Its most important geographical result was to carry on the process which had begun with the Austrian House, the formation of powers holding lands both within and without the Empire. ♦Austria. | Sweden. | Union of Brandenburg and Prussia.♦ Thus, beside the union of the Hungarian kingdom with the Austrian archduchy, the King of Sweden now held lands as a prince of the Empire, and the same result was brought about in another way by the union of the Electorate of Brandenburg with the Duchy of Prussia. ♦Rivalry of Prussia and Austria.♦ This, and other accessions of territory, now made Brandenburg as distinctly the first power of northern Germany as Austria was of southern Germany, and in the eighteenth century the rivalry of these two powers becomes the chief centre, not only of German but of European politics. ♦Hannover and Great Britain, 1715.♦ The union of the Electorate of Hannover under the same sovereign with the kingdom of Great Britain further increased the number of princes ruling both within Germany and without it. ♦Dissolution of the Kingdom, 1806.♦ Lastly, the wars of the latter years of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century led to the dissolution alike of the German kingdom and of the Roman Empire. ♦The German Confederation, 1815-1866.♦ Then, after a time of confusion and foreign occupation, comes the formation of a Confederation with boundaries nearly the same as the later boundaries of the kingdom. But the Confederation now appears as something quite subordinate to its two leading members. ♦Austria and Prussia greater than the Confederation.♦ Germany, as such, no longer counts as a great European power, but Prussia and Austria, the two chief holders at once of German and of non-German lands, stand forth among the chief bearers of European rank. ♦The new Confederation and Empire, 1866-1870.♦ Lastly, the changes of our own day have given us an Imperial Germany with geographical boundaries altogether new, a Germany from which the south-eastern German lands are cut off, while the Polish and other non-German possessions of Prussia to the north-east have become an integral part of the new Empire. The task of the geographer is thereby greatly simplified. Down to the last changes, one of his greatest difficulties is to make his map show with any clearness what was the extent of the German Kingdom or Confederation, and at the same time what was the extent of the dominions of those princes who held lands both in Germany and out of it. By the last arrangements this difficulty at least is altogether taken away.

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♦Germany under the Saxon and Frankish Empire.♦

If we look at the map of Germany under the Saxon and Frankish Kings, we see that the old names, marking the great divisions of the German people, still keep their predominance. ♦The great Duchies.♦ The kingdom is still made up of the four great duchies, the Eastern _Francia_, _Saxony_, _Alemannia_, and _Bavaria_, together with the great border-land of _Lotharingia_. These are still the great duchies, to which all smaller divisions are subordinate. ♦Eastern Francia cut off from extension.♦ Among these, the kernel of the kingdom, the Eastern _Francia_, is the only one whose boundaries had little or no chance of being extended or lessened at the cost of foreign powers. It had the smallest possible frontier towards the Slave. ♦Frontier position of Saxony, Bavaria, and Alemannia.♦ On the other hand, _Saxony_ has an ever fluctuating boundary against the Slave and the Dane; _Bavaria_ marches upon the Slave, the Magyar, and the Kingdom of Italy, while _Alemannia_ has a shifting frontier towards both Burgundy and Italy. ♦Exposed position of Lotharingia and Burgundy.♦ Lotharingia, and Burgundy after its annexation, are the lands which lie exposed to aggression from the West. ♦Vanishing of Francia.♦ It is perhaps for this very reason that, of the four duchies which preserve the names of the four great divisions of the German nation, the Eastern Francia is the one which has most utterly vanished from the modern map and from modern memory. Another cause may have strengthened its tendency to vanish. The policy of the kings forbade that the Frankish duchy should become the abiding heritage of any princely family. ♦Its ecclesiastical Dukes.♦ The ducal title of the Eastern Francia was at two periods of its history borne by ecclesiastical princes in the persons of the Bishops of _Würzburg_; but it never gave its name, like Saxony and Bavaria, to any ruling house. ♦Analogy with Wessex.♦ The English student will notice the analogy by which, among all the ancient English kingdoms, Wessex, the cradle of the English monarchy, is the one whose name has most utterly vanished from modern memory.

