[Sidenote: The Holy Roman Empire practically Restricted by 1500 to the
Germanies]

In the first place, the Holy Roman Empire was practically restricted to
German-speaking peoples. The papacy and the Italian cities had been
freed from imperial control, and both the Netherlands--that is, Holland
and Belgium--and the Swiss cantons were only nominally connected. Over
the Slavic people to the east--Russians, Poles, etc.--or the
Scandinavians to the north, the empire had secured comparatively small
influence. By the year 1500 the words Empire and Germany had become
virtually interchangeable terms.

Secondly, there was throughout central Europe no conspicuous desire for
strong centralized national states, such as prevailed in western
Europe.

[Sidenote: Internal Weakness of the Holy Roman Empire]

Separatism was the rule. In Italy and in the Netherlands the city-
states were the political units. Within the Holy Roman Empire was a
vast hodge-podge of city-states, and feudal survivals--arch-duchies,
such as Austria; margravates, such as Brandenburg; duchies, like
Saxony, Bavaria, and Wuerttemberg; counties like the Palatinate, and a
host of free cities, baronies, and domains, some of them smaller than
an American township. In all there were over three hundred states which
collectively were called "the Germanies" and which were united only by
the slender imperial thread. The idea of empire had not only been
narrowed to one nation; it also, in its failure to overcome feudalism,
had prevented the growth of a real national monarchy.