Imperial Diet

Seating plan for an inauguration of the Imperial Diet in the Regensburg Town Hall from a 1675 engraving: Emperor and prince-electors at the head, secular princes to the left, ecclesiastical to the right, deputies of imperial cities in the foreground. The Imperial Diet (German: Reichstag; Latin: Dieta Imperii or Comitium Imperiale) was the deliberative body of the Holy Roman Empire. It was not a legislative body in the contemporary sense; its members envisioned it more like a central forum where it was more important to negotiate than to decide.

Its members were the Imperial Estates, divided into three colleges. The diet as a permanent, regularized institution evolved from the Hoftage (court assemblies) of the Middle Ages. From 1663 until the end of the empire in 1806, it was in permanent session at Regensburg.