Until the beginning of the seventeenth century the Electorate of Brandenburg—stretching from the Old Mark (west of the Elbe) to the New Mark (east of the Oder)—was one of the largest German principalities and, as one of the seven Electorates, possessed a certain influence in German and Imperial affairs. But it was situated in the most backward corner of the Empire, the ‘colonial’ north-east, thinly populated and cut off from the sea and all important trade routes. Its towns were small and declining, had lost all contacts with the Hanseatic League, and had been reduced to obedience by the Hohenzollern Electors in the fifteenth century. The country had no natural resources; its soil was proverbially poor, much of it being either sandy or water-logged. The peasants had been reduced to serfdom; and on the ruins of their freedom and of the towns' wealth the nobility had established its rule, not only over the peasants, but also over the Electors and the towns. This rule was exercised, as elsewhere in Germany, through the Estates which dominated the financial administration, the domestic, and even the foreign policy of the Electorate. The east-German—and the Polish—noblemen were interested in demesne farming and in the sale of their produce, especially corn and beer, hence opposed to any ventures in the field of foreign policy and to any military duties. Because of their trading interests, they were in favour of the maintenance of peace and good relations with their neighbours. They constituted a kind of squirearchy which treated the Elector as primus inter pares—as the Polish nobility treated their king. Within the Estates, the towns were much too weak to render any effective opposition to the ruling nobility, the prelates having disappeared as an Estate with the introduction of the Reformation.