History of germany

Reichstag: 12th - 19th century

The Reichstag is in origin the royal council of the medieval German emperors, similar in kind to the curia regis of kings in western Europe at the same period. The term is usually translated into English as imperial diet -Reich meaning empire, andTag (day) being reflected in diet (from dies, 'day' in Latin). 

At first only the princes and bishops of the empire are summoned to a diet, but the representation gradually extends to lessser feudal nobles and then to the imperial cities. The larger cities become informally involved during the 13th century. From 1489 all the free cities are given a guaranteed role in the diet.
The reform of 1489 organizes the imperial diet in three separate colleges. The first consists of the seven electors who are responsible for choosing a new emperor when the throne is vacant (a group established by the Golden Bull of 1356). The second is the college of princes, of whom sixty-one are from the hereditary nobility and thirty-three are bishops. 
The third is the college of the cities, identified as two groups. They consist of fourteen towns loosely identified with the Rhineland and thirty-seven with Swabia. 
The three colleges of the diet meet separately and pass their own resolutions. These resolutions are combined in an agreed statement which is then presented to the emperor - who has the legal right to act upon it in whole, in part or not at all (the degree of compliance depends largely on his need at the time for the diet's financial support). 
In the 16th century the Holy Roman empire begins a long decline into irrelevance. The emperors are Habsburgs, with their roots in Austria. The German princes are increasingly independent. The imperial diet lapses into disuse, meeting from 1663 in Regensburg but deciding little. Two centuries later, with the creation of a new German empire in 1871, the Reichstag is revived as Germany's parliament.