CHAPTER VIII.

THE IMPERIAL KINGDOMS.

♦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.

* * * * *

♦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.

* * * * *

♦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.

* * * * *

♦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.

* * * * *

♦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.

* * * * *

♦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.

* * * * *

♦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.

* * * * *

♦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.

* * * * *

♦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.

* * * * *

♦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.

* * * * *

Two important parts of the old kingdom, two circles of the division of

Maximilian, still remain. These are the lands which form the circles

of _Burgundy_ and _Austria_. These are lands which have, in earlier

or later times, wholly fallen off from the German Kingdom. ♦Circle of

_Austria_.♦ The _Austrian_ circle was formed of the lands in southern

Germany which gradually gathered in the hands of the second Austrian

dynasty, the House of Habsburg. ♦Growth of the House of Austria.♦

Starting from the original mark on the Hungarian frontier, those lands

grew, first into a great German, and then into a great European, power,

and the latest changes have made even their German lands politically

non-German. The growth of the Austrian House will therefore be properly

dealt with in a separate section. ♦Extent of its German lands.♦ It is

enough to say here that the Austrian dominion in Germany gradually

took in, besides the original duchy, the south-eastern duchies of

_Steiermark_ or _Styria_, _Kärnthen_ or _Carinthia_, and _Krain_ or

_Carniola_, with the Italian borderlands of _Görz_, _Aquileia_, and

part of _Istria_. ♦Tyrol.♦ Joined to these by a kind of geographical

isthmus, like that which joins Silesia and Brandenburg, lay the western

possessions of the house, the Bavarian county of _Tyrol_ and various

outlying strips and points of lands in _Swabia_ and _Elsass_. ♦Loss of

Swabian lands.♦ The growth of the Confederates cut short the Swabian

possessions of Austria, as the later cession to France cut short its

Alsatian possessions. Still a Swabian remnant remained down to the

dissolution of the Kingdom. ♦Bohemia and its dependencies.♦ The kingdom

of _Bohemia_, with the dependent lands of Moravia and _Silesia_, though

held by the Archdukes of Austria and giving them electoral rank, was

not included in any German circle. ♦Trent and Brixen.♦ The Austrian

circle moreover was not wholly made up of the dominions of the Austrian

house; besides some smaller territories it also took in the bishoprics

of _Trent_ and _Brixen_ on the debateable frontier of Italy and old

Bavaria.

♦Circle of Burgundy.♦

The _Burgundian_ circle was the last and the strangest use of the

Burgundian name. ♦Dominion of the Valois Dukes within the Empire.♦ It

consisted of those parts of the dominions of the Dukes of Burgundy of

the House of Valois which remained to their descendants of the House

of Austria at the time of the division into circles. These did not all

lie strictly within the boundaries of the German kingdom. ♦The Imperial

Netherlands.♦ Within that kingdom indeed lay the Northern Netherlands,

the Frisian lands of _Holland_, _Zealand_, and _West-Friesland_, as

also _Brabant_ and other Lotharingian lands. ♦County of Burgundy.♦ But

the circle also took in the _County of Burgundy or Franche Comté_, part

of the old kingdom of Burgundy, and lastly _Flanders_ and _Artois_,

lands beyond the bounds of the Empire. ♦Flanders and Artois released

from homage to France, 1526.♦ These were fiefs of France which were

released from their homage to that crown by the treaty between Charles

the Fifth and Francis the First of France. The Burgundian circle thus

took in all the Imperial fiefs of the Valois dukes, together with a

small part of their French fiefs. As all, or nearly all, of these

lands altogether fell away from the German kingdom, and as those parts

of them which now form the two kingdoms of the Low Countries have a

certain historical being of their own, it will be well to keep their

more detailed mention also for a special section.

§ 2. _The Confederation and Empire of Germany._

♦Germany changed from a kingdom to a confederation.♦

Our survey in the last section has carried us down to the beginning

of the changes which led to the break-up of the old German Kingdom.

