The book presents six essays that address the main problems of the Reichstag activities in the Old Empire in 1495-1806. in connection with attempts to implement imperial reforms, the Reformation, Confessionalization, European politics and the end of the Holy Roman Empire. The other three essays examine the issues of the ratio of universal and national in the concept of the Holy Roman Empire, bureaucracy and the privy society in Vienna and in the German lands of the Empire, the significance of the secularization of 1803 and the reasons for the end of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806. The book is addressed to historians, lawyers, sociologists and everyone interested in the history of Germany and Europe.