The only way to grasp the endless shiftings and divisions of the German principalities, so as to give anything like a clear general view, will be to take the great duchies, and to point out in a general way the steps by which they split asunder, and the chief states of any historical importance which rose out of their divisions. ♦Growth of new powers in the twelfth century.♦ Most of these new powers begin to be of importance in the twelfth century, a time which is specially marked as the æra when those two states which have had most to do with the making or unmaking of modern Germany begin to find their place in history. ♦Brandenburg and Austria.♦ It is then that the two great marchlands of Brandenburg and Austria begin to take their place among the leading powers of the German kingdom. ♦The Circles.♦ And, in making this survey, it will be well to bear in mind the much later division into circles. The circles, an attempt to create administrative divisions of the kingdom as such, were, in a faint way, a return to the ancient duchies, the names of which were to some extent retained. Thus we have the two _Saxon_ circles, _Upper_ and _Lower_, and the three of _Franconia_, _Swabia_, and _Bavaria_. All of these keep up the names of ancient duchies, and most of them keep up a stronger or fainter geographical connexion with the ancient lands whose names they bore. The other circles, the two _Rhenish_ circles, _Upper_ and _Lower_, and those of _Westfalia_, _Austria_, and _Burgundy_—the last name being used in a sense altogether new—arose out of changes which took place between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries, some of which we shall have to notice.

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♦Saxony; its three divisions, Westfalia, Angria, Eastfalia.♦

First then, the great duchy of _Saxony_ consisted of three main divisions, _Westfalia_, _Engern_ or _Angria_, and _Eastfalia_. _Thuringia_ to the south-east, and the _Frisian_ lands to the north-west, may be looked on as in some sort appendages to the Saxon duchy. ♦Growth of Saxony at the expense of the Slaves.♦ The duchy was also capable of any amount of extension towards the east, and the lands gradually won from the Wends on this side were all looked on as additions made to the Saxon territory. ♦Break-up of the Duchy, 1182-1191.♦ But the great Saxon duchy was broken up at the fall of Henry the Lion. ♦Duchy of Westfalia.♦ The archiepiscopal Electors of _Köln_ received the title of Dukes of _Westfalia_ and _Engern_. But in the greater part of those districts the grant remained merely nominal, though the ducal title, with a small actual Westfalian duchy, remained to the electorate till the end. From these lands the Saxon name may be looked on as having altogether passed away. ♦New use of the name _Saxony_.♦ The name of _Saxony_, as a geographical expression, clave to the Eastfalian remnant of the old duchy, and to Thuringia and the Slavonic conquests to the east. ♦The Saxon Circles.♦ In the later division of Germany these lands formed the two circles of _Upper_ and _Lower Saxony_; and it was within their limits that the various states arose which have kept on the Saxon name to our own time.

From the descendants of Henry the Lion himself, and from the allodial lands which they kept, the Saxon name passed away, except so far as they became part of the Lower-Saxon circle. ♦Duchy of Brunswick.♦ They held their place as princes of the Empire, no longer as Dukes of Saxony, but as Dukes of _Brunswick_, a house which gave Rome one Emperor and England a dynasty of kings. ♦Its division, 1203. | Lüneburg and Wolfenbüttel.♦ After some of the usual divisions, two Brunswick principalities finally took their place on the map, those of _Lüneburg_ and _Wolfenbüttel_, the latter having the town of Brunswick for its capital. The Lüneburg duchy grew. ♦Lüneburg acquires the bishoprics of Bremen and Verden, 1715-1719.♦ Late in the seventeenth century it was raised to the electoral rank, and early in the next century it was finally enlarged by the acquisition of the bishoprics of _Bremen_ and _Verden_. ♦Electorate of Hannover or Brunswick Lüneburg, 1692.♦ Thus was formed the Electorate, and afterwards Kingdom, of _Hannover_, while the simple ducal title remained with the Brunswick princes of the other line.

♦The new Saxony.♦

The Saxon name itself withdrew in the end from the old Saxony to the lands conquered from the Slave. ♦Bernhard duke of Saxony, 1180-1212.♦ On the fall of Henry the Lion, the duchy of Saxony, cut short by the grant to the archbishops of Köln, was granted to Bernhard of Ballensted, the founder of the Ascanian House. ♦Sachsen-Lauenburg.♦ Of the older Saxon land his house kept only for a while the small district north of the Elbe which kept the name of _Sachsen-Lauenburg_, and which in the end became part of the Hannover electorate. ♦1423.♦ But it was in Thuringia and the conquered Slavonic lands to the east of Thuringia that a new Saxony arose, which kept on somewhat of the European position of the Saxon name down to modern times. This new Saxony, with Wittenberg for its capital, grew, through the addition of _Thuringia_ and _Meissen_, into the Saxon Electorate which played so great a part during the three last centuries of the existence of the German kingdom. ♦Divisions and unions.♦ But in Saxony too the usual divisions took place. Lauenburg parted off; so did the smaller duchies which still keep the Saxon name. ♦1547.♦ The ducal and electoral dignities were divided, till the two, united under the famous Maurice, formed the Saxon electorate as it stood at the dissolution of the kingdom. It was in short a new state, one which had succeeded to the name, but which could in no other way be thought to represent, the Saxony whose conquest cost so many campaigns to Charles the Great.