Germany is the only land in history which has changed from a kingdom

to a confederation. ♦Sketch of the process, 1806-1815.♦ The tie

which bound the vassal princes to the king became so lax that it was

at last thrown off altogether. In this process foreign invasion

largely helped. Between the two processes of foreign war and domestic

disintegration, a chaotic time followed, in which boundaries were ever

shifting and new states were ever rising and falling. ♦The German

_Bund_, 1815.♦ In the end, nearly all the lands which had formed the

old kingdom came together again, with new names and boundaries, as

members of a lax Confederation. ♦The new Confederation and Empire,

1866-1871.♦ The latest events of all have driven the former chief of

the Confederation beyond its boundaries; they have joined its other

members together by a much closer tie; they have raised the second

member of the former Confederation to the post of perpetual chief

of the new Confederation, and they have further clothed him with

the Imperial title. ♦The new Empire still federal.♦ But it must be

remembered that the modern Empire of Germany is still a Federal state.

Its chief bears the title of Emperor; still the relation is federal and

not feudal. The lesser members of the Empire are not vassals of the

Emperor, as they were in the days of the old kingdom. They are states

bound to him and to one another by a tie which is purely federal.

That the state whose prince holds Imperial rank far surpasses any of

its other members in extent and power is an important political fact;

but it does not touch the federal position of all the states of the

Empire, great and small. Reuss-Schleiz is not a vassal of Prussia;

it is a member of a league in which the voice of Prussia naturally

goes for more than the voice of Reuss-Schleiz. ♦Wars of the French

Revolution, 1793-1814.♦ The dissolution of the German kingdom, and with

it the wiping out of the last tradition of the Roman Empire, cannot

be separated from the history of wars of the French Revolution which

went before it, and which indeed led to it. For our purely geographical

purpose, we must distinguish the changes which directly affected the

German kingdom from those which affected the Austrian states, the

Netherlands, and Switzerland, lands which have now a separate historic

being from Germany. ♦War between France and the Empire, 1793-1801.♦

The last war which the Empire as such waged with France was the eight

years’ war which was ended by the Peace of Luneville. ♦The left bank

of the Rhine ceded by the Peace of Luneville, 1801.♦ By that peace,

all Germany on the left bank on the Rhine was ceded to France. What

a sacrifice this was we at once see, when we bear in mind that it

took in the three metropolitan cities of Köln, Mainz, and Trier, the

royal city of Aachen, and the famous bishoprics of Worms and Speyer.

♦The _Reichsdeputationshauptschluss_, 1803.♦ A number of princes thus

lost all or part of their dominions, and it was presently agreed that

they should compensate themselves within the lands which remained to

the kingdom at the expense of the free cities and the ecclesiastical

princes. ♦End of the Ecclesiastical principalities.♦ The great German

hierarchy of princely bishops and abbots now came to an end, with a

solitary exception. ♦The Prince-Primate of Regensburg.♦ As the ancient

metropolis of Mainz had passed to France, the see of its archbishop was

removed to _Regensburg_, where, under the title of _Prince-Primate_,

he remained an Elector and Arch-Chancellor of the Empire. ♦Salzburg

a secular electorate.♦ _Salzburg_ became a secular electorate. ♦The

Free Cities.♦ The other ecclesiastical states were annexed by the

neighbouring princes, and of the free cities six only were left.

These were the Hanseatic towns of _Lübeck_, _Bremen_, and _Hamburg_,

and the inland towns of _Frankfurt_, _Nürnberg_, and _Augsburg_.

♦New Electorates.♦ Besides Salzburg, three new Electorates arose,

_Württemberg_, _Baden_, and _Hessen-Cassel_. None of these new Electors

ever chose any King or Emperor. ♦Peace of Pressburg, 1805. | Kingdom of

Württemberg and Bavaria.♦ The next war led to the Peace of Pressburg,

in which the Electors of Bavaria, Württemberg, and Baden appear as

allies of France, and by which those of Bavaria and Württemberg are

acknowledged as Kings. ♦They divide the western lands of Austria.♦

Austria was now wholly cut off from south-western Germany. Württemberg

and Baden divided her Swabian possessions, while Tyrol, Trent, Brixen,

together with the free city of Augsburg, fell to the lot of Bavaria.

♦Grand Duchy of Würzburg.♦ Austria received Salzburg; its prince

removed himself and his electorate to Würzburg, and a _Grand Duchy of

Würzburg_ was formed to compensate its Elector.

