A Multitude of Sovereign States

The end of the Thirty Years’ WAR in 1648 was almost as disastrous for Germany as the war itself, which had devastated huge parts of the country. The Treaty of Westphalia cemented the division of Germanspeaking lands into hundreds of sovereign states, ranging from large ones like Saxony and Bavaria to smaller and even miniscule ones that consisted of little more than a sovereign lord, his castle, and a few villages. The sovereigns of these territories were sometimes kings, but more often dukes, counts, and bishops or archbishops. The territories were loosely bound together in the Holy Roman Empire, which, as the joke went, was neither holy nor Roman nor an empire. Mainly coextensive with the German-speaking lands, with the exception of Switzerland, it was a legal umbrella centered on the emperor in Vienna (by tradition, the Habsburg king of Austria served as emperor), his court, and various institutions. Most important among these were the Imperial Diet (Reichstag) in Regensburg and the Imperial courts in Wetzlar and Vienna (Reichskammergericht and Reichshofrat).

These courts settled disputes among the various territories and even between local authorities and their sovereign. Because a small village could take its local prince to court in Wetzlar or Vienna, the Empire had the reputation of being less autocratic and the power of “absolutist” monarchs of being less absolute than later ages would have it, and in any case less than in countries like France with its centralist government. This arrangement was called the “German constitution,” though of course it was not a constitution in the modern sense. Contemporaries and modern historians of the Empire alike have sometimes tended to exaggerate the liberties under this system and the courts’ capacity to resolve conflicts peacefully, but this was true only for the powerful and the wealthy. Lowly subjects most often lost their cases against their princes, and often did not have the financial means to see the case through. Added to this were the notorious decades-long delays in trials, so that the Imperial courts were a remedy more in name than in substance. Nevertheless, German princes ruled with a keen awareness of possible sanctions from Vienna or from the Reichstag in Regensburg, and for some, though not all of them, this consciousness bridled their self-interest.