Wang Yaping: Traditional Elements in the Political System of Medieval Germany

At the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, German modern historians proposed the thesis of the "German Special Path" (deutscher Sonderweg) after comparing the developmental trajectories of the British and French political systems during the same period. For over a hundred years since, this assertion has remained a subject of intense discussion within the field of German modern history. Particularly after the 1950s, research into Prussian militarism, the absolutism of the German Empire, and the Weimar Republic appears inseparable from the "German Special Path" proposition. The core view of this thesis is that while 19th-century Germany achieved industrialization in its economy, it failed to follow the path of a liberal society or establish a national constitution. This created tension between agriculture and industry, and between economic and political elites, which in turn evolved into "National Socialism" (Nationaler Sozialismus) ^[1] and ultimately led to extreme "National Socialism" (Nationalsozialismus), namely Nazism.

In 1966, Hans-Ulrich Wehler, the founder of the Bielefeld School, published The History of Modern German Society, which centralized two approaches to his research on German modernization: interdisciplinary research and comparative research. From this, he argued that from the Prussian-dominated German Empire to the end of the Weimar Republic, there existed an "oppositional relationship between tradition and modernity." It was precisely this opposition that prevented Germany from taking the modernization path of Britain and France, resulting instead in structural "defects" that led toward Nazism. He further elaborated and refined this view in several subsequent monographs, emphasizing the critical role of social structures and their evolution in the historical process. Most scholars date the starting point of the "German Special Path" to the early 19th century when Prussian militaristic centralized absolutism formed, as Prussia moved in the opposite direction of the British and French constitutional monarchies, embarking on the "special path" of militaristic autocracy. In the 1980s, a surge of interest in the Reformation swept the German academic community. While conducting in-depth discussions on the background of the movement, the emergence of Christian denominations, and Martin Luther's religious thought, scholars also focused on the German Special Path, pushing its starting point back to the 16th century. However, discussing the historical background of the Reformation requires a further look back into medieval history—that is, a longue durée investigation.

In the early Middle Ages, Germany and France shared the Frankish era. German scholars consider the Frankish period a shared "prehistory" for both Germany and France; however, after the disintegration of the Frankish Empire, the path taken by the German kingdom differed vastly from that of the French kingdom. There is no doubt that, from the perspective of the longue durée, the historical process of any country or region carries its own customs. When discussing the feudal system of medieval Western Europe, the Belgian historian Ganshof argued that "the rules characterizing the fief-vassal relationship in these countries were, to a large extent, regional or local customs." To explore the "German Special Path," one must trace the historical thread following the birth of the German kingdom, summarize its distinct characteristics and traditions compared to other parts of Europe, and thereby gain a profound grasp of Germany's status and influence in Europe both historically and today. During the Middle Ages, Germany formed unique traditional elements in its political system: the elective kingship system, the dual structure of church and state, and the Germanic Mark system. It was these three traditional elements that governed the direction of the German political system, causing it to embark on a political path different from that of Britain and France upon entering the modern era.

I. The Frankish Political Legacy

In the Middle Ages, "Germany" was a geographical concept with blurred boundaries; in a German context, deutsch is not a synonym for "German" ^[2]. German is not a tribal name but a geographical concept originating from the two Germania provinces established by Caesar west of the Rhine: Germania Superior and Germania Inferior. In his Commentarii de Bello Gallico, Caesar referred collectively to all the foreign peoples living in the Germania provinces as Germans. Because they spoke different languages, the Romans also referred to them collectively as "Barbarians" (Babarian), which Chinese academia usually translates as "Manzu" (蛮族). Tacitus, in his Germania, recorded the nomadic tribes that migrated there, such as the Bavarians, Swabians, Franks, and Thuringians; many European place names originate from the names of these migrating and settling nomadic tribes. However, the Germans (deutsch) are not a single branch of the "Germans" (Germanen); the appearance of "Germans" (deutsch) as a geographical concept occurred only after the collapse of the Frankish Empire.

The Franks were a branch of the Germanic peoples, first appearing in written records in the mid-3rd century. According to the records of Gregory of Tours in the 6th century in his History of the Franks, the Franks were a large ethnic group composed of several tribes who migrated from Pannonia to settle on the banks of the Rhine. From the perspective of Western scholars, compared to other tribes in the Germania provinces at the time, the Franks entered the Gaul region later, came into contact with the Romans later, and their civilization developed later. In the mid-5th century, Merovech, the military leader of the Salian Frankish tribe, expanded outward from Tournai in present-day Belgium to annex other tribes. After his son, Childeric I, succeeded him as military leader, he was honored as king and is regarded as the first king of the Frankish tribal kingdom, beginning the rule of the Merovingian dynasty (Merowinger).

The kingdom established by the Franks in Gaul maintained its own political traditions and social customs. First, having entered Gaul through force of arms, their nomadic military character was preserved for a long time; additionally, with the continuous warfare of the 6th and 7th centuries, the entire society was often in a state of internecine strife. Around the king gathered armed bodyguards (comitatus), which domestic scholars usually translate as hucheng ("retinue"). The German historian Höfler called the royal power of the Frankish kingdom "retinue kingship" (Gefolgschafts-Königtum), where the retinue established a subordinate relationship with the king through oaths. Second, in the newly established kingdom, the Franks maintained the basic organizational mechanism of Germanic society—the Mark. Members of the Mark were free men enjoying equal rights, which was most clearly reflected in the economic system: every Mark member was allotted a portion of land (Huf) and a homestead, and received protection in military and judicial matters; they all enjoyed rights and duties, participating in the assembly of citizens to decide the affairs of the Mark and even the kingdom.

However, as the Frankish kingdom continued to annex other tribes, the power of the king grew daily, while the authority of the assembly of citizens gradually weakened, and the political rights of Mark members became smaller, leaving only the right to personal freedom under the king's protection. It is evident that "protection" was a vital factor in the Frankish political system and a very important foundation for the construction of the medieval feudal political system. The German legal historian Wesel argued that it was precisely based on this "protection" that the Frankish king during the Merovingian period was the "King of the Franks" (rex Francorum), not the "King of the Frankish Territory" (rex Franciae); that is to say, personal rule was practiced in the Frankish kingdom. The king's governance relied on household officials and retinues who had familial ties to him; they were people "subordinate to the king" (in obsequio regis). Ganshof called the retinue "free men dependent on a person" (ingenui in obsequio) and believed this gave rise to the "commendation system" (commendation).

In Frankish customary law, "family" members referred not only to those with blood or affinal relations but also included unfree household servants and retainers without blood ties; they could not participate in social activities as independent free men and could not leave at will without the master's permission. They could be given or sold as property, had no right to determine their own behavior or destination, and had to obey the household master's commands completely. Because of this, they earned the king's trust, were entrusted with important responsibilities, and received land as rewards. They also enjoyed privileges to manage the land and the people attached to it, such as judicial power, taxation power, and even military power.

These people constituted the main body of the aristocracy during the Frankish period. As the French historian Georges Duby said, "The aristocracy was composed of the king's confidants who performed outstandingly in battle and obtained land in the distribution of spoils," and "they were linked to the king through their loyalty to him." Marc Bloch pointed out that the meaning of "aristocracy" differed at different stages of the Middle Ages, or rather, the group of people referred to by the word edel recorded in texts was not entirely the same. During the Merovingian period, "a class worthy of the title of nobility obviously had to possess two characteristics: first, its own legal status, capable of guaranteeing the superiority it claimed and making that superiority actually effective; second, the status had to be hereditary." The superiority of status was reflected in the Lex Salica (Salic Law), where there were huge differences between the aristocracy and other classes in terms of weregild (compensation) and other aspects.

As the Merovingian dynasty established itself in the Gaul region, the Franks successively conquered other Germanic tribes. Especially during the struggles among various kings, the structure of the aristocracy changed, and those who served the king—particularly the Mayors of the Palace—gradually participated in the governance of the kingdom. The Mayor of the Palace was originally the person in the royal household responsible for managing servants, but his power gradually expanded until he participated in managing the affairs of the kingdom. By the mid-6th century, the Mayor of the Palace became the most powerful person in the Merovingian dynasty, and two great families of Mayors of the Palace formed in Austrasia and Neustria during the power struggles between kings. In 614, King Chlothar issued an edict allowing royal officials, including counts and bishops who managed local areas, to be selected from the clan nobility in the family's locality.

