Political Structure of the Holy Roman Empire

Type Object Region Central Europe Time 962–1806

The Holy Roman Empire of the 1190s was a multi-layered feudal-elective complex of emperor, seven electors, territorial princes, and the Imperial Diet.

Timeline

1155–1190Imperial core lands (Swabia–Germany) · SwabiaFrederick I (Barbarossa), building on Hohenstaufen lands, strengthened imperial intervention in Italian cities and church lands, and consolidated electoral legitimacy through consultation with the electors before the Golden Bull, forming a basic three-way contest among emperor, princes, and Church.
1190–1198Electoral territories and sites of the Imperial Diet · RhinelandAfter the emperor's death the empire fell into a long interregnum and regency; the seven electors (the three ecclesiastical electors of Cologne, Mainz, and Trier, and the secular electors of Bohemia, Brandenburg, Saxony, and the Palatinate) gained power in elections and regencies, while princes exercised practical rule—justice, taxation, and minting—within their territories.
1190–1200Across the empire (princely assemblies and vassal gatherings) · Holy Roman EmpireImperial politics relied on irregularly convened princely assemblies (Hoftag) and the ranks of vassals: emperor, electors, other princes, ecclesiastical princes, and representatives of free cities. By the 1190s this consultative structure had taken shape, laying practical groundwork for the formal establishment of the electoral system in the Golden Bull of 1356.

Sources

The Oxford History of Medieval Europe — George Holmes (ed.) (1988)
Germany in the High Middle Ages: c. 1050-1200 — Horst Fuhrmann (1986)