Hi, everyone!
I'm trying to read a couple books about the Thirty Years War, and I'm having trouble wrapping my head around the geography. What part of the Empire was "Germany?"
The maps I've found don't have anything labeled Germany, and of course the area that is now modern Germany was at that time divided into a million different principalities, free cities, etc.
I understand that there was an earlier Kingdom of Germany, but that isn't discussed in what I'm reading and the Wiki page for the Kingdom only goes up to 1028.
Also, sometimes it seems like the authors simply mean "the area where people spoke German" and not a place with actual hard and fast borders.
Any help?
EDIT: Kind of a related question. Am I understanding correctly that the Habsburgs and the Hollenzollerns both controlled land that was within the Empire as well as land outside of it? How did that work?
In general, 'Germany' in this context would roughtly mean the general region of Germany as defined by the identity of the local population and their status as members of the Empire. It is a bit of an amorphous construct, since the Empire consisted--on paper--of Germans, Dutch, Czechs, and a wide variety of other minorities. However, what they consider 'Germany' you can roughly consider the territories of modern day Germany, plust a bit extra. In this context, Germany doesn't necessarily mean a specific kingdom or polity, but rather the region of Germany and the idea of the German people. So yes, your hunch is right.
As for your second question, yes. The Hohenzollerns did, the Habsburgs did, as did the Wettins, and no doubt many others. All this means is that the same monarch rules two seperate territories in their own name. For example, Frederick Augustus I is the Duke of Saxony as well as King Augustus II of Poland. Both territories are ruled by the same monarch. One of these territories lies within the Holy Roman Empire, and thus has a say in Imperial governance with a vote at the Reichstag, obligations under the Imperial Circles, and the rule of the Emperor. The other would lie outside the Empire, and thus were polities in their own right outside of the overarching structure of the Empire.
Though the Emperor styled himself "King of Germany" (more often "King of the Germans), there was no "Kingdom of Germany" in the same way as there were kingoms of Castile, Aragon, France, Navarra, England or Scotland after Frankish rule (early 10th). These kingoms were understood to be different holdings and were often administered independently if a monarch held many titles. Germany was not a distinct administrative unit though the German peoples developed a set of local administrative practices they exported during the Ostsiedlung.