Law, society and political culture in late medieval and Reformation Germany

INTRODUCTION

I: THE IMPERIAL MONARCHY IN THEORY AND PRACTICE

1. The 'Two Swords Theory' in the Swabian Mirror (thirteenth-fifteenth centuries)

2. The origins of the Holy Roman Empire and its transfer to the Germans in the Nuremberg Chronicle (1493)

3. The procedure for electing a monarch in Peter of Andlau's Little Book about the Imperial Monarchy (1460)

4. A chronicle account of Emperor Charles IV's peace-keeping approach (late fourteenth century)

5. The deposition of King Wenceslas (1400)

6. King Sigismund's staging of royal authority in Ulrich Richental's chronicle (1417)

7. A letter of Emperor Frederick III requesting troops from the imperial cities (1475)

8. King Maximilian I's exhortations to an imperial diet in Constance (1507)

9. An electoral contract between the electors and King Charles V (1519)

II: ASSEMBLIES AND ORDINANCES TO THE MID-FIFTEENTH CENTURY

10. Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini's observations about German diets in a letter to Juan Carvajal (1444)

11. King Wenceslas summons Strasbourg's envoys to a diet in Nuremberg (1383)

12. The electors summon Strasbourg's envoys to a diet in Nuremberg (1422)

13. Emperor Frederick III summons the imperial princes to a diet in Regensburg (1454)

14. The 'Golden Bull' (1356)

15. The imperial land-peace and alliance issued at a diet in Eger (1389)

16. A planned levy at a diet in Nuremberg for the war against the Hussites (1422)

17. A peace-ordinance promulgated at a diet in Frankfurt (the 'Royal Reformation') (1442)

III: CONFLICT, COMPROMISE AND CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGE AT THE IMPERIAL DIETS, 1467-1555

18. An urban envoy reports on the negotiating process at an imperial diet (1487)

19. Maximilian I summons the estates to an imperial diet in Augsburg (1509)

20. Peace-ordinances promulgated at imperial diets in Nuremberg, Regensburg and Frankfurt (1467-86)

21. A peace-ordinance promulgated at an imperial diet in Worms (the 'Perpetual Public Peace') (1495)

22. An ordinance promulgated at an imperial diet in Worms establishing the new imperial cameral court (1495)

23. A treaty for 'the administration of peace and justice' promulgated at an imperial diet in Worms (1495)

24. An ordinance to create an imperial governing council promulgated at an imperial diet in Augsburg (1500)

25. An ordinance to expand the imperial circles promulgated at an imperial diet in Trier and Cologne (1512)

26. A peace-ordinance promulgated at an imperial diet in Worms (1521)

27. The recess of an imperial diet in Speyer (1526)

28. The full protestation of the evangelical estates at an imperial diet in Speyer (1529)

29. A peace agreement and recess between Emperor Charles V and the evangelical estates (1532)

30. The imperial recess from an imperial diet in Augsburg (the 'Peace of Augsburg') (1555)

IV: IMAGINING POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS REFORM

31. King Sigismund calls for the reformation of the Church and Empire in a summons to an assembly (1417)

32. The Reformation of Emperor Sigismund (1439)

33. The proposals of an archbishop of Trier for reforming the Holy Roman Empire (1452)

34. The Little Book of One Hundred Chapters with Forty Statutes (c. 1490-1510)

35. Martin Luther, To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation Concerning the Improvement of the Christian Estate (1520)

36. The 'grievances of the German nation' at an imperial diet in Speyer (1526)

V: ALLIANCES AND ASSOCIATIONS

37. An alliance and land-peace in Swabia (1356)

38. The eternal alliance of Zurich, Lucerne, Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden (1351)

39. An alliance of the six German electors (1424)