At the Diet of Constance (1507) some progress was again made. In return for a grant of troops and money, Maximilian re-established the Imperial Chamber, which had held no sittings for three years, and a small tax was instituted to pay the salaries of its officials. The Diets of Worms (1509) and Augsburg (1510) were occupied by complaints and abuse, which were wholly without effect. In 1512, however, the Diet of Koln, to which city it had removed from Trier, secured the division of the Empire into six Kreise, or Circles, for administrative and military purposes. The Circles were to be placed under Captains, who were all controlled by a Captain-general, and the organization was to be entrusted to a council of eight, "who were to act as a Privy Council under the Emperor's control." But the jealousy of the Diet refused him the nomination of these Captains, and of the council, with the result that the measure fell through for the time, and did not take effect till 1521, under Charles V.
This was the last serious attempt at Reform during the reign of Maximilian; for the later Diets were mere scenes of confusion and of mutual recrimination. The failure of the reforming movement only served to emphasize the fact that the constitution of the Empire had become an unworkable machine, and that the Empire itself could only be saved from weakness and disorganization by the rise of a strong central monarchy. But this was not to be. Such a contingency, which Maximilian's vast dreams of Austrian world-power had seemed to foreshadow, was rendered impossible by the great spiritual revolution, which filled all minds throughout the reign of Charles V. Several centuries were required to permit the growth of a strong German state out of the chaos of the mediaeval Empire; and it was reserved for the nineteenth century to see a native dynasty restore to Germany the long-lost blessings of consolidation and unity.
[Illustration: The Imperial House of Hapsburg]
The names of battles have their dates in brackets Tr.=Treaty
Aachen, 18 Adelsberg, 56. Agnadello (1509), 59. Albert Achilles, 17 Albert IV., of Bavaria, 31, 32, 51 Albert VI., of Austria, 6 Albert, El. of Mainz, 79 Albert of Saxony, 22 Aldus Manutius, 103 Alexander VI., 36 Amboise Cardinal d', 49, 57 Anne of Brittany, 23-5, 44 Apulian Ports, 38, 59 Arras, Tr. of (1482), 16 _Ars Versificandi_, 101 Ausburg, Diet of (1500), 48; (1510) 61; (1518) 74 ---- Humanists of, 87 Aulic Council, 127 Austria, 6, 17, 27, 29, 98 _Austria_, 105