Reforming the Holy Roman Empire
Image: Albrecht Dürer, Portrait
of Maximilian I (1519). Oil on panel. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria.
Image Source: Olga's
Gallery.
Most accounts of the Reformation's origins focus
on earlier efforts to reform the church, and ask whether or not the Reformation
emerged from them, directly or indirectly. What is less often appreciated is the
extent to which the Reformation was enmeshed in the politics of secular reform
in the Holy Roman Empire. For several decades prior to the "Luther Affair," the
political life of central Europe was absorbed with a series of efforts to reform
the institutions of law-making and government within the Holy Roman Empire. This
reform movement took many forms and grew out of a diverse set of interests. These
included concerns
- With the growing power of territorial princes
in Germany in relation to the Emperor
and to imperial institutions in general;
- With the general lawlessness of fifteenth-century
Germany and the destructiveness of private wars between feuding princes and
nobles;
- With the dynastic ambitions of the increasingly
powerful Habsburg lineage, which through the marriage of Emperor Maximilian
I to the heiress Mary of Burgundy acquired kingship over the immensely prosperous
Netherlands and the region of Franche-Comté;
- With the lack of any effective means to
defend the Empire militarily against the ever-growing threat of invasion by
the Turkish Ottoman Empire.
Debate over how to to reform the Empire had been
increasing in intellectual circles and among ruling elites since the early fifteenth
century. Among the most widely circulated reform proposals were the anonymous
and semi-apocalyptic Reformatio Sigismundi (c. 1438) and the De concordatia
catholica (1433) by Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa. The latter argued that the
Empire was succumbing to a “mortal disease” of general disharmony. This disease
threatened the Empire with death. If it were not cured, argued Cusa,
...people will look for the
Empire in Germany and not find it there; and as a result strangers will occupy
our lands and will divide us up among themselves, and in this way we shall become
subject to another nation.
Early attempts at reforms were made under Emperor
Sigismund (1410-1437), who had presided over the Council
of Constance. That assembly had offered a model for how the Empire might go
about the project of reform. Sigismund tried create a reform alliance with the
German cities, but his efforts failed in the face of resistance to reform from
the Imperial Electors. From the 1450s
on, the initiative came from princes eager to place more restrictions on the power
of the Emperor as part of a reform package. When an imperial reform movement emerged
in the late 1480s, two coalitions formed:
1) The Emperor’s Party:
The first group, consisting of the Habsburg Emperor and his allies among the
imperial cities and the weaker princes of the realm, supported reforms that
would (a) enable the Emperor to exploit Germany's considerable resources more
effectively than in the past, through such innovations as a regular system of
imperial taxation; and that would (b) enable the Emperor to administer Germany
in absentia, such as an imperial governing council, if it could be kept
under the Emperor's control. In short, Maximilian I and his party wanted an
Empire that would maintain the peace during his absences, to the benefit of
his dynasty, and at minimal cost to Austria.
2) The Princes’ Party:
Led by Nicolas of Cusa’s pupil, Archbishop-Elector Berthold von Henneberg of
Mainz, the imperial Archchancellor,
the princes’ party saw reform as a means to give the Empire a more clearly federal
structure. The main instrument of such a reform would be an imperial
court system that would put an end to private wars and subject conflict
among princes to the arbitration of courts of law. In addition, the Princes'
party envisioned a standing administrative council for the Empire that was capable
of acting with considerable executive autonomy from the Emperor.
This characterization of the interests involved only begins to describe the
complexity of reform politics during the last decade of the fifteenth century
and at the beginning of the sixteenth. An example: as archduke of Austria, Emperor
Maximilian was also a prince of the realm, and in this capacity he shared many
interests with other princes of similar power and stature. Reforms that served
him as a prince might benefit the other princes as well. But as Emperor, Maximilian
could also make common cause with the small-fry lords of the Empire, the imperial
knights, as a counterweight against the more powerful princes.
A deadlock formed between the two sides, which was broken
when the Emperor’s financial needs proved so great that he could no longer afford
to continue without an infusion of new money from the Reichstag; the
first step toward reform was taken in 1486, when after long negotiations the
Reichstag proclaimed a 10-year ban on private wars between lords. This
was the first in a series of general, imperial truces and would provide the
legal basis for reforms of the Empire's judicial system.
