Its distinguishing features were:
(a) That it was to sit continuously in the Empire, not following the court, but fixed permanently at Frankfurt-on-Main.
(b) That it could receive appeals from the Landgerichte.
(c) That its members were to receive their salaries out of the fees of the court, though they might be supplemented from the Imperial revenues if these fees proved insufficient.
(d) That the judge acquired the power of proclaiming the ban of the Empire in the sovereign's name.
3rd. A proposal was laid down for yearly meetings of the Estates, with the object of controlling the Imperial expenditure. To this assembly the treasurer was to deliver the money which he received from the taxes, and it was to hold the exclusive power of deciding the expenditure; while neither the Emperor nor his son might declare war without its consent.
"The constitution thus proposed was a mixture of Monarchical and federal Government, but with an obvious preponderance of the latter element; a political union, preserving the forms of the ancient hierarchy of the Empire." But the defective nature of the Diet's composition, and the virtual impossibility of securing a united effort for any length of time, prevented the accomplishment of this scheme.
4th. In return for these concessions on the part of Maximilian, the Diet instituted "The Common Penny" (Der Gemeine Pfennig). This was an attempt at systematic taxation, according to which an impost of half a gulden was levied on every 500 gulden, and among the poorer classes every twenty-four people above the age of fifteen contributed one gulden.
The Common Penny was imperfectly organized and soon became merely nominal, as the needy Maximilian often found to his cost; and though it was revived under Charles V., it soon disappeared again after a brief and fitful existence.
The only actions of the Diet of Lindau (1496), the next in succession to that of Worms, were to renew the Common Penny, to transfer the Imperial Chamber from Frankfurt to Worms, and to impose a tax upon the Jews of the chief Imperial towns.