Klappentext

This book aims to provide a comprehensive answer to the most important question in pre-modern German political history: why did a multiplicity of states and territories emerge by the end of the Middle Ages instead of an incipient 'nation state' under the crown? This book shows clearly why responsibility for this cannot be laid upon the supposed failures of German kingship, which actually encouraged through its own legislation the expansions and reform of princely jurisdiction and governing authority in the crucial twelfth and thirteenth centuries.