These were the last changes which took place while any shadow of the

old Kingdom and Empire lasted. ♦Title of ‘Emperor of Austria.’♦ The

reigning King of Germany and Emperor-elect, Francis King of Hungary

and Bohemia and Archduke of Austria, had already begun to call himself

‘_Hereditary Emperor of Austria_.’ In the treaty of Pressburg he

is described by the strange title, unheard of before or after, of

‘Emperor of Germany and Austria,’ and the Empire itself is spoken of

as a ‘Germanic Confederation.’ These formulæ were prophetic. ♦The

Confederation of the Rhine, July 12, 1806.♦ The next year a crowd

of princes renounced their allegiance, and formed themselves into

the _Confederation of the Rhine_ under the protectorate of France.

♦Dissolution of the Empire, August 6, 1806.♦ The formal dissolution

of the Empire followed at once. The succession which had gone on from

Augustus ended; the work of Charles the Great was undone. Instead of

the Frank ruling over Gaul, the Frenchman ruled over Germany. ♦Repeated

changes, 1806-1811.♦ A time of confusion followed, in which boundaries

were constantly shifting, states were constantly rising and falling,

and new portions of German ground were being constantly added to

France. ♦Germany in 1811-1813.♦ At the time of the greatest extent

of French dominion, the political state of Germany was on this wise.

♦Territories of Denmark and Sweden.♦ The dissolution of the Empire

had released all its members from their allegiance, and the German

possessions of the Kings of Denmark and Sweden had been incorporated

with their several kingdoms. ♦Losses of Prussia and Austria.♦ Hannover

was wholly lost to its island sovereign; seized and lost again more

than once by Prussia and by France, it passed at last wholly into the

hands of the foreign power. Prussia had lost, not only its momentary

possession of Hannover, but also everything west of the Elbe. Austria

had yielded _Salzburg_ to Bavaria, and part of her own south-western

territory in Krain and Kärnthen had passed to France under the name of

the _Illyrian Provinces_. ♦Annexations to France.♦ France too, beside

all the lands west of the Rhine, had incorporated _East Friesland_,

_Oldenburg_, part of _Hannover_, and the three _Hanseatic_ cities.

♦Confederation of the Rhine.♦ The remaining states of Germany formed

the _Confederation of the Rhine_. The chief among these were the four

Kingdoms of _Bavaria_, _Württemberg_, _Saxony_, and _Westfalia_.

♦Kingdoms of Saxony and Westfalia.♦ Saxony had become a kingdom under

its own Elector presently after the dissolution of the Empire: the

new-made kingdom of Westfalia had a French king in Jerome Buonaparte.

♦Grand Duchy of Frankfurt.♦ Besides _Mecklenburg_, _Baden_—now a Grand

Duchy—_Berg_, _Nassau_, _Hessen_, and other smaller states, there were

now among its members the Grand Duchy of _Würzburg_, and also a Grand

Duchy of _Frankfurt_, the possession of the Prince Primate, once of

Mainz, afterwards of Regensburg. ♦Germany wiped out.♦ We may say with

truth that during this time Germany had ceased to exist; its very name

had vanished from the map of Europe.

* * * * *

Prussia was a power so thoroughly German that the fate even of its

non-German possessions cannot well be separated from German geography.

♦The Kingdom of Prussia cut short, 1807.♦ The same blow which cut

short the old electorate of Brandenburg no less cut short the kingdom

of Prussia in its Polish acquisitions. ♦Commonwealth of Danzig.♦

_West-Prussia_ only was left, and even here _Danzig_ was cut off to

form a separate republic. ♦Duchy of Warsaw, 1806-1814.♦ The other

Polish territories of Prussia formed the _Duchy of Warsaw_, which was

held by the new King of Saxony. ♦Position of Silesia.♦ Silesia thus

fell back again on its half-isolated position, all the more so as it

lay between the German and the Polish possessions of the Saxon king.

The territory left to Prussia was now wholly continuous, without any

outlying possessions; but the length of its frontier and the strange

irregularity of its shape on the map were now more striking than ever.

* * * * *

The liberation of Germany and the fall of Buonaparte brought with

it a complete reconstruction of the German territory. ♦The German

Confederation, 1815.♦ Germany again arose, no longer as an Empire or

Kingdom, but as a lax Confederation. Austria, the duchy whose princes

had been so often chosen Emperors, became its presiding state. The

boundaries of the new Confederation differed but slightly from those

of the old Kingdom; but the internal divisions had greatly changed.

