![]() ![]() ![]() Against this backdrop, the creation and consolidation of the Empire's 'central' institutions-not least the so-called 'imperial diet' (Hoftag, gemeiner Tag, Reichstag)-can be understood as just one manifestation of contact within the customary framework of Tag-based negotiation, as widely practised by the elites of German-speaking Europe in the course of the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Political associations and communities also made use of Tage as nodal points of contact and negotiation. In judicial matters, Tage were ubiquitous as fora for arbitration and conflict resolution. It illustrates this interconnection by examining a much-neglected format of customary interaction: the Tag ('diet', 'council' or 'court'). This article argues that the evidence points to a more integrated picture of the Empire, in which there were many connections between political units and actors at every level, within networks that spanned multiple localities. These models create an artificial divide between 'central' or 'imperial' and regional or local developments. Prevailing interpretations of the late medieval and early modern Holy Roman Empire conceptualize it in terms of discrete units: as a mosaic of territories or as the Reichsverfassung (imperial constitution), a term that is intended to capture the social and political organization of the Empire. ![]()
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