The Reichstag at Worms, 1495
But the most important and lasting moves toward reform were taken at an assembly
of the imperial estates held at the Rhineland city of Worms in 1495. At the
forefront of its efforts stood the problem of private warfare between princes,
nobles, and free cities. To address the problem, the assembly adopted a series
of far-reaching changes. To begin with, the Reichstag proclaimed the
“Perpetual Peace,”
which built on the earlier truce and decreed that in future, no member
of the Empire should feud with or cause harm to any other. Violations of this
“Perpetual Peace”
would be treated in courts of law, not on the field of battle. By this means,
the Reichstag sought to put an end to feuding among the princes and free
cities of Germany.
- The problem was particularly acute in central,
southern and western regions of Germany, where lesser nobles clung to the
right of armed self-defense;
- The recently elected Emperor, Maximilian
I, made common cause with the princes of the realm to assert princes' monopoly
over the legitimate use of violence within their territories and to end the
lower nobility's right of armed self-defense.
To deal with disputes between princes of
the Empire, a supreme Imperial Chamber Court
(Reichskammergericht) was established and given a seat in the city
of Frankfurt. Emperor Maximilian -- vulnerable due to several simultaneous wars
-- was forced to concede a large measure of control over the new tribunal to the
princes, who appointed some of the judges and who (in theory) financed the whole
operation.
- Like the reformed Reichstag itself,
this new institution built on the precedent of existing imperial courts seated
in the imperial cities of Speyer and Rottweil.
- According to its original code of procedure,
the new Imperial Chamber Court consisted of 25 judges: a chief justice, two
presiding deputies, and two associate justices who would be appointed by the
Emperor; of the remaining 20 justices, two were nominated by the Emperor (as
a prince of the realm), six by the Electors; and twelve by the remaining members
of the Reichstag, grouped into regional districts called “Imperial
Circles” (Reichskreise).
- The Imperial Chamber Court's primary function
was the arbitration of conflict between princes;
- This, too, helped to solidify the judicial
powers of the more powerful princes, whose subjects could not appeal to
the Imperial Chamber Court.
- The situation was different with respect
to the smaller princes of central and southwestern Germany, however: a majority
of them enjoyed no such immunity from the Imperial Chamber Court's jurisdiction.
- The Imperial Chamber Court would prove to
be one of the most enduring accomplishments of the reform era: within a few
decades, it managed to put an end to the destructive feuding characteristic
of the fifteenth century and after that continued to function as a court of
arbitration and appeal until the Empire's destruction under Napoleon.
The Reichstag of 1495 also addressed a deeper
problem, that of establishing its own authority and regularizing its own operations,
much as the Council of Constance's decree
Frequens had attempted to do for the government of the church. There
was nothing particularly new about assemblies of the imperial estates: for centuries,
Emperors had summoned assemblies of dependent vassals and magnates to confer and
resolve conflicts.
- Building on the precedent of recent diets,
the 1495 assembly at Worms laid down the legal foundation of its own institutional
permanence: procedures for deliberation and voting in the Reichstag
were regularized; the membership was fixed and lists were drawn up of those
territories of the realm that were entitled to send delegates to each diet.
- From then on, the Reichstag would
be divided into two separate houses (Councils or curiae) which debated
in secret:
- This division codified a hierarchy of among
the princes of Empire; it also reflected the exclusion of the lower nobility
from active participation in decision making at the imperial level; finally,
it reflected the exclusion of imperial free cities, whose representatives
were allowed to attend theReichstag, but only as non-voting observers.
- By the same token, it was a system geared
toward the production of compromises: the complex system of councils, caucuses
and voting guaranteed that no resolution could pass which seriously compromised
the interests of any member of the Empire. On the other hand, the costs of
ignoring the Reichstag or defying its resolutions were potentially
grave. Thus most of the imperial estates had both an interest in participating
and an interest in achieving compromises.
- The Reformation would test this capacity
to the limit.
