Imperial Reform

Imperial reform (German: Reichsreform) is the name given to repeated attempts in the 15th and 16th centuries to adapt the structure and the constitutional order (Verfassungsordnung) of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation to the requirements of the Early Modern state and to give it a unified government either under the imperial estates (Reichsstände) or under the emperor's supremacy.

First attempts

From 1434 to 1438, at imperial diets in Eger and Nuremberg, the first attempts at imperial reform were undertaken, partly on the initiative of Emperor Sigismund, partly by the prince-electors. Feuds were banned, and discussions were held on a revision of the rights of coinage and escort (Geleitrecht) and an administrative division of the Empire into imperial circles. All the proposals foundered, however, on the opposing interests of emperor and imperial princes.

In fairness, both parties were striving to create a more workable government of the empire, but each was working in the opposite direction. The emperor was interested in strengthening his central control; the princes by contrast wanted collegiate, corporate leadership that they could participate in. The journals of the time, including publications like the Reformatio Sigismundi, showed that the educated classes that represented the small territorial lordships of the counts and barons (Freiherren) as well as the imperial knights (Reichsritterschaft), but also the imperial cities and the smaller ecclesiastical territories, supported the emperor having a powerful position, because it offered better protection against the demands of their own lords. The emperor himself, however, who from the time of Sigismund's successor, Albert II, almost always came from the House of Habsburg, used imperial politics generally only where it served to support his own personal base of power at home.