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♦The Mark of Brandenburg.♦

Another power which arose in the marchland of Saxon and Slave, to the north of Saxony in the later sense, was the land known specially as the _Mark_, the groundwork of the power which has in our own day risen to the head of Germany. The _North Mark_ of Saxony became the _Mark of Brandenburg_. ♦Reign of Albert the Bear, 1134-1170.♦ In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, under Albert the Bear and his house, the Mark greatly extended itself at the expense of the Slaves. ♦Union with Bohemia, 1373-1415. | House of Hohenzollern, 1415.♦ United for a time with the kingdom of Bohemia, it passed into the house of the Burgraves of _Nürnberg_, that House of Hohenzollern which has grown step by step till it has reached Imperial rank in our own day. The power thus formed presently acquired a special character by the acquisition of what may be called a German land out of Germany, a land which gave them in the end a higher title, and which by its geographical position led irresistibly to a further increase of territory. ♦Union of Brandenburg and Prussia, 1611-1618.♦ Early in the seventeenth century the Electors of Brandenburg acquired by inheritance the _Duchy of Prussia_, that is merely Eastern Prussia, a fief, not of the Empire but of the crown of Poland, and which lay geographically apart from their strictly German dominions. ♦Prussia independent of Poland, 1656; becomes kingdom, 1701.♦ The common sovereign of Brandenburg and Prussia was thus the man of two lords; but the Great Elector Frederick William became a wholly independent sovereign in his duchy, and his son Frederick took on himself the kingly title for the land which was thus freed from all homage. Both before and after the union with Prussia, the Electors of Brandenburg continued largely to increase their German dominions. ♦1523-1623.♦ A temporary possession of the principality of _Jägerndorf_ in Silesia, unimportant in itself, led to great events in later times. ♦Westfalian possessions of Brandenburg, 1614-1666. | 1702-1744.♦ The acquisition, at various times in the seventeenth century, of _Cleve_ and other outlying Westfalian lands, which were further increased in the next century, led in the same way to the modern dominion of Prussia in western Germany. ♦Acquisitions in Pomerania, 1638-1648. | 1713-1719.♦ But the most solid acquisition of Brandenburg in this age was that of _Eastern Pomerania_, to which the town of Stettin, with a further increase of territory, was added after the wars of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden. The events of the Thirty Years’ War also increased the dominions both of Brandenburg and Saxony at the expense of the neighbouring ecclesiastical princes. ♦Later acquisitions of Prussia.♦ The later acquisitions of the House of Hohenzollern, after the Electors of Brandenburg had taken the kingly title from their Prussian duchy, concern Prussia as an European power at least as much as they concern Brandenburg as a German power. ♦German character of the Prussian Monarchy.♦ Yet their proper place comes in the history of Germany. Unlike the other princes who held lands within and without the German kingdom, the Kings of Prussia and Electors of Brandenburg have remained essentially German princes. Their acquisitions of territory out of Germany have all been in fact enlargements, if not of the soil of Germany, at least of the sphere of German influence. And, at last, in marked contrast to the fate of the rival House of Austria, the whole Prussian dominions have been incorporated with the new German Empire, and form the immediate dominion of its Imperial head. ♦Spread of the name of _Prussia_.♦ The outward sign of this change, the outward sign of the special position of Brandenburg, as compared with Holstein or Austria, is the strange spread of the name of _Prussia_ over the German dominions of the King of Prussia. No such spread has taken place with the name of Denmark or of Hungary.

