Europe in the Sixteenth Century, 1494-1598, Fifth Edition / Period 4 (of 8), Periods of European History

by A. H. Johnson

With aims thus fundamentally different, real harmony between Maximilian and the Electors was impossible. Of all the projected reforms, those with regard to taxation alone met with his hearty approval, as likely to replenish his ever empty exchequer, and enable him to form a more efficient army for the prosecution of his own designs. Yet this was the one reform which the Electors cared for least. Whether therefore they would carry their projects depended on the fortunes of Maximilian. As long as he needed their assistance in men and money, something might be extorted from his weakness, but when success smiled upon him, he grew cold and opposed or postponed their schemes.

When in March 1495, he met the Diet of Worms, he was in need of help that he might join the League of Venice, just formed to prevent the undue extension of French influence in Italy. In return for the establishment of the Common Penny (der gemeine Pfennig)—that is, a tax upon all property throughout the Empire, and a poll-tax on those of small means,—he allowed the Diet to proclaim the public peace, and make it perpetual. Those who broke it were to be under the ban of the Empire.

To remove all pretext for private war, the Imperial Chamber was to be reorganised. The Emperor was to retain the right of nominating the President, the sixteen Assessors were to be elected by the Diet. The court was not to follow the Emperor, but was to have a fixed place of session, and was to be supported by imperial taxation. It was to have supreme jurisdiction in all cases arising between states of the Empire, and to hear appeals on all causes arising in their courts, except where the Prince enjoyed the privilegium de non appellando; and it could pronounce the ban of the Empire without the Emperor’s consent. Maximilian also consented to an annual meeting of the Diet, and conceded to it the right of appropriating the proceeds of the Common Penny.

The demand for a Council of Regency (Reichsregiment) to control the central administration he rejected, as trenching too seriously on his prerogative.Diet of Augsburg. April 1500. Yet five years afterwards, at the Diet of Augsburg, 1500, his difficulties were so great, and his need of help so imperious, that he yielded even on this point. His Italian expeditions of 1495 and 1498 had failed. On the day on which the Diet met, Ludovico Sforza had been taken prisoner, April 10, 1500 (cf. [p. 38]), and Milan was once more in French hands.

The system of the Common Penny had failed, owing to the difficulty of collection. The Diet therefore ordered a levy of men for six months. Every four hundred inhabitants were to furnish one soldier, the Princes to provide the cavalry; a tax was also laid on those who did not serve. In return, the Emperor consented to the establishment of the Council of Regency (Reichsregiment). This standing Council of the Empire was to be formed of a President, one Elector, one Bishop, one Prince, one Count, and sixteen representatives of the States. It was to summon the Diet, of which it served as a standing committee, to nominate the members of the Imperial Chamber, to collect taxes, to maintain order at home, and decide on questions of peace and war. Although under the presidency of the Emperor or his Stadtholder, nothing of importance could be done without its leave, and thus it shared the executive power with him.

Maximilian, however, had no intention of seeing his authority thus controlled, and this abortive Council only lasted a few months.1502. Opposition of Maximilian. Henceforth, disappointed at the niggard support which his concessions had produced—for the levy voted at Augsburg was never fully furnished—he determined to lean upon his own resources. ‘As King of the Romans,’ he said, ‘he had only experienced mortification. He would for the future act as an Austrian Prince.’ Accordingly, in 1502, he fell back on his imperial right of holding Courts of Justice (Hofgerichte), and erected a standing Court or Aulic Council (Hofrath), entirely under his own control, to which he referred matters pertaining to his own territories, and cases which he was called upon to adjudicate in his capacity of overlord.[36] He even thought of instituting a Council of his own to take the place of the Council of Regency.Compact at Gelnhausen. June 1502. The Electors on their side entered into a solemn compact at Gelnhausen (June 1502) to unite themselves as one man against the dangerous innovations of the Emperor; carried on negotiations with Louis XII. on their own account; and, in 1503, even spoke of deposing Maximilian and electing his rival, the French king, in his stead.

