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During the Early Middle Ages, the stem duchies (from the German Stammes- Herzogtum, 'tribal duchy'^[1]) formed the major divisions of the eastern Carolingian kingdom of (East) Francia (corresponding to modern Germany but larger). Most of them corresponded to major Germanic tribal nations or confederations later called "stems" in the sense of the trunk (German Stamm, also means tribe) of a genealogical tree.

They were the Franks (Freivermerke), Saxons and Thuringians, and the confederations called Swabians—heirs of the Suebi, who were called "Alemanni" by their neighbors—and the Bavarians—heirs of the Rugii who were dispersed by Odoacer in 487.

In fact only the Saxons really remained a separate people by the time of Charlemagne, refusing to convert to Christianity till he submitted them by force. Their western maritime neighbours the Frisians, even today a distinct people with its own language, never formed a stem duchy.

Another major Germanic tribe, the Burgundi, gave its name to the Kingdom of Burgundy, but the Burgundian territories (only Franche-Comté would 'preserve' the tribal name) were in Lotharingia, not East Francia, and would largely end up in France, where the co-existent duchy of Burgundy (Bourgogne) was from the start.

Thuringia disappeared as an independent duchy when it was annexed to the Frankish royal domain in 908, and although reinstated as a duchy in 1031, it was downgraded to a mere landgraviate in 1130.

Lotharingia—as Upper Lorraine and Lower Lorraine—is accounted a stem duchy to replace Thuringia, though Lotharingia's short-lived territories, 955–970, corresponded to no ethnic nor cultural unity.

Each nation or tribal confederacy accepted as leader a warrior chieftain acclaimed from the worthiest men of fighting age in a ruling family. The military leaders had acquired the Roman title of dux under Carolingian rule, part of the conscious revival of Romanized customs and formulas that characterize Charlemagne's court. The stem dukes loosely controlled a group of great nobles, and expected to appoint bishops and abbots (some were becoming very rich or even politically significant as prince of the church) of their own choosing within their territories, the lay investitures that later became crucial in the caesaropapist claim of the crown.

When the last King of the Carolingian line died in 911, the stem dukes, asserting their Germanic rights to elect a king from among their number, acclaimed Conrad I, duke of Franconia King of the Germans. At his death in 918, they met again to ratify his successor, Henry the Fowler.

From this national role of the stem duchies later evolved a new college, that of Prince-Electors of the Holy Roman Empire, the now formal first order of imperial vassals, no longer just Dukes but also Prince-Archbishops and various otherwise styled rulers of major principalities (from Margrave and Pfalzgraf, both lower, to King).

The stem duchies were:

• Duchy of Saxony, to become an original electorate, ultimately a kingdom
• Duchy of Franconia, an original electorate (name preserved in German for the smaller Frankenland)
• Duchy of Bavaria, an original electorate, ultimately a kingdom
• Duchy of Swabia, an original electorate
• Duchy of Lotharingia (replacing Duchy of Thuringia), later divided into:
  • Duchy of Lower Lotharingia, in chief of which the dukes of Brabant and Gelre later claimed the higher rank of Archduke after it has itself been fragmentarized
  • Duchy of Upper Lotharingia (later simply called the Duchy of Lorraine

• The Stem Duchies & Marches
• Westermann, Großer Atlas zur Weltgeschichte (in German)

1. ^ Babel Fish Translation