Pacisof 1235 with its talk of reforming ‘the general state of the empire’.
Staat, the vernacular term for the commonwealth which was starting to
be used in the fifteenth century, does not appear in them. Maximilian’s
Public Peace is prefaced by a description of the threat to the empire
which required to be met ‘with statesmanlike and mature counsel’
(stattlichem, zeitigen rate), and article six of the peace acknowledges
cases where ‘the help of the state was needed’(das statlicher Hilff...
Not ware) against obdurate malefactors, and the injured parties should
therefore be allowed to appeal directly to the Reichskammergerichtand
the yearly diet of the electors, princes, and estates of the kingdom. But
what is repeatedly emphasized is the responsibility of ‘the electors,
princes, prelates, counts, lords, body of knights, towns [stette] and
everyone else, whatever their stations or conditions [standes oder
wesens]’, for preserving the peace of their localities.^125
(^125) Deutsche Reichstagsakten unter Maximilian I, 5: Reichstag von Worms 1495, 1 (i) ed.
H. Angermeier (Göttingen, 1981), 359–91; Angermeier, Königtum und Landfriede, 360–77,
548–66.
108 The Spread of the Organized Peace