Heart of Europe: A History of the Roman Empire (74 page)

*Saxony, Palatinate-Bavaria, Hanover

The Kreis Assemblies

The development of the Kreise created a second, regional level of representation as their growing responsibilities required their members to meet frequently by the mid-sixteenth century (
Map 7
). The status of Kreis Estate was always wider than that of imperial Estate, ensuring that more fiefs were represented in the Kreis Assemblies (
Kreistage
) than at the Reichstag. The assemblies reflected the differing composition and regional politics of each Kreis. The Bavarian Assembly met as a unified plenary body, whereas that in Swabia began with three benches, adding two more when the minor ecclesiastical and secular fiefs were admitted with full votes – in contrast to their marginalization in the Reichstag. Kreis membership continued to fluctuate, especially through the admission of counts who gained votes for minor lordships not represented in the Reichstag. The emperor could not require a Kreis to admit new members. Status exclusivity also played a role at this level, but generally existing members were willing to admit new ones because this increased the number of overall contributors to common burdens: Westphalia admitted five new members between 1667 and 1786.

The southern and western Kreise were the most vibrant, because of the French threat and because they had the largest memberships, who relied on the assemblies to resolve disputes and organize peace, security and defence. Eighteenth-century Franconia had 23 qualifying fiefs and cities, but 33 actual members because several minor counties and lordships were shared by different princely houses. Its assembly met 322 times between 1517 and 1791, before remaining in permanent session until dissolved in 1806. Bavaria’s material power was balanced by the more numerous smaller members all with full votes in the Bavarian Assembly, which met 85 times between 1521 and 1793. The Lower and Upper Saxon Kreise were dominated by Hanover, Brandenburg and Saxony, whose assemblies no longer convened after 1682 and 1683 respectively, though other forms of consultation continued.
¹¹⁹

The Reichstag and Kreis Assemblies were the main forms in what was a wider representational culture that produced other forms during the sixteenth century. The Kreis Assemblies could meet together as a
Reichskreistag
, while both they and the Reichstag developed committee structures to handle specific judicial, military and financial affairs.
Reichstag committees were reorganized as more formalized Imperial Deputations after 1555. The electors enjoyed uncontested rights of self-assembly and convened their own congresses into the mid-seventeenth century, but the Reichstag’s permanence after 1663 rendered most of these other forms superfluous (see
pp. 443–5
).

Reichstag Procedure

The emperor held the Right of Proposition, allowing him to open the Reichstag by presenting proposals to be discussed. In practice, imperial Estates and even private individuals could petition the directors of the three corpora to place items on the agenda.
¹²⁰
Each corpus debated in a separate room, consulting periodically through a process known as ‘correlation’ with the intention of reaching a consensus to be presented as a recommendation (
Reichsgutachten
) for the emperor’s approval. In practice, envoys often met separately outside the meeting hall. The emperor was free to veto a proposal, request further debate, or approve it as a full decision (
Reichsschluß
) to be included in the printed ‘recess’ (
Reichsabschluß
) issued at the close of each Reichstag.

The majority principle evolved separately within each corpus, beginning with the electors, followed by the cities in 1471, and finally for all decisions following Maximilian’s recommendation in 1495. However, reaching a decision was often arduous, because each corpus followed a practice known as
Umfrage
, inviting each member in strict hierarchical sequence to respond to the imperial proposition. A simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ was not permitted; each member had to voice an opinion and these were often long or deliberately ambiguous. There was no show of hands or other method that might have allowed precise counting. Instead, the corpus’s director had leeway in deciding what the majority was. The process of correlation also lacked firm rules, especially as the overall majority was not decided simply by counting votes across all three colleges. The civic corpus was disadvantaged by the convention that the electors and princes only consulted it once they had agreed between themselves, though the Peace of Westphalia (1648) confirmed their right to participate in correlation.

The 1424 assembly in Nuremberg agreed that decisions were binding even on those who failed to attend and this spread to the later Reichstag and Kreis Assemblies. The rule had to be repeated, notably
in 1512, because it broke the earlier convention allowing lords to demonstrate disagreement by absenting themselves or leaving an assembly early. Insistence on binding decisions encouraged a new form of delaying tactic, also facilitated by the transition to written political communication. Whereas the spiritual and lay lords were individuals expected to represent themselves, the imperial cities were communes that already provided written instructions for their envoys in the fifteenth century. Likewise, the imperial abbesses were excluded on gender grounds from attending in person and had to send a male official. Indirect representation opened the door to
Hintersichbringen
, or referring back to absentee masters on the grounds of inadequate instructions, allowing an imperial Estate to dodge awkward issues without openly opposing them. The practice was already criticized in 1495 when it was tacitly agreed to restrict referring back to genuinely important issues. The imperial proposition was generally now published in advance to force Estates to provide effective instructions. However, envoys remained bound to their masters, unlike the Reichskammergericht judges, who swore loyalty to the court, and referring back remained justifiable if circumstances changed during a Reichstag session, as occurred relatively often.

These practices help explain the slow pace of imperial politics, which later generations have often been quick to censure. The primary function of the Reichstag and the Kreis Assemblies was to legitimate political action. Imperial reform created a mass of documented decisions and recorded precedents, translating what had often been customs into written laws that remained uncodified and that might offer several potentially competing arguments.
¹²¹
Participants were concerned to find the ‘right’ basis for common action, since this would encourage more effective compliance with decisions. There was a tendency to leave difficult matters unresolved to allow time to chivvy dissenters, rather than risk the disruption that might ensue if they were coerced. As with justice, politics in the Empire was more about managing than resolving problems and was in many ways more realistic and often more humane than methods employed in other countries. It was not necessarily less ‘modern’ than the practices of some later systems: the practice of shunting difficult matters to committees where they might be hijacked by special interests is, for example, just as characteristic of contemporary US politics. Like Congress, the Reichstag was also a
venue for political theatre, offering the opportunity to address a wider public, rally support, and legitimate what were initially merely opinions and claims.