At the end of the Merovingian dynasty, the Mayor of the Palace Charles Martel, in order to stop the Arab invasion, established a combat-ready cavalry force. He granted land on the condition of performing cavalry service, combining the original Frankish system of commendation with the "beneficium" (恩地) that had been practiced as far back as the Roman Empire. The so-called "beneficium" did not grant full ownership of the land to the person commended, but only the "immediate and direct right to enjoy control over the land, that is, property rights in the modern sense." It was a form of tenancy widely popular in the late Roman Empire. Commendation and the system of land tenancy together formed the basis of the feudal system (Lehnswesen). At the juncture when the Roman Empire collapsed and the Frankish kingdom rose—and when the original political systems of Western Europe lost their efficacy while new systems had not yet been established—commendation and the tenancy system forged a "vast network of interpersonal relationships that crisscrossed through all social strata," becoming the two most fundamental factors of Western European feudalism.

The Frankish kingdom began its Christianization early in its founding, the starting point being 498 when the first king, Clovis, led three thousand retinues to convert to Christianity. The Roman aristocracy in the Gaul region fused with the Frankish aristocracy through the medium of Christianity, constituting the aristocratic class of the Merovingian dynasty. In 751, Pepin the Short, the second son of Charles Martel, changed the dynasty by resolving the difficulties of the Roman Church, laying the foundation for the medieval alliance between church and state in Western Europe. After Charlemagne took power, he expanded the Frankish territory through continuous outward expansion on the one hand, and on the other hand established archdioceses, granting archbishops various secular rights to balance the power of the nobility in the newly conquered areas. This cultivated the power of the ecclesiastical nobility and formed a dual structure of church and state in the Western European feudal polity. However, regional or local differences within the vast space were clearly reflected in the process of feudalization. In Gaul, the base where the Franks established their kingdom, the feudal political system developed quite fully; the leaders of the various original Germanic tribes established vassal relationships with the king through land enfeoffment, the lord-vassal relationship was relatively stable, and the manorial system was gradually established. In the eastern regions conquered later by the Franks, the links between regions were not close, and the original Germanic tribes such as the Saxons, Franconians, Bavarians, and Swabians gradually transformed into independent duchies, retaining their respective customs and original social organizations to varying degrees. The land ownership phenomenon of the Mark system was preserved relatively commonly. The manorial system prevalent in West Francia did not appear widely in the eastern regions, and it was precisely in the east that the medieval German kingdom emerged.

II. The Elective Kingship System: The Difficulty of Centralizing Power

In the mid-9th century, following foreign invasions and multiple internal conflicts, the Frankish Empire formed three major regions: Germania in the east, Francia in the west, and Lotharingia in the middle. In 840, the Frankish Emperor Louis the Pious, following Germanic inheritance customs, divided these three regions among his three sons. In 843, the three brothers signed a treaty at Verdun, splitting the empire into three. In 870, after the eldest brother and his heirs had successively passed away, the other two brothers partitioned his kingdom again at Meerssen, thereby dividing Francia into Eastern and Western kingdoms. The East Frankish Kingdom encompassed Germania and most of Lotharingia—including present-day Netherlands, Alsace, Friesland, the Rhineland, Lorraine, and the Lombard region of Italy—as well as the eastern areas inhabited by Franks, Swabians, Bavarians, and Saxons, along with the then-important imperial city of Aachen.

It should be emphasized that throughout the early and even the High Middle Ages, there were no fixed or clear boundary lines. Borders were roughly defined by the Scheldt, Saône, Meuse, and Rhône rivers, and regional affiliation depended more on the choices of the inhabitants. ^[3] Pance explicitly stated that regional belonging depended more on the closeness of the relationship between the people living in that area and the royal power—on whom they were loyal to and whom they depended upon. Finer also argued: "The most prominent feature of Western Feudalism was that political loyalty and territory were separate. What decided whom one should obey was not 'What country are you from?' but 'Who is your lord?'—feudal relations were trans-regional." ^[4] The ruler of the East Frankish Kingdom was Ludwig der Deutsche (Louis the German).

The word deutsch (German) originates from the Old Saxon thiod (meaning "people" or "tribe"). During the late Carolingian Dynasty, the extended meaning of the term was "speakers of this language," referring to those within the Frankish Kingdom who did not speak Romance languages: namely the Saxons, Alemanni, Franks, Bavarians, Thuringians, and others. More precisely, "Germany" was a linguistic-territorial concept that included not only present-day Germany but also northern Italy, parts of northeastern France, the Low Countries such as the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg, parts of the West Slavic inhabited regions, as well as portions of Austria, Czechia, and Poland.

East Francia consisted of regions conquered later than the core of Charlemagne's empire. This area was divided into duchies based on tribal territories, allowing noble families to continue governing in their original manner, provided they converted to Christianity and established archdioceses. Consequently, the traditional tribal social organizational structures in this region remained relatively intact and possessed a considerable degree of independence. The manorial system ^[5] based on lord-vassal relations was far less developed than in West Francia. It produced neither a hierarchical political structure of the "my vassal's vassal is not my vassal" type, nor a more centralized royal rule of the "my vassal's vassal is still my vassal" type.

The throne of the East Frankish Kingdom was little more than a nominal position. The power of noble families grew steadily until, by the 880s, five major powers emerged as regional hegemons: the Carolingian family of Franconia (who inherited the throne), the Liudolfing family of Saxony, the Welf family of Burgundy, the Carloman family of Bavaria, and the Alaholfing family of Swabia. These centered to form the five great tribal duchies (Stammesherzogtum).

In November 911, after the death of the East Frankish king, the throne was not inherited by a descendant but was instead filled by a successor jointly elected by the five dukes. In this way, the great families of the East Frankish region formed a loose political confederation. It is worth mentioning that no feudal manorial relationship existed between the great duchies and the royal power—or rather, there was no clear political subordination; the alliance was maintained solely by the common need to defend against external enemies. The reason was that at the start of the 10th century, the Hungarians had driven deep into East Francia. To resist these powerful invaders, the German tribal dukes had to unite. In 919, they again used the elective method to choose the most powerful figure of the time, Duke Henry I of Saxony, as king, beginning the Ottonian (Saxon) Dynasty. In the mid-19th century, the German historian Wilhelm von Giesebrecht evaluated that the election of Henry I marked "the beginning of a new, German kingdom." The great positivist historian Georg Waitz called Henry I "a German king in the full sense, ruling a truly German kingdom." Since the 20th century, German historians have generally considered the succession of 919 a vital turning point in medieval German history: "The transfer of sovereignty to Henry I was an important step in the transition from the East Frankish Kingdom to the German Kingdom." From then on, "Germany" gradually replaced "East Francia" in medieval historical sources, and 919 has been widely recognized in German academia as the birth year of the German Kingdom.

The "German Kingdom" was a political confederation composed of the Duchies of Saxony, Alemannia, Bavaria, and Franconia, as well as the Duchy of Lotharingia, which returned after the 920s; the five great duchies enjoyed equal political status. Professor Tellenbach of the University of Freiburg, in expounding the transformation of East Francia into the German Kingdom, emphasized that although royal authority was established in the newly founded kingdom, because the king was elected by the dukes, the dukes were not the king's vassals. They respectively held important offices in the royal court and played a decisive role in determining the affairs of the kingdom; they enjoyed considerable autonomy, self-governance, and independence. Rabe also argued that, unlike in medieval France, the political traditions of the Germanic people and the original rights of the nobility were mostly preserved in Germany, and these rights did not merge with manorial rights. Therefore, from the beginning, the king did not establish original personal dependency relations with the tribal dukes in his capacity as their liege lord.

Upon ascending the throne, Henry I utilized the various duchies to achieve great victories against the Hungarians, eliminating the threat of foreign invasion. To consolidate the Saxon Dynasty's hold on the throne, he changed the Frankish custom of partible inheritance among all sons, designating his second son as the successor. He also stipulated that a legitimate successor must be elected by the various dukes, and be proclaimed by an archbishop as "chosen by God, designated by the monarch, and elected by the dukes," receiving the acclamations of the people and the rite of anointing before the cathedral altar. From this point, the German Kingdom developed its unique system of elective kingship. Elective kingship lacked a definitive legal basis; the legitimacy of the successor lay in the recognition of the princely nobility. The elective system did not negate hereditary family claims to the throne; thus, it frequently occurred in the Middle Ages that a reigning king would designate a young son as successor, leading to repeated instances of child kings ascending the throne—such as Otto I’s son Otto III being elected king at age six, and Frederick II ascending at age three.

Undoubtedly, the elective system was detrimental to centralization and could only exacerbate political fragmentation. In the mid-11th century, the five-year-old Henry IV ascended the throne with the Archbishops of Cologne and Mainz acting as regents. They held great power and strove to expand their spheres of influence, while ecclesiastical and secular nobles took the opportunity to brazenly plunder royal estates. After Henry IV began his personal rule at age twelve, he forcefully reclaimed royal lands, inevitably entering into fierce conflict with the nobility. During the same period, the Roman Church underwent reform to rid itself of long-standing interference by secular power in ecclesiastical affairs—especially the appointment of bishops and archbishops. This eventually led to a direct conflict with Henry IV over the appointment of the Archbishop of Milan, triggering the Investiture Controversy (Investiturstreit), which lasted half a century. During the struggle, the Pope formed an alliance with anti-royalist forces in Germany and used his religious authority to excommunicate Henry IV. The German secular nobility took the opportunity to elect an alternative king, receiving the Pope’s promise to crown the new monarch. Consequently, Henry IV was forced to bow to the Pope and beg for the lifting of his excommunication. This was the first time the German ecclesiastical and secular nobility used the elective system to oppose royal power. Election became a powerful political weapon for curbing royal (imperial) power. Thereafter, factions of opposing ecclesiastical and secular princes repeatedly elected rival kings, resulting in situations with two or even three kings standing simultaneously. There appeared "Count-Kings" (Grafenkönige) elected under the control of princes, so-called "Cleric-Kings" manipulated by archbishops, and even foreign kings who had never set foot in Germany.

The elective system was used by the German nobility not only to restrain royal power but also as a powerful lever to demand charters of privilege. At the beginning of the 13th century, the four-year-old Frederick II ascended the throne with the support of the Roman Church and German ecclesiastical princes, growing up under the protection of the Pope and the Archbishop of Cologne. After reaching adulthood and beginning his personal rule, he promulgated the Confoederatio cum principibus ecclesiasticis (Confederation with the Ecclesiastical Princes) to win over the church nobility. The decree stated that the Emperor would protect the economic interests of the Church, granting ecclesiastical princes all economic privileges and prohibiting anyone from building castles or establishing cities against the Church's wishes. It expanded the judicial jurisdiction of ecclesiastical princes and protected their various rights to control cities and mint coins, among other things. The Emperor used statutory law once to confirm the legitimacy of the existing rights of bishops and archbishops, prohibiting the establishment of new customs houses or mints within their territories, and forbidding autonomous cities from accepting the serfs of bishops or placing unrestricted taxes and currency requirements on the bishops' cities. The decree also stipulated that the king must prohibit officials and vassals in royal demesnes from infringing upon Church property, ensuring that secular forces submitted to ecclesiastical punishment.

Ten years later, Frederick II's son, Henry (VII), lost a fierce conflict with the great secular nobility and was forced to promulgate the Statutum in favorem principum (Statute in Favor of the Princes). In this decree, the king announced the abandonment of supreme judicial rights, the right of escort (Geleitrecht), minting rights, the right to collect customs, and the right to build castles and cities within the territories of the princely states. He guaranteed that currency minted by the princes would circulate effectively within cities, granted princes the right to defend cities, and required citizens to uphold the rights of the princes. The decree also explicitly stipulated that citizens were not to form alliances or leagues without authorization; even the king could not recognize such alliances without the permission of the city's lord. It is evident that these two decrees not only greatly weakened royal (imperial) authority but also established legal obstacles to the formation of alliances by the burgher class, preventing the German king from moving toward centralization.

Nevertheless, German historians still evaluate the two aforementioned decrees positively, generally regarding them as major milestones in medieval German history. They are important not because they created new power relations in Germany, but because they codified existing ones into law. The German legal historian Wolf argues that these two 13th-century decrees possess constitutional significance; they were no longer directed at individuals—neither individual princes nor individual cities—but were addressed to all ecclesiastical and secular princes, and all cities and citizens. The two decrees legally recognized the princes' rights of autonomy and self-determination. They had the right to define the boundaries of their territories and set up frontier defenses, thereby giving the territories fixed borders. The manorial rights of the lords were weakened by the widespread land-rental systems within these borders, and the mode of governance based on "whom one is loyal to and whom one depends upon" ceased to operate within the territories. This change in territoriality is called the "territorialization of the manorial system" (Territorialisierung des Lehnswesens) by German scholars, because "in the late Middle Ages, manorial rights characterized by the person of the lord weakened and were unified into a territorialized system." The territories acquired the concept of modern state sovereignty (Souveränität), and the territorial state (Territorialstaat) replaced the old duchies and counties.

The formation of the princely-state system exacerbated the chaos of royal elections. German scholars refer to the period following the mid-13th century as the "Interregnum" ^[11] (1254–1273). The Interregnum was not a period without kings, but rather a phase in which the election of German kings repeatedly fell into disorder; even the English and French monarchies took the opportunity to covet the German throne. The struggle for the crown evolved into an international dispute, intertwined with territorial conflicts between England and France. It was not until the 1350s that the seven Prince-electors (Kurfürst) reached an agreement to elect a new king. To ensure the stability of his political status, the new king did not hesitate to compromise with the great nobility, promulgating the Golden Bull (Goldene Bulle) in 1356. German scholars generally consider the Golden Bull to be the first fundamental law of the Medieval German Empire, as it explicitly codified the procedures for royal elections in legal form for the first time.

First, it legally established the seven Prince-electors entitled to elect the king: the Archbishops of Mainz, Cologne, and Trier, the King of Bohemia, the Count Palatine of the Rhine, the Duke of Saxony, and the Margrave of Brandenburg. Second, it defined the various rights of the Prince-electors: they had the right not only to elect the Emperor but also to participate in imperial legislation; the three Archbishops enjoyed absolute religious authority within the German Empire; the four secular Prince-electors were required to practice primogeniture; and the territories of the Prince-electors could not be partitioned in any form. Third, it determined the electoral procedure: the Archbishop of Mainz served as the Arch-Chancellor of the Empire and presided over the electoral process. Within one month of the reigning Emperor's death, he had to notify the Prince-electors and invite them to Frankfurt to elect a new "King of the Romans." A candidate could only be crowned as the legitimate German King by the Archbishop of Mainz after gaining the consent of the four secular electors and the recognition of the three ecclesiastical electors; subsequently, the Pope would perform the imperial coronation in Rome. German scholars refer to this as an "elective monarchy" (Wahlmonarchie).

By establishing the electoral process through legislation, the Golden Bull to some extent curbed the arbitrary manipulation of elections by the princes, while also legally protecting the rights of the Prince-electors. The electoral principalities gained complete autonomy in political, economic, judicial, and military affairs. This made the polycentrism that had long characterized Germany even harder to overcome, as the king’s power was confined to his own dynastic territories. In the 15th century, when England and France were gradually overcoming feudal fragmentation and entering the process of nation-state formation centered on royal power, the seemingly powerful Holy Roman Empire was unable to surmount the obstacles of division created by the Prince-electors, thereby delaying the process of German transition toward a unified modern state.

III. The Dualistic Mechanism of Church and State in Mutual Counterbalance

In medieval Western Europe, the Christian Church was a factor of decisive importance, and its role in the political system had already been established during the Frankish period. The conversion of the early Frankish King Clovis to Christianity marked the starting point for the Christianization of Western European society; the alliance between Pippin and the Pope established the concept of the "divine right of kings"; and Charlemagne’s ecclesiastical policies laid the foundation for the dualistic political mechanism of Church and State. After the disintegration of the Frankish Empire, the imperial polity disappeared once again from the Western European continent.

