On 19 August 1493 the old emperor Frederick III died. His long reign, ever since 1440, had been marked by a rising consciousness of German nationality. This had been nourished by the controversies of the conciliar period, stimulated by the invention of printing amongst an increasingly wealthy and German-reading public in the courts and towns, and expressed in the newly current phrase ‘The Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation’. But the reign had witnessed territorial losses on all sides. The estates of Holstein had accepted the rule of the Danish king (1460). The Teutonic Order had come under the control of Poland (1466). The Austrian duchies were overrun at intervals by the Turks. The Swiss had ceased to regard themselves as having duties to the Reich. On the collapse of the Burgundian power (1477) the French monarchy resumed its efforts at eastward expansion; and French diplomacy stimulated centrifugal movements from the Netherlands to the Alps. Frederick's son, Maximilian, took over a Reich diminished and threatened.

Indignation was felt at the helplessness of the Reich. But what could be done? Machiavelli wrote truly ‘Of the power of Germany none can doubt, for it abounds in men, riches and arms….But it is such as cannot be used’. The supreme authority was the king acting with the advice and consent of the Reichstag, the assembly of his estates or direct tenants. At full strength it could consist of the six electors, some 120 prelates, about thirty lay princes and 140 counts and lords, and eighty-five towns.