- Imperial Reform
In
1495 , an attempt was made at a "Reichstag" in the city of Worms to give the disintegratingHoly Roman Empire a new structure, commonly referred to as Imperial Reform (in German: "Reichsreform)."Whether this reform can be considered successful depends on how one defines its goals; today, many scholars believe that the reform was not really aimed at producing a modern state (in which it would be considered a failure), but rather attempted to consolidate and distribute power between the Empire and the states in consensus, in which it did succeed.
The reform mainly produced the following:
# the Perpetual Public Peace "(Ewiger Landfriede)," which established the "Reich" as a single body of law that excluded feuds as a means of politics between its members;
# the "Reichskammergericht " (Imperial Chamber Court, Imperial High Court), a supreme court for all of the "Reich"'s territory, possibly the reform's most far-reaching impact;
# the establishment of six (from 1512 on: ten) "Reichskreise" (Imperial Circle Estates) for a more uniform administration of the "Reich" to better execute the Perpetual Public Peace and taxing;
# a so-called "Reichsregiment" (Imperial Regiment), intended as a replacement of the clumsy and slow "Reichstag", which never managed to gain much influence.The reform was more or less concluded with the
1555 "Reichsexekutionsordnung" (Imperial Execution Order), which regulated more details of the tasks of the Imperial Circle Estates.
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