When Otto I succeeded to the German throne, he faced the dual threats of internal rebellion and external invasion. Although Otto established a noble ruling group centered on his family members, this familial alliance did not guarantee centralized rule. To this end, Otto I inherited Charlemagne’s ecclesiastical policy, not only granting bishops, archbishops, and great secular nobles equal rights but, more importantly, seizing the power to appoint bishops, archbishops, and abbots. He hoped thereby to cultivate a new force capable of checking the great nobility. To control the Church, he appointed his youngest brother Bruno as Archbishop of Cologne and granted him prerogatives, including the right to fortify the city of Cologne, establish markets and mints, and collect customs duties; Cologne thus became the most important city in the kingdom. Relying on his religious authority as Archbishop, Bruno effectively balanced the ecclesiastical and secular political forces, stabilizing the situation in the Lorraine region.

Otto I found a new model in Bruno’s governance of Lorraine. He trained a large number of clerics in the court chapel and appointed them as bishops and archbishops across various regions, granting them the same judicial, customs, market, and minting rights as dukes. They became the agents of royal power within the various ducal territories. Simultaneously, Otto I established monasteries in various locations, granting them vast tracts of land and giving the abbots administrative and judicial jurisdiction over the acquired lands; historians refer to this as the "Ottonianum" ^[12]. Through the Ottonianum, Germany established the Imperial Church System (Reichskirchensystem), cultivating an ecclesiastical nobility capable of rivaling the secular nobility, with the former becoming a vital pillar of royal rule. Otto’s ecclesiastical policy forged a dualistic political structure for Germany, sowing the seeds for long-term fragmentation.

In the late 950s, the Roman Church was not only embroiled in the struggles of the nobility within the city of Rome but also faced military threats from other Italian forces. The then-Pope was forced to send an embassy to Otto for help. Otto saw an opportunity to extend the Ottonianum to the Roman Church and led his army directly into Italy. In early 962, the Pope, having stabilized his position with Otto's military assistance, followed the tradition of the Roman Empire and placed the imperial crown on Otto's head in St. Peter’s Basilica. Consequently, Otto considered himself the successor to Charlemagne and styled himself Otto the Great (Otto der Große). An empire reappeared in Western Europe—the German Empire. Simultaneously, an unwritten rule formed in Germany: only the German King could receive the "Roman Emperor" coronation from the Pope in Rome. Therefore, after being crowned Emperor, German kings would immediately designate their heirs as the new king, leading to the repeated phenomenon of "child kings" during the Middle Ages.

The Pope's original intention was to use Otto to escape the shackles of the Roman nobility, emphasizing the "divine right of kings" and arguing that Otto's duty should only be to protect the Roman Church. This was clearly at odds with the objectives of German royal power, and the two sides subsequently fell out. The Pope turned to the Byzantine Emperor for aid, prompting Otto to march into Italy again, depose the Pope, and appoint his own vassal as the successor. While reaffirming the Ottonianum, he added new content: the election of a Pope required the Emperor's permission, and the newly elected Pope had to swear an oath to the Emperor's envoy and fulfill his obligations to the Emperor. Thereafter, German Emperors frequently interfered in the appointment and dismissal of Popes. In the century between 955 and 1057, of the twenty-five Popes of the Roman Church, twelve were appointed through imperial nomination, and of the thirteen Popes nominated by the Roman nobility, five were deposed by the Emperor.

At the beginning of the 10th century, the Abbey of Cluny in France initiated a reform centered on purging monastic life to prevent interference by secular nobles. This reform was supported not only by the Roman Church but also by secular monarchs, the latter seeing in it an opportunity to curb the power of local nobles. The monastic reform movement quickly spread across many parts of Western Europe, forming various reformist schools. In the early 11th century, Leo IX, who was appointed Pope by the German Emperor, launched reforms that included opposing simony, regulating clerical discipline, and establishing clerical celibacy. These reforms, especially the decree on papal elections promulgated in 1059, completely repudiated the right of secular monarchs to appoint or dismiss Popes. This enhanced the independence of the Church and also stimulated the Roman Church’s desire for power.

First, the reformed Roman Church, through the decree on papal elections and the opposition to simony, prevented secular princes from interfering in ecclesiastical and monastic investiture. In particular, the power to appoint and dismiss the Pope was placed entirely in the hands of the newly established College of Cardinals, significantly weakening the control secular monarchs had exerted over the Christian Church since the Frankish period. Second, the Pope dispatched legates to various parts of Western Europe, extending his influence beyond Rome and the Italian peninsula in an attempt to become the supreme authority of the Christian world, possessing real power unrestricted by boundaries. Finally, the Roman Church leveraged its power of investiture over bishops and archbishops to interfere in the political affairs of various countries. The ambition for power sought by the reformed Roman Church eventually led to a direct conflict with the German Emperor Henry IV over the appointment of the Archbishop of Milan in the 1070s, initiating the Investiture Controversy that lasted for over half a century. The Pope’s use of excommunication for the first time forced the Emperor’s submission. Nobles opposing Henry IV took the opportunity to elect an anti-king, forcing Henry IV to seek the Pope’s forgiveness as a penitent, embarking on the "Road to Canossa" (Canossagang).

In medieval history, the Roman Pope intervened many times in the political affairs of England and France and excommunicated their kings, but none of these actions produced a political impact comparable to that in Germany. This was because the relationship between the English and French monarchies and the Roman Church was not as close; their bishops, archbishops, and even abbots were vassals of the king, and they lacked an electoral mechanism capable of rivaling royal power. The Canossa incident was less a submission of the German King to the Pope than a compromise and concession to the German ecclesiastical and secular princes. Indisputably, the conflict between Church and State exacerbated German fragmentation. In the early 1220s, Frederick II again engaged in a power struggle with the Roman Church. German ecclesiastical princes threatened to defect to the Pope, and the Pope excommunicated Frederick II, forcing him to compromise with the ecclesiastical princes and promulgate the Statutum in favorem principum (Statute in Favor of the Princes). However, he did not achieve his intended goals and remained without papal absolution even until his death, being buried in the simple habit of a monk.

The dualistic mechanism of Church and State in the German political system persisted throughout the Middle Ages. German bishops and archbishops held a highly significant position in the political mechanism, not only interfering with royal power but even deciding the choice of the King. Among the seven Prince-electors established in the 13th century, the archbishops held three seats, enjoying the right to elect the King and crown the new monarch. In 1245, the Archbishops of Cologne and Mainz even elected a King—the so-called "Clerical King"—by convening only bishops and archbishops without the participation of secular princes. In the 13th and 14th centuries, England and France successively completed the transition from a feudal personal union to a modern parliamentary monarchy; the role and influence of the ecclesiastical nobility gradually diminished, absolutist royal power was established, and they moved toward unified nation-states. Germany, however, remained a loose, vast empire with numerous principalities and multiple political centers. It was precisely this situation that provided the political soil for the formation of denominations during the 16th-century Reformation. During the Reformation, England and France established dominant Christian denominations within their borders, but Germany established the principle of cuius regio, eius religio ("whose realm, his religion"). In the late Middle Ages, when religion had not yet been fully separated from politics—or rather, when politics had not yet been fully secularized—the "salvation of the soul" was a matter for the princes, not for every individual believer. Thus, according to the linguistic habits of the time, cuius regio, eius religio was translated into German as wes der Fürst, wes Glaub ("as the prince, so the faith"). Although cuius regio, eius religio provided a political guarantee for the expansion and development of Protestant denominational organizations, it further delayed the process of German nation-state formation and hindered Germany's pace toward becoming a modern state. To this day, Germany has no unified state religion, and within the federal system, each state decides its own dominant denomination. Therefore, apart from Christmas and secular holidays, there are no unified national religious holidays in Germany to this day.