♦Conquest of Silesia, 1741.♦

Within Germany the greatest enlargement of the dominion of Prussia—as we may now begin to call it instead of Brandenburg—was the acquisition of by far the greater part of _Schlesien_ or _Silesia_, hitherto part of the Bohemian lands, and then held by the House of Austria. This, it should be noted, was an acquisition which could hardly fail to lead to further acquisitions. ♦Geographical character of the Prussian dominions.♦ The geographical characteristic of the Prussian dominions was the way in which they lay in detached pieces, and the enormous extent of frontier as compared with the area of the country. The kingdom itself lay detached, hemmed in and intersected by the territory of Poland. The electorate, with the Pomeranian territory, formed a somewhat more compact mass; but even this had a very large frontier compared with its area. The Westfalian possessions, the district of _Cottbus_, and other outlying dominions, lay quite apart. The addition of Silesia increased this characteristic yet further. ♦Position of Silesia.♦ The newly won duchy, barely joining the electorate, ran out as a kind of peninsula between Saxony, Bohemia, and Poland. Silesia, first as a Polish and then as a Bohemian fief, had formed part of a fairly compact geographical mass; as part of the same dominion with Prussia and Brandenburg, it was an all but isolated land with an enormous frontier. ♦Acquisitions from Poland, 1772-1795.♦ The details of the Polish acquisitions of Prussia will be best given in our survey of Poland. ♦Their geographical character.♦ But it should be noted that each of the portions of territory which were added to Prussia by the several partitions has a geographical character of its own. ♦1772.♦ The addition of _West-Prussia_—that is the geographical union of the kingdom and the electorate—was something which could not fail in the nature of things to come sooner or later. ♦1793.♦ The second addition of _South-Prussia_ might seem geographically needed in order to leave Silesia no longer peninsular. ♦1795.♦ The last, and most short-lived addition of _New-East-Prussia_ had no such geographical necessity as the other two. Still it helped to give greater compactness to the kingdom, and to lessen its frontier in comparison with its area.

Another acquisition of the House of Hohenzollern during the eighteenth century, though temporary, deserves a passing notice. ♦East-Friesland, 1744.♦ Among its Westfalian annexations was _East-Friesland_. The King of Prussia thus became, during the last half of the eighteenth century, an oceanic potentate, a character which he presently lost, and which, save for a moment in the days of confusion, he obtained again only in our own day.

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♦Parts of Saxony held by foreign kings.♦

A large part of Saxony, both in the older and in the later sense, thus came to form part of a dominion containing both German and non-German lands, but in which the German character was in every way predominant. Other parts of Saxony in the same extended sense also came to form part of the dominions of princes who ruled both in and out of Germany, but in whom the non-German character was yet more predominant. ♦Holstein:♦ The old _Saxony beyond the Elbe_, the modern _Holstein_, passed into the hands of the Danish Kings. ♦its relation to Sleswick.♦ Its shifting relations towards Denmark and Germany and towards the neighbouring land of _Sleswick_, as having become matter of international dispute between Denmark and Germany, will be best spoken of when we come to deal with Denmark. The events of the Thirty Years’ War also made the Swedish kings for a while considerable potentates in northern Germany. ♦German territories of Sweden, 1648-1815.♦ The Peace of Westfalia confirmed to them _Western Pomerania_ and the town of _Wismar_ on the Baltic, and the bishoprics of _Bremen_ and _Verden_ which gave them an oceanic coast. ♦1720.♦ But these last lands were, as we have seen afterwards, ceded to Hannover, and the Pomeranian possessions of Sweden were also cut short by cession to Brandenburg. But the possession of Wismar and a part of Pomerania still gave the Swedish kings a position as German princes down to the dissolution of the Empire.

These are the chief powers which rose to historical importance within the bounds of Saxony, in the widest sense of that word. To trace every division and union which created or extinguished any of the smaller principalities, or even to mark every minute change of frontier among the greater powers, would be impossible. ♦Free cities of Saxony. | The Hanse Towns.♦ But it must be further remembered that the Saxon circles were the seats of some of the greatest of the free cities of Germany, the leading members of the Hanseatic League. In the growth of German commerce the Rhenish lands took the lead, and, in the earliest days of the Hansa, _Köln_ held the first place among its cities. ♦Lübeck, Bremen, Hamburg.♦ The pre-eminence afterwards passed to havens nearer to the Ocean and the Baltic, where, among a crowd of others, the Imperial cities of _Lübeck_ and _Bremen_ stand out foremost, and with them _Hamburg_, a rival which has in later times outstripped them. And at this point it may be noticed that Lübeck and Bremen specially illustrate a law which extended to many other of the episcopal cities of Germany. ♦The cities and the bishoprics.♦ The Bishop became a prince, and held a greater or smaller extent of territory in temporal sovereignty. But the city which contained his see remained independent of him in temporal things, and knew him only as its spiritual shepherd. Such were the archbishopric of Bremen and the bishopric of Lübeck, principalities which, after the change of religion, passed into secular hands. Thus we have seen the archbishopric of Bremen pass, first to Sweden, and then to Hannover. But the two cities always remained independent commonwealths, owning no superior but the Emperor.

