[File:Holy Roman Empire 1000 map-en.svg|thumb|The Holy Roman Empire,
circa 1000
]] The
stem duchies (, from "tribe", in reference to the Germanic tribes of the
Franks,
Saxons,
Bavarians and
Swabians) were the constituent
duchies of the
kingdom of Germany at the time of the extinction of the
Carolingian dynasty (the death of
Louis the Child in 911) and the transitional period leading to the formation of the
Holy Roman Empire later in the 10th century. The Carolingians had dissolved the original tribal duchies of the Frankish Empire in the 8th century. As the
Carolingian Empire declined in the late 9th century, the old tribal areas assumed new identities as the subdivisions of the realm. These are the five stem duchies (sometimes also called "younger stem duchies" in reference to the pre-Carolingian tribal duchies):
Bavaria,
Franconia,
Lotharingia,
Saxony and
Swabia (Alemannia). The stem duchies were retained as the major division of Germany under the
Salian dynasty, but they became increasingly obsolete during the high medieval period under the
Hohenstaufen, and they were finally abolished in 1180 by
Frederick Barbarossa in favour of more numerous territorial duchies.