How to handle an ATL medieval vassal becoming independent?

This is a big problem of mine, because there just really don't seem to be many examples of Christian, Western European, feudal vassals becoming independent without either (1) an agonisingly slow socioeconomic transition (as in Italy or, even worse, Germany) or (2) as a collapse following an impressive conquest (e.g. Canute).

But is it possible to get something like the Stem Duchies of East Francia / the HRE to become independent in a single stroke? And if so, how would one go about that? Could a vassal of an excommunicated or generally disliked lord manage to up and claim a kingdom for himself, or was the royal map of Europe just set between 900-1500?
 
The usual issue with these sorts of things is that important feudal polities relied, or more exactly depended, on the respect of the vassalic connection to really uphold themselves. A textbook exemple is how Henry II had to give up on besieging Toulouse as the French king was inside the walls while outnumbering the forces in the cities : ignoring one's suzerain legitimacy was taking the risk your own vassals might feel the same to you at some point. When feudal kingship had a sacred feature, as for France and HRE, it was even more problematic : even when the kings were factually weak they could still legitimize or deligitimze one's political position relatively easily.

Having a feudal polity being considered indepndent generally went trough the proclamation of a separate kingship or crown, which generally was itself firmly obtained by a direct relation with clerical hierarchy and Papacy, and trough significant scheming and quasi-royal tradition. Even that wasn't systematically a way out and could be understood, as a prestigious title within or parallel to the HRE for Central and Eastern Europe.
You could pick up some exemples from peripheral (institutionally speaking) areas such as Spain until the XIIth century (with a stress on regional kingship) or even pre-Davidian Scotland, but eventually going against a suzerainity link could be more damagable than being content with a largely independent relationship with a king, would it be only mentally rather than objectively.

Now, was the "royal map" definitely set? Not really before the XIth century, as the general feudal anarchy could have led to the maintain of some regional kingship such as in Aquitaine or Lotharingia (altough possibly not as much as independent than distinct from "prime" kingship); but as soon as things got stabilized institutionally (lay as religious) it's indeed increasingly difficult, while not strictly impossible : how the project of a Burgundian/Lotharingian kingship ultimately and utterly failed is a good exemple why "border kingdoms" are generally more successful in relatively unstable periods and less than doable with clearly defined (and bureaucratized) polities.

I'd dispute the entiere validity of your exemples, tough : Italian principalties and cities went trough period of formal vassality and up to giving up on it effectively, but never really formally went out of HRE and considering themselves totally relieved from imperial sphere before the dynastic collapse of Staufen and the Interregnum (and even there, Habsburgs managed to get back a significant part of it back into their sphere).
Scandinavian kingship is another matter, being more tied to the consideration that kingship were succeeded rather than inherited, all together (for instance, if the previous king, related or not, was both king of Norway, England and Danemark; the new king of Danemark had a claim to all of these which ended up pissing a pretty much regionally-focused aristocracy).

The relative institutional stability of the "feudal contract" was, after all, strong enough to not being overthrown easily, especially in its centers.
 
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