42 • Cartography in the German Lands, 1450–1650
42 • Cartography in the German Lands, 1450 –1650 Peter H. Meurer Introduction the degree of their subjection under royal sovereignty dif- fered greatly. They included the secular dominions The state structure in the heart of central Europe was a (duchies, counties, and baronies) as direct or indirect group of individual regions that in some cases were po- fiefs; the ecclesiastical territories (dioceses and imperial litically and culturally very independent. Additionally, abbeys) somewhat outside the immediate feudal struc- many developments and influences affected these regions ture; the imperial cities; and, as a special case, the king- differently for more than two eventful centuries—from dom of Bohemia, a fief of the German crown since 1198, about 1450 to 1650. This highly complex situation is re- but which was also ruled by kings from non-German dy- flected with unusual clarity in the history of cartography.1 nasties. The main criterion for affiliation with the king- Parallel events and continuities in space and time can be dom of Germany was the right to attend meetings of the recognized in only a few cases. Taken as a whole, Re- joint parliament (Reichstag). naissance cartography in that area is a mosaic of individ- Along with the German lands were the two “side lands” ual parts differing in type and importance, and the sys- (Nebenländer), united with the German crown since the tematic structure applied here is only one of several Middles Ages: the kingdom of Italy, which, after 1454, logical possibilities. At the threshold of the modern age, “Germany” was a Abbreviations used in this chapter include: Karten hüten for Joachim federation of more than six hundred territories that had Neumann, ed., Karten hüten und bewahren: Festgabe für Lothar grown together over a period of about seven hundred Zögner (Gotha: Perthes, 1995); Lexikon for Ingrid Kretschmer, Jo- years.2 It included an area that is covered today by Ger- hannes Dörflinger, and Franz Wawrik, eds., Lexikon zur Geschichte der many, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Kartographie, 2 vols.
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