♦Princes holding lands both within the Confederation and out of it.♦

Once more a number of princes held lands both in Germany and out of

it. The so-called ‘Emperor’ of Austria, the Kings of Prussia, Denmark,

and the Netherlands, became members of the Confederation for those

parts of their dominions which had formerly been states of the Empire.

In the like sort, the King of Great Britain and Ireland, having

recovered his continental dominions, entered the Confederation by the

title of _King of Hannover_. ♦Kingdom of Hannover, 1815-1866.♦ This

new kingdom was made up of the former electorate with some additions,

including _East-Friesland_. ♦Increase of the Prussian territory. |

Dismemberment of Saxony.♦ In other parts the Prussian territories were

largely increased. _Magdeburg_ and _Halberstadt_ were recovered.

_Swedish Pomerania_ was added to the rest of the ancient duchy; and,

more important than this, a large part of the kingdom of _Saxony_,

including the greater part of _Lausitz_ and the formerly outlying-land

of _Cottbus_, was incorporated with Prussia. This change, which made

the Saxon kingdom far smaller than the old electorate, altogether put

an end to the peninsular position of Silesia, even as regarded the

strictly German possessions of Prussia. ♦Posen.♦ The kingdom was at

the same time rendered more compact by the recovery of part of its

Polish possessions under the name of the Grand Duchy of _Posen_. In

western Germany again Prussia now made great acquisitions. ♦Rhenish

and Westfalian territory.♦ Its old outlying Rhenish and Westfalian

possessions grew into a large and tolerably compact territory, though

lying isolated from the great body of the monarchy. The greater part

of the territory west of the Rhine which had been ceded to France

now became Prussian, including the cities of _Köln_, no longer a

metropolitan see, _Trier_, _Münster_, and _Paderborn_. The main part

of the Prussian possessions thus consisted of two detached masses, of

very unequal size, but which seemed to crave for a closer geographical

union. ♦Neufchâtel.♦ The Principality of _Neufchâtel_, which made the

Prussian king a member of the Swiss Confederation, will be mentioned

elsewhere.

♦Territory recovered by Austria.♦

Of the other powers which entered the Confederation for the German

parts of their dominions, but which also had territories beyond the

Confederation, _Austria_ recovered _Salzburg_, _Tyrol_, _Trent_, and

_Brixen_, together with the south-eastern lands which had passed to

France. Thus the territory of the Confederation, like that of the

old Kingdom, again reached to the Hadriatic. ♦Possession of Denmark.

| Holstein and Lauenburg.♦ _Denmark_ entered the Confederation for

_Holstein_, and for a new possession, that of _Lauenburg_, the duchy

which in a manner represented ancient Saxony. ♦Luxemburg.♦ The King

of the _Netherlands_ entered the Confederation for the Grand Duchy

of _Luxemburg_, part of which however was cut off to be added to the

Rhenish possessions of Prussia. ♦Sweden gives up Pomerania.♦ Sweden, by

the cession of its last remnant of _Pomerania_, ceased altogether to be

a German power.

There were thus five powers whose dominions lay partly within the

Confederation, partly out of it. ♦Prussia the greatest German Power.♦

In the case of one of these, that of Prussia, the division of German

and non-German territory was purely formal. Prussia was practically

a purely German power, and the greatest of purely German powers.

♦Austria.♦ Her rival Austria stood higher in formal rank in the

Confederation, and ruled over a much greater continuous territory; but

here the distinction between German and non-German lands was really

practical, as later events have shown. ♦Comparison of the position of

Austria and Prussia.♦ It has been found possible to shut out Austria

from Germany. To shut out Prussia would have been to abolish Germany

altogether. ♦Hannover.♦ Hannover, though under a common sovereign with

Great Britain, was so completely cut off from Great Britain, and had so

little influence on British politics, that it was practically as much a

purely German state before its separation from Great Britain as it was

afterwards. ♦Holstein and Luxemburg.♦ In the cases of Denmark and the

Netherlands, princes the greater part of whose territories lay out of

Germany held adjoining territories in Germany. Here then were materials

for political questions and difficulties; and in the case of Denmark,

these questions and difficulties became of the highest importance.

