Kleinstaaterei

The word Kleinstaaterei (ˌklaɪnʃtaːtəˈʁaɪ, "small-state-ery") is a pejorative term coined in the early nineteenth century to denote the territorial fragmentation of Germany. While the term referred primarily to the territorial fragmentation of the German Confederation, it is also applied by extension to the even more extreme territorial fragmentation of the Holy Roman Empire. In this period, Germany was split into a great number of nearly sovereign small and medium-sized secular and ecclesiastical principalities and free imperial cities, some of which were little larger than a single town or the surrounding grounds of the monastery of an Imperial abbey. Estimates of the total number of German states at any time during the 18th century vary, ranging from 294 to 348 or more; however, the number of states rapidly decreased with the onset of German mediatisation in the early 19th century. Territorial fragmentation was compounded by the fact that, due to the haphazard territorial formation of many states or the partition of dynastic states through inheritance, a very large number of Holy Roman Empire states were constituted of non-contiguous parts, which resulted in countless enclaves and exclaves. An example of the territorial fragmentation is the story of how a young Wilhelm von Humboldt and his friends traveled from Brunswick, capital of the Principality of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, to France in the summer of 1789. In order to observe the revolutionary events unfolding in Paris, Humboldt's party entered and exited six duchies, four bishoprics and one free imperial city (Aachen) before reaching the French border. The powerful and autonomous German stem duchies, which already existed before the demise of the Carolingian Empire and the formation of East Francia during the 9th century, shaped the federal character of the Holy Roman Empire. Unlike in other European kingdoms, a college of the Imperial princes elected the king from among the territorial dukes after the Carolingian line died out around the year 898.