Germany, like Venice, undertook to deal with the matter by the privilege system, although German privileges seem to have been less varied and more simple than those of the Venetians and to have concerned themselves more exclusively with the printer, to the neglect of the author. As elsewhere, a privilege was the sole right to print a work or a series of works in a given place. The peculiar political condition which existed in Germany made this a rather difficult matter. Germany in the fifteenth century consisted geographically of what is now the Empire of Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. It was composed of a great number of states of very different sizes, from a single city up to a reasonably large country. Each one of these cities had a large degree of self government. They were all supposed to be governed by the emperor. He was called the Holy Roman Emperor and was supposed to be the heir of the old emperors of Rome. He governed largely through assemblages of the princes, called Diets, which were held wherever and whenever the emperor called them. There were also certain imperial courts and governing councils. All this elaborate scheme of government existed largely on paper. It was not generally strong enough to govern effectively, but was generally strong enough to keep things more or less in confusion. The power of the emperor depended to a considerable extent upon his personal character and his private resources. An emperor who happened to be a strong man, governing a powerful state in the empire from which he could draw money and military support, could hold the states, which were liable to be extremely unruly, in their places and could collect the imperial revenue. A man of weaker personality or without the backing of such private resources could neither keep the turbulent princes in order nor collect the revenue.