♦Kingdom of Bavaria.♦

Among those members of the Confederation, whose territory lay wholly

within Germany, the Kingdom of _Bavaria_ stood first. Its newly

acquired lands to the south were given back to Austria; but it made

large acquisitions to the north-east. Modern Bavaria consists of a

large mass of territory, Bavarian, Swabian, and Frankish, counting

within its boundaries the famous cities of _Augsburg_ and _Nürnberg_

and the great bishoprics of _Bamberg_ and _Würzburg_. ♦Her Rhenish

territory.♦ Besides this, Bavaria recovered a considerable part of the

ancient Palatinate west of the Rhine, which adds _Speyer_ to the list

of Bavarian cities. ♦Württemberg. | Saxony.♦ The other states which

bore the kingly title, _Württemberg_ and the remnant of _Saxony_, were

of much smaller extent. Saxony however kept a position in many ways out

of all proportion to the narrowed extent of its geographical limits.

Württemberg, increased by various additions from the _Swabian_ lands

of _Austria_ and from other smaller principalities, had, though the

smallest of kingdoms, won for itself a much higher position than had

been held by its former Counts and Dukes. ♦Baden.♦ Along with them

might be ranked the Grand Duchy of _Baden_, with its strange irregular

frontier, taking in Heidelberg and Constanz. ♦Hessen.♦ Among a crowd

of smaller states stand out the two Hessian principalities, the

Grand Duchy of _Hessen-Darmstadt_, and _Hessen-Cassel_, whose prince

still kept the title of Elector, and the Grand Duchy of _Nassau_.

♦Oldenburg.♦ The Grand Duchy of _Oldenburg_ nearly divided the Kingdom

of Hannover into two parts. ♦Anhalt.♦ The principalities of _Anhalt_

stretched into the Prussian territory between Halberstadt and the

newly-won Saxon lands. ♦Brunswick.♦ The Duchy of _Brunswick_ helped

to divide the two great masses of Prussian territory. ♦Mecklenburg.♦

In the north _Mecklenburg_ remained, as before, unequally divided

between the Grand Dukes of _Schwerin_ and _Strelitz_. Germany was thus

thoroughly mapped out afresh. Some of the old names had vanished; some

had got new meanings. The greater states, with the exception of Saxony,

became greater. A crowd of insignificant principalities passed away.

Another crowd of them remained, especially the smaller Saxon duchies

in the land which had once been Thuringian. But, if we look to two of

the most characteristic features of the old Empire, we shall find that

one has passed away for ever, while the other was sadly weakened. ♦No

ecclesiastical principality.♦ No ecclesiastical principality revived

in the new state of things. ♦Lüttich added to Belgium.♦ The territory

of one of the old bishoprics, that of _Lüttich_, formerly absorbed by

France, now passed wholly away from Germany, and became part of the new

kingdom of Belgium. ♦The four Free Cities.♦ Of the free cities four did

revive, but four only. The three _Hanse Towns_, no longer included in

French departments, and Frankfurt, no longer a Grand Duchy, entered the

Confederation as independent commonwealths. ♦Revival of German national

life.♦ Germany, for a while utterly crushed, had come to life again;

she had again reached a certain measure of national unity, which could

hardly fail to become closer.[14]

The Confederation thus formed lasted, with hardly any change that

concerns geography, till the war of 1866. ♦Division of Luxemburg,

1831.♦ The Grand Duchy of _Luxemburg_, which had, by the arrangements

of 1815, been held by the King of the Netherlands as a member of

the German Confederation, was, on the separation of Belgium and the

Netherlands, cut into two parts. Part was added to Belgium; another

part, though quite detached from the kingdom of the Netherlands, was

held by its king as a member of the Confederation. In 1839 he also

entered it for the Duchy of Limburg. ♦War in Sleswick and Holstein,

1848-1851.♦ The internal movements which began in 1848, and the war

in _Sleswick_ and _Holstein_ which began in the same time, led to no

lasting geographical changes. In 1849 the Swabian principalities of

Hohenzollern were joined to the Prussian crown. ♦Cession of the Duchies

to Austria and Prussia, 1864.♦ The last Danish war ended by the cession

of Sleswick and Holstein, together with Lauenburg, to Prussia and

Austria jointly, an arrangement in its own nature provisional. Austria

ceded her right in Lauenburg to Prussia in the next year, and in the

next year again came the Seven Weeks’ War, and the great geographical

changes which followed it. ♦Abolition of the Confederation. | Exclusion

of Austria. | North-German Confederation. | Cession of Sleswick and

Holstein to Prussia, 1866.♦ The German Confederation was abolished;

