From the late 9th to the late 10th century, the nature of the noble class changed significantly. First off, the aristocracy increasingly focused on establishing strong regional bases of landholdings, on taking hereditary control of the counties and duchies, and eventually on erecting these into veritable independent principalities and privatizing various privileges and rights of the state. (By 1025, the area north of the Loire was dominated by six or seven of these virtually independent states.) After 1000, these counties in turn began to break down into smaller lordships, as smaller lords wrest control of local lands in the so-called "feudal revolution" and seized control over many elements of comital powers (see vassal/feudal below).