Southern Germany

In southern Germany thedissolution of the Hohenstaufen duchy ofSwabia gave territorial predominance to theHabsburgs, whose original possessions were scattered across Alsace,Breisgau, the Vorarlberg, and Tirol.Rudolf’s acquisition of the provinces ofAustria and Styria in 1282 had more than doubled the Habsburg patrimony and established its center of gravity in southeastern Germany. The Habsburg’s rivals and neighbors to the north, the counts ofWürttemberg, had combined with the Swabian nobles to foil the attempt of Rudolf to revive the defunct duchy of Swabia for one of his sons. (The counts, insatiably acquisitive and the inveterate enemies of the cities of the region, were finally raised to ducal status in 1495.) The margraves ofBaden were chiefly preoccupied with the southward expansion of their territory on the upper Rhine at the expense of the independent small nobles and cities of Swabia.

These three largeentities contained lesser lordships, which were in constant danger of absorption by marriage, purchase, or feud.Bavaria, granted to thehouse of Wittelsbach as a duchy in 1180, was strengthened by the acquisition of thePalatinate in 1214; but subsequent testamentary partition restricted this important gain to the Upper Palatinate.

Central Germany

In central Germany the margraves ofMeissen of theWettin dynasty thrust steadily eastward and received the electorate ofSaxony in 1423, when the Ascanian line of electors died out; in the west they obtainedThuringia (1263) and clung to it tenaciously despite repeated royal attempts to oust them by claiming it as a vacant fief. The landgraves ofHesse, though surrounded by powerful neighbors, contrived to make modest territorial gains at the expense of the Wettindynasty and the archbishops ofMainz. East and south of Hesse, theRhine-Main region was a land of greatecclesiastical princes: the archbishops of Mainz,Trier, and Cologne; the bishops ofSpeyer,Worms,Würzburg, and Bamberg; and the wealthy abbots ofFulda andLorsch. It abounded in counts of the second rank, dominated by a greatsecular prince, the count palatine of the Rhine. The area contained four electorates and was therefore of crucial political importance.

Northern Germany

In northern Germany the dukes ofBrunswick dissipated their strength by frequent divisions of their territory among heirs. Farther east the powerful duchy of Saxony was also split by partition between theWittenberg andLauenburg branches; theWittenberg line was formally granted an electoral vote by the Golden Bull of 1356. The strength of the duchy lay in the military and commercial qualities of its predominantly free population. But the vigour of its eastward expansion into theSlav lands beyond the Elbe tended todiminish its involvement in the internal politics of the Reich. As in central Germany, large areas of northern Germany were held by ecclesiastical princes, including the archbishops ofBremen andMagdeburg and the bishops of Utrecht,Münster, andOsnabrück. During the 13th and 14th centuries the major trading cities of the north, including Münster, Bremen,Hamburg, andLübeck, joined together to form the powerfulHanseatic League, which was a powerful economic and political force not only in northern Germany but in most of the lands surrounding the North and Baltic seas.

Eastern Germany

In eastern Germany the duchy ofMecklenburg, Germanized by a steady stream of immigrants, was drawn deeply into Scandinavian affairs and in 1363 providedSweden with a new royal dynasty in the person ofAlbert of Mecklenburg. The electorate ofBrandenburg, purchased by Charles IV andbequeathed to his second son,Sigismund, was dominated by a disorderly andrapacious nobility. Sigismund granted this dubious asset in 1415 to his faithful ally Frederick, burgrave ofNürnberg. The kingdom of Bohemia remained the durable territorial core of theLuxembourg dominions, and its silver mines at Kuttenberg (nowKutná Hora, in the Czech Republic), under German supervision, vastly increased crown revenues. The Czech population increasingly resented the economic and cultural influence of the German minority, and this created antagonisms profoundly disturbing to the monarchy.

Continued dispersement of territory

Inside the various territories the consolidation of princely authority was far from complete. The principalities were often ragged in outline and territorially dispersed because of the accidents of inheritance, grant, partition, and conquest. Everywhere lesser nobles disputed the power of the prince and formed associations in defense of their rights and fiefs. In the ecclesiastical princedoms the ascendancy of an archbishop or a bishop was contested by the cathedral chapter, which had become a preserve of the nobility. The self-governing cities fought to protect their chartered liberties and drew together informidable leagues to resist princely encroachment. Thus the princes, in trying to enforce their authority, tended to consolidate the opposition and to excite potential or open hostility.

In this crucial struggle the great secular potentates undermined their own strength by persisting in the Germanic custom of dividing their territory among their sons instead of transmitting it intact to the eldest. By 1378 the Bavarian lands of the house of Wittelsbach were shared between three grandsons ofLouis IV. In 1379 the wide possessions of the Habsburgs were partitioned by family agreement betweenAlbert III and his younger brother Leopold.

The ecclesiastical princes, vowed to celibacy and elected by their cathedral chapters, could not hand on their lands to descendants. Still, their policies andaspirations were not much different from those of the secular princes, and most of them managed to install their relatives in rich canonries and prebends.