In the first place, the Holy Roman Empire was practically restricted to German-speaking peoples. The papacy and the Italian cities had been freed from imperial control, and both the Netherlands--that is, Holland and Belgium--and the Swiss cantons were only nominally connected. Over the Slavic people to the east--Russians, Poles, etc.--or the Scandinavians to the north, the empire had secured comparatively small influence. By the year 1500 the words Empire and Germany had become virtually interchangeable terms. Secondly, there was throughout central Europe no conspicuous desire for strong centralized national states, such as prevailed in western Europe. [Sidenote: Internal Weakness of the Holy Roman Empire] Separatism was the rule. In Italy and in the Netherlands the city- states were the political units. Within the Holy Roman Empire was a vast hodge-podge of city-states, and feudal survivals--arch-duchies, such as Austria; margravates, such as Brandenburg; duchies, like Saxony, Bavaria, and Württemberg; counties like the Palatinate, and a host of free cities, baronies, and domains, some of them smaller than an American township. In all there were over three hundred states which collectively were called "the Germanies" and which were united only by the slender imperial thread. The idea of empire had not only been narrowed to one nation; it also, in its failure to overcome feudalism, had prevented the growth of a real national monarchy. [Sidenote: Government of the Holy Roman Empire]