IV. The Principle of the Mark System

An important reason why the German kingdom took a different path from England and France in the process of feudal political development lies in its different mechanism of social organization. During the Frankish period, the feudalization of land was the basis of the fief system, and its social organizational structure was the manorial system. The manor was an economic unit, a collective for organizing social production; it was a unit for land management, a unit for taxation, and a judicial unit. Mr. Ma Keyao, a Chinese scholar of Western European feudal society, regards the manor as a specific organizational form in medieval Western European agricultural production, characterized by the existence of labor rent and various powers to control the peasantry. Like England and France, Germany formed its social structure on the basis of the feudal land system. However, as mentioned above, because the level of feudalization in the eastern Frankish regions was weaker, elements of the Germanic Mark system ^[13] survived for a long time and continued to exert an influence.

The Mark system is the most fundamental social organizational mechanism of the Germanic people. The Latin etymology of the word Mark is margo (border), referring to an immigrant settlement with clear boundaries, usually comprising one or several natural villages in the migrated area, using "Mark stones" (Markstein) as boundary markers. The Mark was also the most basic social and economic unit, carrying the meaning of protecting communal property, known as the Gewere system ^[14]. The German scholar Bader believes that the meaning of this term is extremely rich; it possesses the concept of an association, functioned as a social organization, and also encompasses the association’s protection of its members, making it difficult to express with modern vocabulary. Germanic kings usually distributed land in units of Mark, which the Mark then distributed to each member in the form of hides (allods/lots), where members had the right to manage collective property, decide whether to accept new members, and participate in deciding important group affairs. The Mark was also the basic social-legal unit of the Germanic people, prescribing obligations that every member had to fulfill: obeying various regulations; attending citizen assemblies; and participating in the construction and maintenance of bridges, roads, and other public facilities. German scholars refer to such basic social groups as the Mark community (Markgenossenschaft).

The various Germanic tribes that moved into the Roman Empire successively established tribal kingdoms. They not only used the Mark organizational mechanism to transform the Roman latifundia system but also underwent certain changes themselves. The French scholar Guizot argued that this was the result of the respective decline and mutual fusion of the Germanic and Roman societies. However, because the developmental levels of different Germanic tribes varied, and their contact with the Roman Empire occurred at different times, the degree of Roman influence also differed. Consequently, during the Frankish period, development between the eastern and western regions was highly uneven. The western region was the base of the Frankish state; the fief system (beneficium) was the foundation of royal power, and feudal lords organized socio-economic activities in the form of manors. The manor was a product of the fusion of the Roman latifundia system and the Germanic Mark social organization. Thus, it was not merely a simple economic mechanism; as Marc Bloch emphasized, "The lord was not only a leader in management, he also exercised governing power over the tenant farmers." The American economic historian Thompson explicitly stated: "The manorial system once prevailed in all parts of Central and Western Europe, that is, within the borders of Latin and Germanic Christian countries: it was a form of government, as well as a social structure and an economic system." In this system, the peasants engaged in agricultural production and the lords formed a legal relationship of personal dependence, and free peasants fell into the status of dependent peasants.

East Francia was a region later conquered by the Franks. As previously mentioned, the East Frankish kings were elected by princes who had evolved from tribal nobility during the crisis of foreign invasions. They did not form a lord-vassal fief relationship with the king; the duchies and counties possessed varying degrees of autonomy and self-determination, especially in the Saxon region. As Engels analyzed, "Among the Germans who had defeated the Roman Empire, the state arose directly from the conquest of vast foreign territories... Since the conquered and the conquerors were at nearly the same stage of economic development, and thus the economic base of society remained as before, the gentile constitution [tribal system] was able to continue for several centuries in a modified, regional form, namely in the form of the Mark system."

Because the hierarchy of the fief system was insufficiently developed, the East Frankish region formed a loose feudal political system. Furthermore, the social structures of East and West Francia showed marked differences, which can be seen in the different names for rural social organizational mechanisms. After the 7th century, the term that appeared more frequently in West Frankish documents was mansus, which Chinese academia usually translates as "manor" (zhuangyuan); in East Frankish documents, the most common term was hoba (corresponding to Hof or Hufe), usually translated as "hide" (hufu) or "allotment" (fendi). German scholars have conducted in-depth research on the word hoba: some believe the term has the attribute of a land unit; some believe it was merely a land area in terms of agricultural economy; others believe that in the early Frankish period, it was only used to describe the location of a manor, and it was not clearly used as a land unit until the legislation of Charlemagne. Still other scholars point out that the meaning of this term varies greatly in documents from different periods: before the 9th century, it usually referred to an allotment within a Mark, while afterward, it referred to a peasant’s farmstead. However, scholars seem to have one point of consensus: the Hufe land was not the lord's land, but the property of the peasant community, distributed to community members in the form of allotments, where the peasants who received them enjoyed rights of ownership and use.

The meaning of the medieval "farmstead" (Hof) differs greatly from its modern meaning, and even today, German historians still debate its definition. Some scholars believe the farmstead was used to support peasant families, but in reality, its connotations are rich. The Austrian historian Dopsch believed that the farmstead was the dwelling place of the peasant family, the unit for the family's lease of cultivated land, and the unit of measurement for paying rent and taxes. Undoubtedly, in the medieval feudal system, the farmstead was the lord's land; as Boissonade said, "There is no lord without land," and "There is no land without a lord." The lord's land was divided into two categories: the demesne (terra indominicata) and smallholdings. The demesne was cultivated by peasants through corvée labor; they held the lord's unfree farmsteads (mansi serviles) and provided corvée labor for the lord. Smallholdings referred to free farmsteads (mansi ingenuiles) and semi-free farmsteads (mansi lidiles), which paid rent in kind to the lord. Rosener argued that whether it was corvée labor or taxes, they were not assigned to individual peasants but to individual farmsteads; the farmstead could be said to be a unit of measurement for the lord's taxation. Because of rent and corvée labor, the farmstead became an integral part of the seignurial system.

"Seignurial system" (Grundherrschaft) is a modern concept. The German historian Goetz explained: "The seignurial system is related to property and land, that is, to land tenure: control over land is the indispensable foundation of the seignurial system. As a technical term, the concept also contains fixed meanings in terms of organization, management, and use—that is, understanding the seignurial system from an economic perspective. Furthermore, 'seignurial system' also contains the sense of ruling power derived from and related to the possession of land. Of course, this is not the rule over the countryside [as a territory], but the rule over the people living in the countryside; this is the social perspective of the seignurial system. Combining these two factors shows that wherever there is land ownership and the right to exercise rule over people, there is a seignurial system." The farmstead within the feudal seignurial system inherited the most basic legal principles of the Mark: protection, freedom, and autonomy.

The principle of "protection" (Schutz) often mentioned in German medieval studies originated from Germanic tribes and maintained the governing (management) relationship between the lord and the lower strata of society. Free men, semi-free men, and slaves within the Mark community all received protection in terms of judicial trial, inviolability of acquired land, and usufruct rights. Protected Mark members possessed a certain degree of legal freedom. "Freedom" had different meanings in different periods; freedom in the early Middle Ages mostly referred to being free from the constraints of the lord's corvée labor—more precisely, the management mode of the land and the form of taxation determined the peasant's legal identity. During the Frankish Empire, in addition to the land of feudal lords, there were also royal demesnes (Fiskalland). After the disintegration of the empire, the land in the West Frankish region was either granted as fiefs or seized, and royal demesnes gradually disappeared. However, in East Francia, royal demesnes continued to exist for a long time. The regions where royal demesnes were located retained the Germanic mode of land distribution; farmsteads were organized within Marks and placed directly under the protection of the king's jurisdiction. From a legal perspective, the peasants were free men who had their own farmstead courts (Hofrecht) and conducted self-management, but they were not allowed to move freely without the lord's permission—that is, they had the obligation of non-migration (Schollenpflicht) ^[15]; otherwise, they would lose the protection of the king's jurisdiction and fall into the status of dependent peasants of a feudal lord.