The Imperial Executive Council
(Reichsregiment), 1500-1502, 1522-1524
The reforms did not end in 1495. The Reichstag also established the “Common
Penny”, a direct, universal property and poll tax, meant to finance the imperial
court system and the common defense. Finally, in 1500, Maximilian could no longer
resist the pressure to establish a Imperial Executive Council (Reichsregiment),
seated in the imperial city of Nürnberg, which was meant to operate continuously
as a governing council, on behalf of the Reichstag and with only a minimum
of interference from the Emperor.
- The Imperial Executive Council was to include
the seven Electors (or their representatives) and 13 members appointed by
the German princes. A representative of the Emperor would preside.
- But the Imperial Executive Council dissolved
after only two years, in 1502, when it expired for lack of funding from the
great princes; a similar fate awaited much of the rest, too.
- As a countermeasure to the Imperial Chamber
Court, Emperor Maximilian I in 1498 set up a supreme court under his own control,
Imperial Aulic Council (Reichshofrat);
thus from that year on, two supreme courts existed in Germany, and would continue
to compete until the end of the Empire in 1806.
- Much as they might have liked the idea of
fiscal and judicial institutions that would limit the Emperor's power, the
princes were reluctant to support funding mechanisms such as the “Common Penny”
which would be assessed without regard to traditional exemptions and collected
by authorities not fully under their own control. Soon after its promulgation,
the princes were able to replace the “Common
Penny” with a fixed taxation schedule that left the actual apportionment
and collection to princely governments. This allowed traditional exemptions,
for example of the nobility, to remain in place.
A second attempt to establish an Imperial Governing
Council in 1522 failed after only a few years in operation: as a concession to
the German Electors for making him Emperor, Maximilian's grandson Charles V agreed
to accept the existing reforms to the Empire -- including the Imperial Aulic Council
-- to rule in accordance with imperial law, and to permit the reconstitution of
the Imperial Governing Council. A new Governing Council convened in Nürnberg
in 1522 and began reviving reform ideas from twenty years before; but as in 1502,
lack of support from the Electors and the princes undermined its efficacy, and
the council quickly lapsed into obscurity.
Conclusion
When Archbishop Berthold von Henneberg died in 1512, much of the initiative
reform expired as well. On balance, the results of the reform movement were
mixed: few had been satisfied with the existing state of German affairs; many,
if not most elites wanted change in the direction of greater peace and security.
But few could agree on proper course of reform, and fewer still were in any
position to impose their version of reform on the rest. In the end, the Empire
got a little of everything: new federal institutions, some of them quite effective,
but no strong federal power; a stronger monarch in the person of Maximilian
I and his successor, Charles V, but not a strong monarchy.
Another lasting effect of the reform movement was to entrench emerging regional
differences in the Empire's political culture and structure. Already in the
fifteenth century, the northern and eastern regions of the Empire were dominated
by relatively large duchies and counties, in which the judicial monopoly of
dukes and counts was relatively well established. During the period of reform,
these powerful, northern princes still risked relatively little by failing to
participate in a Reichstag or adhering to its resolutions. But small-fry
princes and free cities located in the politically fragmented regions of central,
western, and southern Germany enjoyed no such impunity. They could refuse to
pay the Common Penny or honor Reichstag resolutions only at grave risk.
The result was to encourage the northeast-southwest bifurcation of Germany:
large territorial states in the north and east, an extremely fragmented political
landscape with far livelier federal institutions of justice and decision making
in the southwest.
But we must resist the temptation to seek the origins of all the Empire's strengths
and weaknesses in the outcomes of the imperial reform movement. Most modern
diagnoses of success and failure take as their yardstick the degree to which
a particular change moved Germany in the direction of national state-building
and ethno-political unification (according to one version); others have diagnosed
success and failure according to the standards of social or economic "progress"
toward a particular world-historical goal. But as Thomas Brady and others have
pointed out, the Empire's reformers had no such goals in mind. If Maximilian
I had had his way, an entirely different political landscape would have emerged
from the reform era, with an enlarged and powerful Austria--stretching from
what is now Belgium and the Netherlands and what is now western
France across what is now southern Germany into what is now Austria--at
the core of a federation of cities and communes throughout the Empire. This
project failed, not so much because it did not lead to nation building or social
transformation, but because Reformation and the religious divisions it produced
shattered its foundations and chances for realization[1].
1. Thomas A. Brady, Jr., "The Common Man
and the Lost Austria in the West," 338, 350.
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