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♦Franconia.♦

The next among the great duchies, that of _Eastern Francia_, _Franken_, or _Franconia_, is of much less importance in European history than that of Saxony. ♦Bishops of Würzburg Dukes.♦ It gave the ducal title to the Bishops of Würzburg; but it cannot be said to be in any sense continued in any modern state. ♦Extent of the Circle.♦ Its name gradually retreated, and the circle of _Franken_ or _Franconia_ took in only the most eastern part of the ancient duchy. ♦The Rhenish Circles.♦ The western and northern part of the duchy, together with a good deal of territory which was strictly Lotharingian, became part of the two Rhenish circles. Thus _Fulda_, the greatest of German abbeys, passed away from the Frankish name. In north-eastern Francia, the _Hessian_ principalities grew up to the north-west. Within the Franconian circle lay _Würzburg_, the see of the bishops who bore the ducal title, the other great bishopric of _Bamberg_, together with the free city of _Nürnberg_, and various smaller principalities. ♦Ecclesiastical States on the Rhine.♦ In the Rhenish lands, both within and without the old Francia, one chief characteristic is the predominance of the ecclesiastical principalities, _Mainz_, _Köln_, _Worms_, _Speyer_, and _Strassburg_. The chief temporal power which arose in this region was the _Palatinate of the Rhine_, a power which, like others, went through many unions and divisions, and spread into four circles, those of Upper and Lower Rhine, Westfalia, and Bavaria. ♦Bavaria.♦ This last district, though united with the Palatine Electorate, was, from the early part of the fourteenth century, distinguished from the Palatinate of the Rhine as the _Oberpfalz_ or _Upper Palatinate_. To the south of it lay the _Bavarian_ principalities. These, united into a single duchy, formed the power which grew into the modern kingdom. But neither this duchy nor the whole Bavarian circle at all reached to the extent of the ancient Bavaria which bordered on Italy. ♦Shiftings between Bavaria and the Palatinate, 1623. | Electorate of Bavaria, 1648.♦ The early stages of the Thirty Years’ War gave the Rhenish Palatinate, with its electoral rights, to Bavaria; the Peace of Westfalia restored the Palatinate, leaving Bavaria as a new electorate. ♦Union of the two, 1777.♦ Late in the eighteenth century, Bavaria itself passed to the Elector Palatine, thus forming what may be called modern Bavaria with its outlying Rhenish lands. ♦Cession to Austria, 1778.♦ This acquisition was at the same time partly balanced by the cession to Austria of the lands east of the Inn, known as the _Innviertel_. ♦Archbishopric of Salzburg.♦ The other chief state within the Bavarian circle was the great ecclesiastical principality of the archbishops of _Salzburg_ in the extreme south-east.

♦Lotharingia.♦

The old _Lotharingian_ divisions, as we see them in the time of the great duchies, utterly died out. ♦Lower Lotharingia.♦ The states which arose in the _Lower Lotharingia_ are among those which silently fell off from the German Kingdom to take a special position under the name of the _Netherlands_. ♦Duchy of Lothringen or Lorraine.♦ The special duchy of _Lothringen_ or _Lorraine_ was held to belong to the circle of Upper Rhine. ♦Elsass.♦ _Elsass_ also formed part of the same circle, the circle which was specially cut short by the encroachments of France. ♦Circle of Swabia.♦ The _Swabian_ circle answered more nearly than most of the new divisions to the old Swabian duchy, as that duchy stood without counting the marchland of Elsass. No part of Germany was more cut up into small states than the old land of the Hohenstaufen. A crowd of principalities, secular and ecclesiastical, among them the lesser principalities of the Hohenzollern House, of free cities, and of outlying possessions of the houses of Austria made up the main part of the circle. ♦Ecclesiastical towns of Swabia.♦ _Strassburg_, _Augsburg_, _Constanz_, _St. Gallen_, _Chur_, _Zürich_, are among the great bishoprics and other ecclesiastical foundations of the old Swabia. ♦Part of Swabia becomes Switzerland.♦ But, as I shall show more fully in another section, large districts in the south-east, those which formed the _Old League of High Germany_, had practically fallen away from the kingdom before the new division was made, and were therefore never reckoned in any circle. ♦Baden. | Württemberg.♦ Two Swabian principalities, the mark of _Baden_, and _Württemberg_, first county and then duchy, came gradually to the first place in this region. As such they still remain, preserving in some sort a divided representation of the old Swabia.