Austria was shut out from all share in German affairs, and she ceded

her joint right in Sleswick and Holstein to Prussia. ♦Prussian

annexations.♦ The Northern states of Germany became a distinct

Confederation under the presidency of Prussia, whose immediate dominion

was increased by the annexation of the kingdom of _Hannover_, the duchy

of _Nassau_, the electorate of _Hessen_, and the city of _Frankfurt_.

The States south of the Main, Bavaria, Württemberg, Baden, and the

southern part of Hessen-Darmstadt, remained for a while outside of the

new League. ♦All the Prussian lands admitted to the Confederation.♦

The non-German dominions of Prussia, Prussia strictly so called with

the Polish duchy of Posen and the newly acquired land of Sleswick,

were now incorporated with the Confederation; on the other hand,

all that Austria had held within the Confederation was now shut out

of it. ♦Settlement of Luxemburg, 1867.♦ _Luxemburg_ also was not

included in the new League, and, after some disputes, it was in the

next year recognized as a neutral territory under its own duke the

King of the Netherlands. ♦Liechtenstein.♦ The little principality of

_Liechtenstein_ was perhaps forgotten altogether; but, as not being

included in the Confederation, nor yet incorporated with anything else,

it must be looked on as becoming an absolutely independent state.

♦Great geographical changes, 1866.♦ Thus the geographical frontiers

of Germany underwent, at a single blow, changes as great as they had

undergone in the wars of the French Revolution. The geography of the

presiding power of the new League was no less changed.

That extraordinary extent of frontier which had hitherto been

characteristic of Prussia was not wholly taken away by the new

annexations, but it was greatly lessened. The kingdom, as a kingdom,

is made far more compact, and the two great detached masses in which

it formerly lay are now joined together. Moreover, the geographical

character of Prussia becomes of much less political importance, now

that her frontier marches to so great an extent on the smaller members

of the League of which she is herself President. ♦War with France,

1870-1871. | The German Empire. | Incorporation of the Southern

states.♦ Next came the war with France, the first effect of which

was the incorporation of the southern states of Germany with the new

League, which presently took the name of an Empire, with the Prussian

King as hereditary Emperor. ♦Recovery of Elsass-Lothringen, 1871.♦ Then

by the peace with France, nearly the whole of _Elsass_ and part of

_Lotharingia_, including the cities of _Strassburg_ and _Metz_, were

restored to Germany. They have, under the name of _Elsass-Lothringen_,

become an Imperial territory, forming part of the Empire and owning

the sovereignty of the Emperor, but not becoming part of the kingdom

of Prussia or of any other German state. ♦The Imperial title.♦

The assumption of the Imperial title could hardly be avoided in a

confederation whose constitution was monarchic, and which numbered

kings among its members. No title but Emperor could have been found

to express the relation between the presiding chief and the lesser

sovereigns.