After the 10th century, the "Great Clearance" movement ^[16] spread throughout Western Europe. Under the leadership of the Cluniac Reform movement, the Kingdom of France reclaimed wasteland and forests. In the German kingdom, Otto the Great and the Dukes of Saxony actively pursued a northeastern frontier policy, initiating the centuries-long movement of colonization of the Eastern Slavs (Ostsiedlung). Successive emperors and major secular and ecclesiastical princes purposefully established settlements in the newly reclaimed areas using the Mark mechanism, distributing homesteads, gardens, and allotments to the peasants participating in the reclamation, granting them hereditary leasehold rights, land usufruct rights, and inheritance rights, and providing them with a certain degree of legal protection. They were known as "King’s Freemen," "Reclamation Freemen," or "Sandy Land Freemen," among others. As Engels said, in medieval France, "the peasant's land always turned into the landlord's land; in the best case, the peasant had to pay a quitrent and provide corvée before it was returned to the peasant for use. Thus, the peasant turned from a free landholder into a dependent peasant paying quitrent and providing corvée, or even a serf"; however, "east of the Rhine, there still existed a considerable number of free peasants." German historians generally believe that the German eastward expansion movement, from both legal and economic perspectives, formed a new model of social relations in the countryside—namely, that peasant dependence was greatly weakened, mainly manifested in three aspects: first, gaining personal freedom; second, having inheritable property rights; and third, participating in the construction of community relations to protect inheritable property.

The large number of free peasants emerging from the eastward expansion movement changed Germany's agricultural economic structure. Land leasing appeared earlier, and agricultural products entered the channels of commodity circulation, vitalizing commodity trade. This was an important economic foundation for the rise and development of medieval cities. Free peasants were also the "reserve army" for the new urban burghers. After the large-scale eastward colonization movement of the 12th century, many cities appeared, especially in the newly developed eastern regions; for example, 38 new cities were built along the banks of the Oder River alone.

In the 12th century, there were only 250 cities in the region from the Elbe to the Saale rivers; in the 13th century, this number surged to 2,000. City sizes varied; small cities generally had fewer than 2,000 residents, while medium and large cities exceeded 2,000 residents, with some reaching over 5,000. Aside from merchants, almost all burghers evolved from free peasants. The Belgian scholar Henri Pirenne believed that from the 11th century onward, rural residents were attracted to the cities. In some cities, 30% of the residents were still engaged in agricultural production. It might be said that in 12th- and 13th-century Western Europe, no other region saw cities spring up like mushrooms as they did in Germany; Thompson even argued that "in the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries, Germany was the 'most outstanding' burgher nation in Europe."

Located in central Europe, Germany had a well-developed water system and possessed unique geographical conditions for engaging in long-distance trade. The reclamation movements of the 12th and 13th centuries, especially the eastern colonization movement, promoted agricultural development. Abundant agricultural products further increased the vitality of trade, which was undoubtedly an important economic factor in the rise of German cities during this period. Thompson stated with certainty that the medieval city was a product of economic forces. However, although the city appeared as a new social mechanism, it still contained Mark elements. The first was freedom—"City air makes one free" (Stadtluft macht frei). This political proverb, which was very popular in Germany at the time, illustrates a characteristic of the medieval city. Urban freedom cultivated a new social group in feudal society—the burghers (civis civitatis). "Citizenship means the freedom or immunity of the inhabitants dwelling within the walls" (Civitas autem dicitur libertas sive habitantium immunitas), as a 13th-century chronicler explained.

Freedom was the most important legal boundary distinguishing urban residents from rural residents in the Middle Ages. The German historian Diestelkamp ^[17] emphasizes that "it is only meaningful to analyze the development within the scope of specific communities, delimited legal systems, and particular relations of rule by linking freedom, as a legal phenomenon, to a community, a legal system, as well as to public order and governance." Burghers possessing personal freedom spontaneously organized associations—guilds and trade corporations—which were "sworn communities" (Eidgenossenschaft) ^[18] formed according to Germanic customary law. As the German historian Stoob ^[19] analyzes, the burgher community established on the basis of a sworn oath was the first step toward urban autonomy. The second step was when the burgher community, possessing social organization, gradually put forward demands to participate in city management and established municipal institutions in the administration of urban affairs, equipped with judicial, administrative, and defensive functions. A significant hallmark of autonomous cities was the formation of regional city leagues based on economic interests, such as the Rhenish League of Cities, the Swabian League of Cities, and even the Hanseatic League. The emergence of multiple regional economic centers based on these city leagues provided the indispensable economic base for the formation of the German Landesstaat (territorial state system) ^[20] in the 14th century.

V. A Loose and Grand Empire

Since the 12th century, Western Europe experienced a series of major historical events. For instance, the Great Clearance movement ^[21] drove significant progress in the feudal economy; economic development altered the estate-based social structure; the Papal Revolution changed the dualistic political pattern of church and state; and the 12th-century Renaissance enriched socio-cultural knowledge. These changes pushed Western Europe to gradually emerge from the fragmented feudal political system. Especially entering the 14th century, the socio-economic structure progressively decoupled from the original feudal political system. The prevalence of money rent and the disintegration of the manorial system largely weakened the various original rights of the feudal lord class. This presented a paradox: on one hand, because the ways in which feudal lords exploited peasants had changed significantly, their local power—especially at the village and town level—was correspondingly weakened. On the other hand, the disintegration of the manorial system led to the breaking of the original social structure. The efficacy of customary law in restraining the nobility—which Marc Bloch termed a "double-edged sword"—was diminished, leaving the rights and interests of peasants without guarantee and forcing them into armed resistance.

The peasant uprisings in France and England in the 14th century, and the German Peasants' War in the 16th century, all occurred for this reason. Perry Anderson believes that socio-economic transformations triggered changes in power: "The result was a displacement of political-legal coercion upwards towards a centralized, militarized summit—the Absolutist state. While this power was weakened at the village level, centralization was achieved on a national scale. The result was a reinforcement of the apparatus of royal power, whose permanent political function was the repression of the peasant and plebeian masses at the foot of the social hierarchy." He mentions that the change in the form of lordly exploitation of peasants in the late Middle Ages—namely the prevalence of money rent—was by no means trivial. On the contrary, it was precisely this change that altered the form of the state, giving rise to the "Absolutist state," which represented "a break with the entire medieval social structure of pyramidal fragmented monarchy and its manorial and vassalage systems." "Essentially, Absolutism was just this: a redeployed and recharged apparatus of feudal domination, designed to clamp the peasantry back into their traditional social position—ignoring and resisting the gains they had made via the widespread conversion of dues. In other words, the Absolutist state was never an arbiter between the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie, still less an instrument of the nascent bourgeoisie against the aristocracy; it was the new political shield of a threatened nobility."

The Absolutist state is primarily manifested in the absoluteness of royal power—that is, Absolutist sovereignty or absolute monarchy. The British scholar Hobhouse ^[22] regards the "absolute" as a "force capable of reconciling all contradictions": "In the absolute, the various constituent parts of reality are closely linked to each other according to their fundamental principles so as to constitute a consistent whole; whereas when we perceive them partially or in isolation, our incomplete understanding gives rise to various superficial contradictions." The French scholar Althusser, in summarizing the characteristics of absolute monarchy, stated that "the political rule of absolute monarchy was merely a new political form produced at a stage of commodity economic development to maintain feudal rule and modes of exploitation." During this historical period, the development of the commodity economy strengthened private property from the bottom up, while the arbitrary power of the monarch strengthened public authority from the top down; the monarchy achieved centralization.

Since the 11th century, the historical trajectories of England and France differed, but after entering the 14th century, they arrived at the same destination by different routes, forming autocratic monarchical systems. However, Germany, which shared the same roots as the French feudal system, saw its royal (imperial) power unable to establish centralized rule due to the long-term persistence of traditional factors. It could only form a loose and grand empire on the basis of a confederation system. The British scholar Finner ^[23] argues that "it could hardly be counted as an empire, or even a state. In any case, it was not a unitary German state. It became an anachronistic, fictitious thing, now composed of hundreds of independent principalities and bishoprics, and even kingdoms." While the French king had an Absolutist political center in Paris and English royal power established a bastion of autocratic royalty in London, Germany never established a fixed capital as an imperial political center. Consequently, the Empire could not have a fixed seat for administrative institutions. Moreover, because the major duchies possessed strong independence—especially after the establishment of the Landesstaat—the Emperor seldom intervened in local affairs and lacked the administrative mechanisms indispensable to a centralized monarchy.