Attendance and Status

Changes in the form of attendance at the Reichstag is one of the most visible manifestations of the broader shift from medieval to early modern political culture in the Empire. Emperor Frederick III appeared before the royal assembly in Augsburg in May 1474 dressed in full imperial robes, enthroned, with a drawn sword of justice to pronounce a verdict condemning the elector Palatine for breaching the peace.
¹²²
The emperor or a close male relative generally attended at least the opening of each Reichstag until 1653. Leopold I appeared in Regensburg in 1664, a year after the opening of what proved to be a permanent or ‘eternal’ Reichstag. Thereafter, emperors were represented by an official known as the ‘principal commissar’: 4 of the 13 men holding this post between 1663 and 1806 were prince-bishops, with the others all being secular princes, though usually from the ‘new’ houses. Commissars maintained large staffs to reflect their status as the emperor’s representative. The last, Carl Alexander von Thurn und Taxis, was accompanied by in 1806 307 people, compared to the ten or so assisting most other envoys.
¹²³

Princely attendance was already patchy in the fifteenth century. Even at the well-attended 1471 assembly, 36 of the 81 invited princes failed to show up, while 37 of the 89 cities did not send representatives. Around 15 to 30 of the 60 to 70 princes attended the Reichstags held from the 1480s to 1550s.
¹²⁴
Confessional tensions caused Protestants to stay away from the 1520s, reflecting the persistence of the earlier practice of voicing disagreement through absence. However, the Reichstag was too important to be ignored, and absentees now sent envoys instead. Although the 1608 session was famously disrupted by a walk-out orchestrated by the elector Palatine, all Protestant princes sent representatives to the next meeting in 1613, while the Lutheran but pro-imperial rulers of Hessen-Darmstadt and Pfalz-Neuburg attended in person.
¹²⁵
Practicalities also encouraged a shift to indirect participation. It was expensive and often inconvenient to attend in person, especially now that the Reichstag remained in session far longer than
medieval assemblies. The general acceptance of the validity of written communication and the development of the reliable imperial postal service were added incentives to rely on envoys instead.

The shift to the new forms of representation increased general identification with the Empire since discussions and decisions were transmitted to wider audiences through written and printed material, in contrast to medieval royal assemblies where decisions were often reached discreetly beforehand and then ritually enacted by a relatively small number of participants (see
pp. 337–9
). However, in contrast to the relatively loose procedural rules, writing fixed status with ever greater precision. Whereas feudalization identified different status groups, the matricular registers now ranked their individual members in sequence. The practice of Umfrage acted this out in the assembly rooms. The ranking order was already ossifying by the 1480s, but despite the reams of lists, protocols and other documents, the complex feudal and institutional order defied neat classification. The different character of representation in the Reichstag and Kreis Assemblies created anomalies, while faulty record-keeping could provide arguments to make changes. This accelerated the erosion of presence culture, since it was often easier to remain absent and pretend that a status dispute did not exist.
¹²⁶

Thus, the Reichstag and Kreis Assemblies displayed the fundamental paradox of the early modern Empire. They assumed institutional shape with ‘modern’ practices like recognized procedure, written records and published outcomes, but their development was accompanied by appeals to ‘old custom’ (
Alte Herkommen
) to defend privileges and immunities based on past precedent.
¹²⁷
This makes it hard to draw general conclusions about imperial reform. Older scholarship is predictably negative, arguing that dualism between the Habsburgs and princes stalemated reform, leaving development only ‘partially modernized’ by 1555.
¹²⁸
This critique has some substance. Attempts to fix the status order more precisely merely made its discrepancies more obvious. For example, both Brandenburg and Pomerania insisted on the Pomeranian ducal title and coat of arms. Lorraine was recorded in the matricular register, but never paid and was also a vassal of the French king. Imperial political culture relied on accepting rather than rationalizing these anomalies. Over time, though, friction from the numerous inconsistencies hindered collective action by providing
excuses for non-compliance. For this reason we should not mistake status disputes as trivial. Yet their persistence to the very end also belies the traditional interpretation of the Empire as moribund, since the issues still mattered. Nor did they prevent hard work. Even the supposedly lethargic Frederick III remained locked in debate for 12 hours without food or drink at the 1471 assembly. Sessions frequently began at 4 a.m. and continued till the evening. The Reichstag’s permanence after 1663 allowed for shorter formal working days, but envoys remained busy outside these hours with informal negotiations, correspondence, and what would be termed today ‘public relations’ like entertaining diplomats and writing memoranda for publication.
¹²⁹
As we shall see (
pp. 445–69
), these activities produced real change, shifting imperial politics from symbolic gestures like mandates against blasphemy or injustice to concrete action over defence, crime, religious controversy and economic affairs.

Moreover, the remit of the Reichstag and Kreis Assemblies was far broader than those of most European assemblies, which were limited to debating royal policy and deciding how far to back it with taxes. In addition to indeed doing this, the Empire’s institutions worked out policy implementation, including specialist tasks like military regulations, exchange rates and law codes.
¹³⁰
They also proved sufficiently robust to absorb the shocks from the Reformation without the violence experienced in France and the Netherlands. Although unable to prevent the Bohemian Revolt that caused a devastating civil war between 1618 and 1648, the same framework ultimately still provided the means to resolve that conflict and stabilize the Empire.