From the time of Eike von Repgow for whom iewelk dudisch lant, ‘every German land’, meant the ancient realms of Saxony, Bavaria, Franconia, and Swabia to the publication of Johann Cochlaeus’ Brevis Germanie descriptio in 1512, the understanding of Germany's political geography had undergone a complete change. Borrowing an idea from Aeneas Sylvius, the city of Nuremberg had become for Cochlaeus the central point of Germany, proved by its situation, language, and strength. Cochlaeus was modern in attributing Nuremberg's importance principally to its commercial success; but to the medieval outlook the custody of the imperial insignia at Nuremberg since 1424 also justified the city's claim to be the pivot of Germany. Cochlaeus then makes use of a novel but still quadripartite division of Germany according to the points of the compass as seen from Nuremberg: to the south, the towns and peoples of the Alps, Bavaria, and Swabia; to the east, Bohemia, Austria, and Silesia; to the north, the marches of Meissen and Brandenburg, the duchies of Pomerania and Mecklenburg, and the terrae of Thuringia and Saxony; to the west, the provinces of Franconia, Hesse, Westphalia, the Netherlands, the Rhineland, and Alsace.

If this piecemeal approach is not very sophisticated, and depended to a great extent in its Latin nomenclature upon classical models, there was a long tradition behind it.