The Golden Bull ^[24] promulgated in the mid-14th century explicitly stipulated that a candidate proposed by seven Prince-electors would succeed as king, attempting to evade the divisive situation of two or even multiple kings standing simultaneously. However, this act made the Prince-electors even more powerful, resulting in serious disagreements during royal elections, where they refused to compromise or even resorted to arms. To enhance their own political strength, opposing factions sought external forces to rely upon; England and France took the opportunity to plot for the German throne, causing German royal elections to evolve into international events. Rather than preventing double elections to the throne, the system of Prince-electors further exacerbated the political fragmentation of the Empire, and regions with their own political centers formed within the Empire.

In the western region, the three ecclesiastical electors of Mainz, Cologne, and Trier controlled the church lands in the middle and lower reaches of the Rhine, while also dominating almost all secular territories in the area. The Count Palatine of Heidelberg, one of the four secular electors, remained the dominant power in the Alsace region; the rising Counts of Württemberg, centered in Stuttgart, demarcated a stable political territory. In the north of the Empire, the Archbishop of Bremen, the Dukes of Mecklenburg-Pomerania, the Teutonic Knights, and Livonia each acted independently, alongside the Hanseatic League of cities which controlled trade in the North and Baltic Seas. In the central Empire, the Archbishop of Magdeburg expanded his sphere of influence into the middle Elbe region; the Elector of Brandenburg, based in Berlin, expanded his power; the Bishops of Würzburg and Bamberg united their church lands on their own initiative to form a joint jurisdictional area. In the east and southeast of the Empire lay the territories of Bohemia and Moravia.

Entering the 15th century, the autocratic rule of England and France grew increasingly strong, and national consciousness emerged in both countries during their century-long war. The German scholar Lutz ^[25] argues that around 1490, royal power in several European countries established centralized rule, strong enough to subdue resistant forces and exclude foreign influence, uniting the masses of various groups and fostering a common consciousness; however, this phenomenon did not appear in Germany. Because the large and small Stände (territorial states), various types of cities, and city leagues possessed political independence and lacked unified economic interests, the territorial sovereignty of the states not only dismembered imperial power but also greatly weakened the Empire’s financial sources. The functions and authority of the Imperial Diet (Reichstag) were significantly constrained. From the mid-15th century, several German Emperors attempted to eliminate political fragmentation through reform, ushering in the era of Imperial Reform (Reichsreform). Emperor Sigismund of the Luxembourg dynasty first proposed judicial reforms, but these were shelved upon his death before they could be implemented. Frederick III, who inaugurated the Habsburg dynasty, convened the first "Imperial Diet" (Reichstag) in German history at Worms in 1495. Not only was the scale of the meeting expanded (including minor nobility, clergy, and burgher representatives from 65 cities alongside electors and princes), but its content involved the interests of all social strata. The Diet of Worms changed the institutional structure of the Imperial Court Diet (Hoftag) ^[26] used since the Middle Ages. The topics proposed and resolutions made took on the character of a parliamentary monarchy, and topics for further judicial and monetary reform were put forward at this meeting.

However, because the political fragmentation caused by the Landesstaat system was not eliminated, and the struggle between the princes and royal (imperial) power persisted, the goal of centralization was not achieved through reform. The German historian Angermeier ^[27] believes that the purpose of the Diet of Worms was not to conduct imperial reform, but rather an attempt to expand the Habsburg family's sphere of influence with the help of the princes. The princes and various social estates were also striving to maintain their acquired rights. It was precisely because the king and the princes had different objectives that two opposing forces engaged in a contest; yet this contest did not lead to the unification of state power, but rather further intensified the fragmentation of power. Peter Moraw, a professor in the History Department at the University of Göttingen, does not consider the Diet of Worms a political "Reform," but rather views it as a "reconstruction of the imperial constitution" (Umgestaltung der Reichsverfassung).

Another important factor in the fragmentation of imperial power lay in the opposition between church and state that had existed since the Middle Ages. The Christian Church occupied a pivotal position in Western European society throughout the Middle Ages. After the 12th century, the return of classical Greek philosophy and the influx of Arabic culture enriched Western European society's understanding of knowledge. Knowledge liberated reason, and reason changed the way people believed. The heretical movements of the 13th century further emphasized individual faith, and the authority of the Christian Church was challenged. Especially after the "Babylonian Captivity of the Church" (Avignon Papacy), the religious authority of the Church shifted. The political theory of the "divine right of kings" had already been replaced by secular political theories in England and France; royal power, while achieving centralization, also controlled its national church. In Germany, however, the political theory of "divine right" ^[28] had not yet been discarded. In the mid-13th century, the Holy See was still intervening in German power struggles, and the coronation performed by the Pope remained one of the important symbols for confirming the legitimate succession to the throne. To this end, the German Emperor continued to involve himself in the affairs of the Holy See.

After the "Babylonian Captivity," the Holy See's return to Rome saw fierce opposition over the selection of papal candidates, resulting in a situation of two rival courts and eventually three concurrent popes—a period of the "Western Schism" (Abendländisches Schisma, 1378–1417) lasting forty years. The schism in the church intensified the strife among German princes during royal elections. To heal the division, the German Emperor participated multiple times, even personally urging and intervening so the Holy See would convene the ecumenical Council of Constance. Furthermore, various levels of the church in Germany still enjoyed the same political and economic privileges as secular princes, possessing considerable independence and autonomy; they constituted a powerful force in German political fragmentation. Moreover, archbishops occupied three of the seven seats among the Prince-electors. Therefore, before and during the Reformation, theological and faith-based debates within the church were often entangled with political struggles among territorial lords. Church events frequently transformed into political struggles related to power, leading to polarization among the princes into two camps: the Catholic prince camp and the Protestant prince camp. After the Reformation, England and France both had unified church institutions placed under Absolutist or autocratic royal power. In Germany, however, the Reformation opened an era of "confessionalization" (Konfessionalisierung). Confessionalization left a dual imprint on the German Reformation movement: on one hand, it is hailed as an early bourgeois revolution that promoted society's stride toward modernization; on the other hand, confessionalization further enhanced the independence of the territorial states, thereby delaying the political unification of the Empire.

VI. Territorial States within the Empire

A major reason for the difficulty of German political unification was the formation of the Landesstaat (territorial state system) in the 14th century. During the "Great Interregnum," German princes took advantage of the chaos during royal elections to expand their strength and demand prerogatives from royal (imperial) power, thereby forming territorial states with sovereign significance.

Statelets ^[29] formed on the basis of feudal manorial territories. The manorial system was a complex synthesis comprising numerous economic, political, and social factors, manifesting a specific state of medieval rural society and economy. The French historian Marc Bloch noted that, from an economic perspective, the coexistence of a large estate and many small plots within the same organization is the most fundamental characteristic of the manorial system. This system involved not only land ownership but also the management and disposal of land, which inevitably involved the social relations between people related to the land—specifically, relations of personal dependency. Because land in the Early Middle Ages was held as hereditary fiefs, the manor was a unit of rule. The most basic unit within the manorial system was the estate (Grundherrschaft); the renowned German scholar of medieval rural society, Karl Siegfried Bader, defined the estate as: a place of assembly, a place of taxation, and a place of the court (Dinghof). The estate thus became a union of rights, accompanying or replacing the power of the state and the family.

The system of statelets (Territorialstaaten) formed in the 14th century during the disintegration of the manorial system (Villikationsverfassung); however, the formation of these statelets was not the result of manorial disintegration, but rather a precondition for it. A crucial factor leading to the collapse of the manorial system was the shift in land management toward a leasing system, accompanied by a change in the form of ground rent—specifically, the replacement of rent-in-kind and labor services (corvée) by money rent. This dissolved feudal relations of personal dependency, allowing human individuality to come to the fore. In England and France, this personal individuality served as an important social foundation for the centralization of royal power. In Germany, due to the strong independence of the princes' territories, the princes acquired increasing rights in their struggles against royal power. These rights coalesced into [political] power, granting the princes absolute authority within their own domains, whereby the territories took on the character of modern territorial sovereignty.

