It's something that always kind of bothered me - people making sweeping statements about medieval technology, feudal relations, church relations and so forth and I later learn that it's almost uniquely french or british (or whichever equivalent state occupied their present day territories) with occasional renaissance italian cities stepping up, with sometimes extreme differences when it comes to polish, Hungarian, Austrian equivalences.

Given the significance of the HRE, I find it surprising how little it's represented in anglo-saxon cultural perceptions - whether medieval stereotypes or fiction or fantasy. I'm also not as familair with it as I am with the Hungarian differences, with exception for the later years and the Hanseatic League.

So! Curiously, I'm asking about the HRE and its significant divergences from "popular anglo-saxon perceptions of medieval world" - especially given all the river cities of the HRE.

This is cross-posted with Ask-Historians