Portal:Holy Roman Empire/Article of the month/January

Imperial Reform

Emperor Maximillian I

The Imperial Reform was an attempt, repeated in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, to adapt the structure and the constitution of the Holy Roman Empire to the requirements of the early German nation, and to give it a unified government, both under princely and imperial leadership.

Unlike the kings of France or England, the Roman-German emperors since the High Middle Ages had not succeeded in consolidating the most important rights of state sovereignty in their hands. On the contrary, over the course of time the right of taxation, the jurisdiction of the Empire, the right to mint coinage, the right to build fortifications, and many other regalia passed down to the imperial princes and the free imperial cities. The gradual formation of the early German state was thus not taking place at imperial level, but at the level of the territorial princes.More...