The Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, though continuing to assert the vast claims of the Roman world-state, was in fact but a loose confederacy of many and very diverse territories.

On a map drawn to the scale 1:6,000,000 nearly a hundred separate political entities can be counted within the limits of the Empire and there were many others too small to appear.

The rulers of seven of these territories elected the emperor; they were the three spiritual princes, the Archbishops of Mayence, Treves and Cologne, the three German temporal princes, the Electors of the Rhenish Palatinate, Saxony, and Brandenburg, and in addition the King of Bohemia, who, save for purposes of the imperial choice, did not count as a member of the Germanic body.

Besides these there were some powerful dukedoms, like Austria and Bavaria, and numerous smaller bishoprics and counties.
There were also many free cities, like Augsburg and Nuremberg, small aristocratic republics.

Finally there was a large body of "free knights" or barons, whose tiny fiefs amounted often to no more than a castle and a few acres, but who owned no feudal superior save {75} the emperor.