♦The new Empire a revival of the German Kingdom, but not of the Roman

Empire. | Comparison of the old Kingdom and the new Empire.♦

Still it must be borne in mind that the new German Empire is in no

sense a continuation or restoration of the Holy Roman Empire which

fell sixty-four years before its creation. But it may be fairly

looked on as a restoration of the old German Kingdom, the Kingdom of

the East-Franks. Still, as far as geography is concerned, no change

can be stranger than the change in the boundaries of Germany between

the ninth century and the nineteenth. The new Empire, cut short to

the north-west, south-west, and south-east, has grown somewhat to

the north, and it has grown prodigiously to the north-east. ♦Name of

_Prussia_.♦ Its ruling state, a state which contains such illustrious

cities as Köln, Trier, and Frankfurt, is content to call itself after

an extinct heathen people whose name had most likely never reached

the ears of Charles the Great. ♦Position of Berlin.♦ The capital of

the new Empire, placed far away from any of the antient seats of

German kingship, stands in what in his day, and long after, was a

Slavonic land. ♦Formation of the new Empire.♦ Germany, with its chief

state bearing the name of _Prussia_, with the place of its national

assemblies transferred from Frankfurt to Berlin, presents one of the

strangest changes that historical geography can show us. But, strange

as is the geographical change, it has come about gradually, by the

natural working of historical causes. The Slavonic and Prussian lands

have been Germanized, while the western parts of the old kingdom

which have fallen away have mostly lost their German character. Those

German lands which have formed the kernel of the Swiss Confederation

have risen to a higher political state than that of any kingdom or

Empire. But the German lands which still remain so strangely united

to the lands of the Magyar and the southern Slave await, at however

distant a time, their natural and inevitable reunion. So does a Danish

population in the extreme north await, with less hope, its no less

natural separation from the German body. Posen, still mainly Slavonic,

remains unnaturally united to a Teutonic body, but it is not likely to

gain by a transfer to any other ruler. The reconstruction of the German

realm in its present shape, a shape so novel to the eye, but preserving

so much of ancient life and ancient history, has been the greatest

historical and geographical change of our times.

§ 3. _The Kingdom of Italy._

♦Small geographical importance of the kingdom as such.♦

We parted from the Italian kingdom at the moment of its separation

from the Eastern and Western kingdoms of the Franks. Its history,

as a kingdom, consists in little more than its reunion with the

East-Frankish crown, and in the way in which the royal power gradually

died out within its limits. There is but little to say as to any

changes of frontier of the kingdom as such. As long as Germany, Italy,

and Burgundy acknowledged a single king, any shiftings of the frontiers

of his three kingdoms were of secondary importance. When the power

of the Emperors in Italy had died out, the land became a system of

independent commonwealths and principalities, which had hardly that

degree of unity which could enable us to say that a certain territory

was added to Italy or taken from it. Even if a certain territory

passed from an Italian to a German or Burgundian lord, the change was

rather a change in the frontier of this or that Italian state than

in the frontier of Italy itself. ♦Changes on the Alpine frontier.♦

The shiftings of frontier along the whole Alpine border have been

considerable; but it is only in our own day that we can say that Italy

as such has become capable of extending or lessening her borders. ♦Case

of Verona.♦ When, in 1866, Venice and Verona were added to the Italian

kingdom, that was a distinct change in the frontier of Italy. We can

hardly give that name to endless earlier changes on the same marchland.

♦Case of Trieste, 1380.♦ In the fourteenth century, for instance, the

town of _Trieste_, disputed between the patriarchs of Aquileia and

the commonwealth of Venice, was acknowledged as an independent state,

and it presently gave up its independence by commendation to the Duke

of Austria. It is not likely that the question entered into any man’s

mind whether the frontiers of the German and Italian kingdoms were

affected by such a change. Whether as a free city or as an Austrian

lordship, Trieste remained under the superiority, formally undoubted

but practically nominal, of the common sovereign of Germany and Italy,

the Roman Emperor or King. Whether the nominal allegiance of the city

was due to him in his German or in his Italian character most likely no

one stopped to think. ♦No eastern or western frontiers.♦ East and west,

the Italian kingdom had no frontiers; the only question which could

arise was as to the relation of the islands of Corsica and Sardinia

to the kingdom itself or to any of the states which arose within it.

To the south lay the independent Lombard duchies, and the possessions

which still remained to the Eastern Empire. ♦The Norman kingdom of

Sicily not an Imperial fief.♦ These changed in time into the Norman

duchy of _Apulia_ and kingdom of _Sicily_; but that kingdom, held as

it was as a fief of the see of Rome, was never incorporated with the

Italian kingdom of the Emperors, nor did its kings ever become the

men of the Emperor. Particular Emperors in the thirteenth century, in

the sixteenth, and in the eighteenth, were also kings of one or both

the Sicilian kingdoms; but at no time before our own day were Sicily

and southern Italy ever incorporated with a Kingdom of Italy. When we

remember that it was to the southern part of the peninsula that the

name of Italy was first given, we see here a curiosity of nomenclature

as remarkable as the shiftings of meaning in the names of Saxony and

Burgundy.