At this moment the position of Maximilian began to improve. He found himself supported by many of the literary men who cherished the memories of the Empire, by many of the Princes, the Imperial Knights, and others who dreaded the power of the Electors, and, in 1504, the question of the Landshut succession gave him an opportunity of humiliating his chief enemy,1504. Success of Maximilian in the Landshut succession question. the Elector Palatine, Frederick the Victorious, or the Wicked, as his opponents called him. On the death of Duke George, the Rich, of Landshut (December 1503), without direct heirs, three claimants appeared: Rupert, the second son of the Elector Palatine, and son-in-law and nephew of George, who claimed under the will of his father-in-law; and the two Dukes of Bavaria, Wolfgang and Albert, who urged their claim as his nearest agnates. Maximilian supported the cause of Bavaria; called on the princes who were jealous of the Elector Palatine; with their help, defeated his forces in a battle where Rupert, his son, was killed, and forced the Diet of Cologne, in 1505, to divide the territories of Landshut between the Dukes of Bavaria and himself; while the son of Rupert was fain to content himself with the small district of the upper Palatinate on the north of the Danube.

By this defeat of a prominent Elector, the prestige of Maximilian was much enhanced. Moreover, the death of John of Baden the Elector of Trèves,1504. Death of Berthold of Mayence and of the Elector of Trèves. and of Berthold of Mayence during the year, 1504, seriously weakened the party of reform. The Emperor’s position abroad also seemed magnificent. The Treaty of Blois (September 1504) promised a brilliant match for his grandson Charles (cf. [p. 61]), a match which was not only to bring Brittany, Burgundy, and the French possessions in North Italy to the Hapsburgs, but might even,Improved position of Maximilian. so Maximilian hoped, end in uniting the crowns of the Empire and of France. In the ensuing November, the death of Isabella made Joanna, his daughter-in-law, Queen of Castile; and the old age of Ladislas, of Bohemia and Hungary, gave prospects of the speedy fulfilment of the agreement, made by that King fifteen years before, by which Hungary was to fall to the Hapsburg house in the event of his dying without male issue.

While Maximilian indulged in wild projects of universal empire, he was not in a mood to listen to further demands, nor were the Electors in a position to enforce them.End of the attempted Reforms. Here therefore the attempts at reform may be said to have practically ceased. The hopes of Maximilian were not indeed fulfilled. Accordingly, in 1507, at Constance we find him once more demanding men and money against the perjured Louis XII., in return for a promise to revive the Imperial Chamber, which had held no sittings for three years. Supplies were granted, no longer by the Common Penny, or by assessment by parishes, but by a matricula or roll on which the separate states were rated, according to their resources, a system which emphasised the independence of the separate states. Thus furnished, Maximilian once more invaded Italy, only to fail even more ludicrously than before (cf. [p. 65]); and the Diets of the years, 1509 to 1512, are taken up with mutual recriminations—the Emperor bitterly remonstrating with the Diet for refusing adequate support, and for attempting to weaken his prerogative; while the Diet retorted that his alliances and his wars had been entered into without its consent, and that he had prevented the execution of the reforms which had been enacted.

At the Diets of Trèves and Cologne (1512), something indeed was done. The organisation of the Empire into six circles,[37] hitherto only used for elections to the Council of Regency, and of the Assessors to the Imperial Chamber, was extended, and the administrative and military work of the districts placed in their hands.1512. Establishment of the Circles. Even then the Diets refused to allow Maximilian the privilege of nominating the Captains of the circles, or of appointing a Captain-general who should be supreme, or nominating a council of eight, who were to act as a Privy Council under his control. In short, the eternal conflict continued; Maximilian, though not averse to reforms which might make the executive and judicial work of the Empire more efficient, refused to allow his prerogative to be touched, and the Diet would only sanction those which secured them some control. The measure therefore was still-born, the Captains were never elected, and the establishment of the circles was not finally effected till 1521, three years after Maximilian’s death.