The term "sovereignty" appeared in historical documents as early as the 13th century to describe the supreme judicial power of the crown. In his book Sovereignty, British scholar John Hoffman emphasizes that 13th-century "sovereignty" primarily manifested as monarchical centralization, viewing medieval sovereignty as the "power of a political community as a whole." British scholar Ivor Jennings, meanwhile, argues that "the doctrine of sovereignty was a theory developed at the end of the Middle Ages to promote the emancipation of the secular state from ecclesiastical control." German scholars, by contrast, elaborate on the meaning of sovereignty more from the perspective of the Landesstaat (territorial state). Karl Kroeschell ^[30] argues that in the 13th-century German Empire, while the pyramidal feudal system remained evident, the nature of its structure had changed; regional governance emerged within territorial areas, and "rule over individuals was increasingly and clearly based on the control over territory." He attributed this change in the form of rule to the "territorialization of the feudal system." The legal historian Dietmar Willoweit explored the changes in "sovereignty" regarding vassalage from a legal perspective, arguing that during this period, the power of the territorial prince (Landesherr) held equal jurisdiction over all subjects, no longer recognizing distinctions among subjects such as judicial privileges, rights of protection, or fief rights.

The rise and development of medieval cities was undoubtedly a major factor in changing the overall social structure. The "Great Clearance" ^[31] movement of the 12th century advanced the overall development of agriculture in Western Europe and promoted commercial activity; this was an indispensable foundation for the rise of cities and will not be belabored here. From the beginning of their emergence, urban burghers—due to economic activities distinct from the countryside—formed citizen groups through sworn oaths. From a sociological perspective, Max Weber pointed out that "the citizen group was the result of a political socialization of the burghers," "an autonomous and self-governing compulsory institutional socialization, an active 'associational group' (Anstalt)." City councils, composed of representatives elected by various guilds and corporations, thereby acquired the right to govern the city. In their pursuit of liberty and urban autonomy, urban burghers received protection via charters granted by royal power. With the king's support, they broke through the feudal system and entered parliaments as the Third Estate, becoming a new political force upon which the centralization of royal power could rely.

As early as 12th-century France, representatives of the burgher class were frequently invited by the king to participate in assemblies. Through charters, the king granted burghers a legal status distinct from rural residents, combining the granting of urban autonomy with the expansion of royal domains. Royal power thus received immense support from the burghers in the struggle to strengthen centralization. In England, following the development of the urban economy and changes in the socio-economic structure, the interests of the burgher class often drifted into conflict with those of the nobility; they sought to use royal charters to obtain a degree of protection. The kings also wished to use the emerging political power of the burghers to counterbalance the nobility, and thus actively supported the burghers' entry into parliament as the Third Estate. After the mid-13th century, kings increasingly summoned non-noble sheriffs and representatives from cities and other localities to attend parliament. By the 14th century, the participation of local representatives in parliament had become the norm.

Compared to England and France, the forms of medieval German cities were more diverse. There were Imperial Cities (Reichsstädte) directly subordinate to the Emperor, Free Cities (Freistädt) with complete autonomy, Territorial Cities (Landstädte) serving as residences for territorial princes, and other types. All these cities possessed highly prominent trade functions. American economic historian James Westfall Thompson argued that commercial links between cities were a salient feature of medieval German towns. Consequently, every king since Otto I provided protection to cities through charters. However, the demarcation of boundaries after the establishment of the territorial state system, along with the checkpoints and transit tolls established by territorial princes at borders and on navigable rivers, not only hindered trade circulation but also increased transport costs. For example, in the mid-14th century, for a direct distance of about 50 kilometers from Bingen to Koblenz, transport costs rose by 53–67% due to tolls alone. This severely damaged urban interests. To counter this, some stakeholder cities voluntarily formed "sworn communities" (Eidgenossenschaft) according to Germanic customary law. After the mid-13th century, several leagues of stakeholder cities of varying sizes emerged within Germany—some consisting of only two cities. These city leagues even achieved mutual benefits with external powers through trade, forming multiple regional economic centers within Germany. It is evident that statelets possessing sovereign character not only delayed the formation of a unified domestic market but also caused a long delay in the unification of the currency system, thereby obstructing the formation of a nation-state.

Conclusion

From their inception, the territorial statelets harbored factors that hindered the centralization of royal power. The elective monarchy was established to eliminate these factors, but because this system lacked corresponding procedures and fixed rules, it became a political tool that the secular and ecclesiastical nobility could exploit at will. In the history of medieval Western Europe, no other kingdom or region saw the repeated emergence of "anti-kings" or the coexistence of two or even three kings as Germany did—a situation that even allowed the great magnates of England and France to contend for the German crown. Although the Golden Bull of 1354 codified the elective system into law, it did not eliminate the chaos of elections; centralization remained difficult to achieve in Germany, which lacked the political conditions for absolutist autocracy.

Church-state relations were of paramount importance in the feudal system of medieval Western Europe, and especially so in Germany. From the moment Otto was crowned Emperor in Rome, an inextricable bond was established between the German Emperor and the Pope. The Pope became an ally for the German princes in their resistance against Imperial power, forcing the Emperor to make constant compromises with the secular and ecclesiastical nobility. Consequently, factors of local fragmentation could not be eliminated. The independence, self-determination, and autonomy of the statelets persisted into the modern era, providing the political soil for the emergence of Christian denominations during the 16th-century Reformation. England and France, which realized monarchical-parliamentary systems, established dominant national denominations according to the needs of their respective polities, which aided the rule of absolutist royal power. In contrast, the German principle of cuius regio, eius religio ^[32] made the fragmentation of the Empire even harder to overcome. This political pattern persisted until the 19th century, delaying the process of political modernization.

Strictly speaking, the Mark was not a political mechanism but a social mechanism of organization and management. The Mark system was not static throughout the Middle Ages, but its principles of protection and freedom were preserved over the long term. It was precisely these two principles that allowed for the existence of free peasants in the countryside, particularly during the "Eastward Expansion" (Ostsiedlung) that lasted for several centuries, during which the number of free peasants greatly increased. The existence of a large number of free peasants provided the basis for the implementation of the tenancy system and promoted the commercialization of agricultural products, which in turn vitalized the urban economy. Free peasants also provided a labor reserve for the rise of medieval cities. Human freedom laid the social foundation for urban freedom, which manifested as urban autonomy, and autonomous cities formed leagues to protect their interests. After the mid-13th century, multiple city leagues emerged within Germany, forming several regional economic centers. In the second half of the 14th century, although some statelets attempted to seek a degree of unity through customs and monetary unions, they failed—unlike England and France—to achieve a unified currency and customs system by the 16th century, nor did they form a unified domestic market. This became one of the factors delaying the modernization of the German political system.

Although traditional factors in the political system delayed Germany's pace toward modernization, capitalist elements had already sprouted within the economy. First, as early as the 13th century, merchant houses controlled by great families such as the Fuggers, Welsers, and Höchstetters emerged in the cities, managing textiles, mining, and finance across Europe; large joint-stock companies also appeared, the most famous being the "Great Ravensburg Society" (Magna Societas) founded in 1380. Second, the primary handicrafts in medieval Germany were mining and metallurgy, which determined that Germany adopted joint-stock production methods with capitalist elements very early on; German mining and metallurgy technology remained leading in Europe. Third, the large estate system (Gutsherrschaft) in the Prussian region changed the mode of fragmented land management; large landowners not only occupied vast tracts of land but also controlled the grain trade, allowing Prussia to integrate into the European industrialization process through grain exports. Finally, it is worth mentioning that since the 14th century, the monarchs of various German statelets successively founded universities, cultivating many intellectual elites. These elites embraced the ideas of New Humanism and the Enlightenment, playing an active role in promoting the modernization of social consciousness and culture. Alternatively, one might say that the collision between the traditional elements of the German political system and modernity guided Germany onto its "Special Path" (Sonderweg).

(The author, Wang Yaping, is a Professor at the Institute of European Civilization, Tianjin Normal University)