Born on the ruins of the Carolingian Empire in 962, with the coronation of Othon Ier, the Empire is said to be “Saint” from the middle of the 12the century, then “Roman” in the 13the and finally “of the German nation” at the end of the XVe century. It is a vast politico-religious edifice, for the interweaving of spiritual power and temporal power is at the very foundation of its institutions.
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Definitively fixed by the Golden Bull of Nuremberg in 1356 (essential legal code of the Holy Empire), the election of the emperor designated “king of the Romans”, is the act of seven great Electors including three ecclesiastics (the archbishops of Mainz , of Trier and of Cologne) and four laymen (the King of Bohemia, the Duke of Saxe-Wittenberg, the Margrave of Brandenburg and the Palatine Count of the Rhine).
From Maximilian Ier (1459-1519), the emperors no longer considered it necessary to be crowned by the Pope, anticipating the wave anti-Roman that will be exploited Martin Luther by provoking reform.
The identity card of the Empire
The Empire is made up of 350 to 390 political entities of great diversity, from princely states to free cities. At the top of the princely states are placed the states of the Habsburgs, in possession of the imperial crown since 1438: Austria, Tyrol, Alsace, Styria, Carinthia and Carniola (which are hereditary), to which are added the States acquired thanks to the marriage of Maximilian Ier and Marie de Bourgogne: Netherlands, Franche-Comté, Artois, Flanders (Burgundy having been lost by Charles the Bold, father of Marie of Burgundy, for the benefit of the King of France Louis XI). This union between Maximilian of Habsburg and Mary of Burgundy in 1477, will orient European geopolitics for nearly two centuries.
The other great principalities of the Empire are the electorates: the Palatinate, Bavaria, Brandenburg and Saxony, shared since 1485 between two branches: the electorate of Saxony or Saxony “ernestine” (named after the elder Ernest) , with Wittenberg as its capital and the Duchy of Saxony or “Albertine” Saxony (of the younger Albert), whose capital is Dresden. Because of their minessilver, the two Saxes are the wealthiest states in the Empire. Electoral principalities are the most powerful princely states, because of their sovereign rights: they have the right of supreme justice, to coin money, to levy taxes, to appoint bishops, to maintain an army …
Besides the electoral principalities there are other princely houses of less importance: the Duchy of Württemberg, the Margraviate of Baden (the Margrave is a governor of border territory), the Duchy of Cleves, the Landgraviat of Hesse (the Landgrave is an officer rendering justice in the name of the emperor). Large ecclesiastical principalities are found in the north-west (Magdeburg, Münster, Liège …) and in Franconia. All these principalities evolve towards sovereignty and gradually constitute themselves into real States, with rules of succession, a chancellery, a Council (in which jurists take more and more place to the detriment of the nobles) and a representative body, the Diet, composed of representatives of nobility, clergy and towns.
Below the sovereign principalities are placed communities which come directly under the authority of the emperor: knights, towns … Last political entity, the “free towns” (there are about a hundred in the Empire) : they are very numerous in the Rhine countries and Swabia (Cologne, Aix-la-Chapelle, Worms, Frankfurt, Mainz, Strasbourg, Colmar …), along the Baltic (the Hanseatic cities of Bremen, Hamburg, Lübeck ), rarer in Bavaria (Augsburg) and Franconia (Nuremberg). Rich, administered by a Council in the hands of the trades, they do not hold great political power: in the Diet, they do not have the right to vote.
The Diet, representative body of the Empire
In the Holy Roman Empire, powers belong to the states rather than to the emperor. Diet (Reichstag) is convened by the emperor at variable intervals: composed of three colleges, that of the seven princes-electors, that of the other “immediate” ecclesiastical and lay princes and that of the “immediate” cities (which report only to the emperor, no intermediate lord), it represents all the sovereign territories of the Empire but is not a parliament in the modern sense of the term. It watches over general affairs and settles disputes that may oppose Confederate States.
The Empire does not have a standing army, no fixed tax, no corps of officers at the disposal of the sovereign. If need be, the Diet authorizes the levying of special contributions. Such a lack of means favors the appearance of centrifugal forces and centers of anarchy. In the absence of centralized justice, order depends on the balance of power with the emperor.
In 1495, the Diet of Worms proclaimed perpetual public peace, prohibiting private wars and reserving the legitimate use of violence to the emperor. Reform attempts made by Maximilian Ier fail, with the exception of the creation of the Imperial Chamber of Justice (Reichskammergericht), based in Frankfurt and created to settle disputes of a legal but not military nature. In 1500, the Diet of Augsburg instituted a Council of State made up of twenty councilor princes, in which the emperor was content to preside.
The reform of Charles V
On the occasion of his election to the Empire in 1519 against his rival, the king Francis Ier, Charles Quint (1500 – 1558) must pay 850,000 guilders to the prince-electors (paid by the Fugger bankers of Augsburg) and sign a sort of capitulation by pledging not to take any important decision without the advice of the Electors or the Diet, a precedent which is then repeated at each election. The concerns of the new emperor go beyond those of his grandfather Maximilian; Charles V had to manage both the Empire and his immense personal possessions which monopolized his attention for nearly ten years: revolts in Spain, fight against François Ier to recover Burgundy, defense of the Milanese against the King of France …
At the Diet of Worms where Martin Luther compares in 1521 (banished from the Empire on this occasion), a Council of Regency was created to better establish the imperial authority. Charles Quint installed there as permanent representative, his brother Ferdinand to whom he ceded the Austrian territories of the Habsburgs in 1522, with the title of Archduke of Austria. By this date, the Empire had already entered the turbulence of the Lutheran Reformation.
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