The recasting of aristocratic titles (chapters 5 to 7), the establishment of dynastic lineage (chapter 8), and the onset of internal and external colonization (chapter 9) were phenomena whose related effect was to bring forward the regional authority of the princes to such an extent that the amalgamation of their powers into what we can with hindsight discern as territorial principalities was beginning to be made possible in Germany. But the conscious task of the princes was the reform of regional jurisdictions, in part because there was no realistic distinction between justice and administration in medieval times. In addressing the problems of legal reform, we can once more perceive the vigour and inventiveness of the German aristocratic order, its preference for well-conducted legal procedures, its determination to make good use of the royal court and, where necessary, to establish its local claims by force.

In 1186 a charter issued by Margrave Otto of Meissen magniloquently set out the acceptable motives of princes in the sphere of law and government:

This is more than rhetoric. It is the programme which justified princely rule in Germany.