Ep. 224: Imperial Reform 1495 – The Reichstag of the Holy Roman Empire
History of the Germans
Dirk Hoffmann-Becking
4.9 • 550 Ratings
🗓️ 5 February 2026
⏱️ 42 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
I am afraid today’s episode is not your usual swordplay and skullduggery. What we are looking at today is the Reichstag as it operated throughout the Holy Roman Empire from 1495 to 1803. Sounds a bit like dour constitutional law, but bear with me.
We will look at a couple of classic tropes, like, whether the empire consisted of more than 300 sovereign states who could do whatever they wanted, whether the Reichstag was a talking shop hat never did anything except stopping the emperor from becoming a proper monarch. And, as usual, we will talk about money and printing, and why German politician speeches are invariably long on fact and short on rhetoric.
The music for the show is Flute Sonata in E-flat major, H.545 by Carl Phillip Emmanuel Bach (or some claim it as BWV 1031 Johann Sebastian Bach) performed and arranged by Michel Rondeau under Common Creative Licence 3.0.
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To make it easier for you to share the podcast, I have created separate playlists for some of the seasons that are set up as individual podcasts. they have the exact same episodes as in the History of the Germans, but they may be a helpful device for those who want to concentrate on only one season.
So far I have:
Salian Emperors and Investiture Controversy
Fredrick Barbarossa and Early Hohenstaufen
The Holy Roman Empire 1250-1356
The Reformation before the Reformation
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to the history of the Germans. |
| 0:07.0 | Episode 224, the Reichstag of the Holy Roman Empire. |
| 0:12.6 | I'm afraid today's episode is not your usual swordplay and skullduggery. |
| 0:17.1 | What we're looking at today is the Reichstag, as it operated throughout the Holy Roman Empire |
| 0:21.8 | from 1495 to 1803. |
| 0:24.2 | Sounds a bit like dour constitutional law, but bear with me. |
| 0:29.3 | We'll look at a couple of classic tropes, like whether the empire really consisted of more |
| 0:33.4 | than 300 sovereign states who could do, well, whatever they wanted, whether the Reichstag was a talking shop that never did anything, except stopping the emperor |
| 0:41.5 | from being a proper monarch. |
| 0:43.5 | And as usual, we'll talk about money and printing and why German political speeches are |
| 0:48.9 | invariably long on fact and short on rhetoric. |
| 0:52.5 | So, let's start at the beginning. |
| 0:56.5 | When was the first Reichstag? |
| 0:59.0 | Oh, and that is already the first booby trap. |
| 1:03.0 | Because if you go to the History of the Germans.com website, not just to support the show |
| 1:07.7 | as you should, but also to consult the transcript, you can find |
| 1:11.5 | me mentioning a Reichstag in Worms in 1069. And if you go to the internet, you can find |
| 1:17.7 | another Diet of Worms in 770. There was so long ago it was called by Charlemagne's father, |
| 1:23.9 | Pippin the Short. But these aren't real Reistager. |
| 1:28.3 | Why? |
| 1:29.3 | Is it because the chroniclers in the 11th century called them something different? |
| 1:34.3 | No. There were several gatherings that were referred to as Dieta Imperiali, which is Latin for Reistak. |
... |
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