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of nearly four hundred - 136 ecclesiastical and 173 secular lords plus 85 free imperial cities - on the eve of the Reformation, this number had only reduced to a little less than 300 by the late-18th century. The traditional explanation for this fragmentation [[Kleinstaaterei]] has focused on the gradual usurpation by the princes of the powers of the Holy Roman Emperor during the Staufen period (1138-1254), to the extent that by the Peace of Westphalia

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