Explain the HRE, how does a nation work when comprised of so many tiny parts?

Treaty of Verdun was a mistake

Germans have had an identity for longer than the "Franks" aka jumped up gaulish celts

It wasn't a nation and it didn't work

You have to remember there was a lot of decentralization back then, both intented and unintended. Strong centralization wasn't really possible is communication over distances more than a couple of kilometers was really slow.

>H>R>E

How did Venice manage to avoid being conquered by the Franks? Those absolute madmen.

Venice was established specifically to resist barbarian invasion

It was a swamp and then and islands.

Couldn't reach it.

Not that slow. The Roman army could march the length of Italy in 30 days. Even if the basic road system wasn't as good anywhere in Europe by that point, they had horses, and messengers, and messengers on horses, which generally are faster than a marching army. In a country the size of the HRE, sending a one way message across it would take... lets say 5 days, and the same for a message and a reply if you had a nice centralized location.

For reference, you can bike across the widest point of modern Germany in 2 days, and walk across it in 18 days, including taking 8 hours a day for rest, according to google maps.

Oh fuck, not you again.

Addendum: I'm assuming only travel time, not the time it takes for the person to write/read/actually reply.
Edit: 3 days to bike across Germany including rest. 7 days seems a pretty reasonable expectation to get a message to pretty much any place.

>TINY
>FRANK
>NAVY

> you can bike across the widest point of modern Germany in 2 days
I seriously doubt this, unless you move at a tremendous clip and don't sleep

Why was Italy neatly organized while Germany was a massive clusterfuck? What caused the Germans to autistically split their lands ad infinitum?

Italy was pretty fragmented until the 1500s, Luigi
and HRE was pretty coherent until the 30 years' war

There was the Reichstag in Regensburg, a kind of parliament if you will. Knights, lords, dukes and kings were discussing politics along with the emperor then and now, and that's how it was all managed. Regensburg was also the seat of the imperial court. That worked out pretty well for everyone, despite the fact that the combined forces of such a huge territory make a better army. Like, you know, in France. So in theory, like the perpetuum mobile, the HRE worked great. That was, of course, until friction occurred and it was basically burned to the ground (30-years-war).

But my god, what a fascinating piece of history and culture.

In reality, the HRE stopped existing in the 12th century and the Germans just kept the meme alive to be ridiculed later.

>By the late 12th century it only existed in name.

Somewhat hyperbolic. The emperor still played a more or less important role in the politics of the region after that. There were still working judicial institutions as well as the Imperial diet. People here seem to think that no direct rule = lol wasn't real.

>Every state was effectively independent and could do whatever they wanted.

They couldn't, the sovereignity of the princes was protected by the empire, meaning that some larger state couldn't simply swallow some smaller ones without repercussions. Which is probably why tiny sovereign territories survived for so long.

>Basically, the Germs inherited a legit empire from the Franks and fucked it up.

This is implying that East Francia had a different, more centralized structure that later detoriated in the HRE. The truth is rather that the king of East Francia didn't have instituanal direct rule either and the nobles were unruly often enough. Otto I managed to establish a greater deal of authority like several of his succesors. However, eventually they failed to develop an hereditary monarchy and develop into a modern state.