1. Introduction, Peter H. Wilson and Michael Schaich Part I. The Constitution History of the Empire 2. The Old Reich: A Federation or a State of the German Nation?, Karl Otmar von Aretin 3. The Old Reich: The State and Nation of the Germans, Georg Schmidt 4. The Role of the Imperial Auli Council in the Constitutional Structure of the Holy Roman Empire, Leopold Auer 5. Does the Holy Roman Empire Need a New Institutional History?, Siegrid Westphal 6.

The Thirty Years War as the Empire's Constitutional Crisis, Peter H. Wilson 7. The Permanent Imperial Diet in European Context, 1663-1806, Karl Harter Part II. The Religious History of the Empire 8. The Imperial Cities and the Politics of Reformation, C. Scott Dixon 9. Religious War and Religious Peace in the Age of Reformation, Franz Brendle and Anton Schindling 10. The Triumph of Unity over Dualism: Saxony and the Imperial Elections 1559-1619, Dominic Phelps 11.

Re-Catholicization in the Empire: Strategies, Problems, Consequences, Trevor Johnson 12. Catholic Culture and Rural Society, Marc R. Foster Part III. The Social and Cultural History of the Empire 13. Is there a Social History of the Holy Roman Empire?, Susan C. Karant-Nunn 14. German Aristocracies and Social Discipline: Noble Hierarchies, the State, and the Law in Sixteenth-Century Bavaria, Christian Wieland 15. The Formation of the Imperial Knighthood in Franconia: A Comparative European Perspective, Hillay Zmora 16.

A German Nation? National and Confessional Identities before the Thirty Years War, Joachim Whaley 17. The 'Historical Consciousness' of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation (Sixteenth to Eighteenth Century), Markus Volkel 18. The Holy Roman Empire as a Communication(s) Universe, Wolfgang Behringer 19. On the Function of Rituals in the Holy Roman Empire, Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger.