Introduction

The concept, territorial layout and political structure of Germany at the time of the Black Death

At the time of the Black Death, the territories of Germany constituted the core areas of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. The Empire comprised a great number of principalities and lay and ecclesiastical fiefs held directly in homage to the emperor. It also comprised a considerable number of so-called free cities and towns that were not in the possession of a feudal lord but were formally subordinated directly to the emperor himself. However, this subordination was normally of little concrete significance; in reality, they functioned largely as independent republican city states governed by their own city councils. A considerable number of these principalities, fiefs and free cities have since joined other states or have become sovereign states. The notion that this area was united under the auspices of the German emperor was largely fictitious. According to the notions of modern social science with regard to the constituting structures of statehood, the Holy Roman Empire of those times presents as a quite artificial and loose construction. This means that the territory was politically fragmented, not only according to feudal principles of organization but also, in reality, in the case of some principalities, according to semi-developed structures of statehood. However, at the time, this political fragmentation did not much affect the commercial integration of the Empire that is so important to the spread of epidemic disease.

In the context of the subject of this book it is important to note some changes in borders and German settlement. Most of the Netherlands and the Kingdom of Bohemia belonged formally to the Holy Roman Empire and, at the time, the Kingdom of Bohemia included not only the present-day territory of the Czech Republic but also the Duchy of Silesia, a region that today is incorporated in south-western Poland, and, in addition, a couple of small areas to the west, so that the Kingdom reached almost to Nuremberg. Almost all the southern coastline of the Baltic Sea, from its beginning near Lübeck to the Gulf of Finland, belonged either to the Empire or to the State of the Order of the Teutonic Knights, including the German provinces of Mecklenburg, Pomerania, Prussia and the present-day Baltic states.