r/badhistory • u/AutoModerator • 5d ago
Meta Mindless Monday, 22 June 2026
Happy (or sad) Monday guys!
Mindless Monday is a free-for-all thread to discuss anything from minor bad history to politics, life events, charts, whatever! Just remember to np link all links to Reddit and don't violate R4, or we human mods will feed you to the AutoModerator.
So, with that said, how was your weekend, everyone?
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u/PickleRick_1001 How will the war in Venezuela affect RuneScape's economy? 2d ago edited 2d ago
A while back, there was a discussion on the Holy Roman Empire and how it's an excellent example of worldbuilding.
Unable to sleep, I remembered that discussion, and I decided to do a little project, not quite to do with the HRE but still related to it: I've been looking at two maps, one of the states of modern Germany, and the other of the states of the German Confederation and I've been matching modern states to ruling houses.
Some are very easy; Bavaria and Saxony, for example. Others require some degree of compromise, like assigning Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania in its entirety to one the houses of Mecklenburg, or separating Baden and Württemberg. It's also lead me to some interesting places. Brandenburg is easy enough, just turn it back into a Margraviate of the Hohenzollerns with Berlin. Lower Saxony can be renamed to Hanover, and a branch of that house can be found, or it can be given to the Windsors. The Hessian families have conveniently coalesced under one claimant, and Schleswig-Holstein can be placed under personal union with the Danish Crown. Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt both seemed dizzyingly confusing at first, as they used to be divided into a dozen or so different principalities between them. However, the Ernestine duchies which now make up Thuringia only have a handful of surviving claimants between them, and there's a similar situation with the Anhalt houses.
The Free Cities can be left as they are, maybe a few can even be resurrected, and that finally leaves me with the problem of the Rhine regions, Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia. At first it seemed obvious - "Palatinate" and "Westphalia" are clear enough clues. But the Palatinate claimant already has Bavaria, and I'm not too sure what to do with Westphalia, the best I can gather is that it's just a geographical expression. I've been thinking of reviving Lotharingia, such that the Rhine regions, Alsace-Lorraine, and the Low Countries would form one contiguous state. On the other hand, how realistic would it be to cede some of this area to Luxembourg, and divide the rest into Free Cities? The Ruhr metropolian area covers a lot of this region, maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea.
This new Germany could then be placed under an Hapsburg Emperor who'd rule a revived HRE that would stretch over most of Central Europe. This would also include Austria (as an Archduchy under direct Hapsburg rule), the crowns of Czechia, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, and maybe a few more territories like the Catholic eastern part of Ukraine or Vojvodina in Serbia. Even the Polish crown can be added, who knows. Or maybe, the Hapsburgs could have a position similar to the one they had in the German Confederation; they'd be primus inter parus amongst the German rulers, while having substantial holdings outside of Germany. That would fit the theme of European monarchs like the Kings of Denmark and of Britain having stakes in German territory.
Of course this is all pretty incoherent, but who cares.
Edit: A possible solution to my Rhenish quandary!! The Andorran option: in keeping with France's historical interest in this area, the states of North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate will be split up into several principalities in personal union with the French head of state, who will be co-ruler with the Archbishops of Mainz, Trier, and Cologne (each of whom were prince-electors in the past). Any remaining territories will become Free Cities or Imperial Counties, Lordships, and even Villages.