<P> Simultaneously, the Catholic Church experienced crises of its own, with wide - reaching effects in the Empire . The conflict between several papal claimants (two anti-popes and the "legitimate" Pope) ended only with the Council of Constance (1414--1418); after 1419 the Papacy directed much of its energy to suppressing the Hussites . The medieval idea of unifying all Christendom into a single political entity, with the Church and the Empire as its leading institutions, began to decline . </P> <P> With these drastic changes, much discussion emerged in the 15th century about the Empire itself . Rules from the past no longer adequately described the structure of the time, and a reinforcement of earlier Landfrieden was urgently needed . During this time, the concept of "reform" emerged, in the original sense of the Latin verb re-formare--to regain an earlier shape that had been lost . </P> <P> When Frederick III needed the dukes to finance a war against Hungary in 1486, and at the same time had his son (later Maximilian I) elected king, he faced a demand from the united dukes for their participation in an Imperial Court . For the first time, the assembly of the electors and other dukes was now called the Imperial Diet (German Reichstag) (to be joined by the Imperial Free Cities later). While Frederick refused, his more conciliatory son finally convened the Diet at Worms in 1495, after his father's death in 1493 . Here, the king and the dukes agreed on four bills, commonly referred to as the Reichsreform (Imperial Reform): a set of legal acts to give the disintegrating Empire some structure . For example, this act produced the Imperial Circle Estates and the Reichskammergericht (Imperial Chamber Court), institutions that would--to a degree--persist until the end of the Empire in 1806 . </P> <P> However, it took a few more decades for the new regulation to gain universal acceptance and for the new court to begin to function effectively; only in 1512 would the Imperial Circles be finalized . The King also made sure that his own court, the Reichshofrat, continued to operate in parallel to the Reichskammergericht . Also in 1512 the Empire received its new title, the Heiliges Römisches Reich Deutscher Nation ("Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation"). </P>

Map of holy roman empire and byzantine empire