HRE Reforms?

What sort of reforms would have been necessary to not only strengthen the HRE in its decline, but to possibly keep it going for as long as possible?
 
It really depends from what you search, and on which decline we're talking about. It lasted up to XIXth century after all (while the last century was really down), so it might be more strong than usually tought, isn't.

It lasted enough, at least, to know several crisis (and survive it) : Sacerdotal Wars, Welfs, Great Interregum, Reformation, etc. Depending which period you have in mind, very different things could be discussed (and keep in mind that emperors and imperial administration did launched, sometimes successfully, reforms of their own).

On a more general note, I think that reinforcement of the HRE (as not only Germany, but the whole imperial institution) would have to pass trough its own unique way.
As in, keeping a relativly open structure, not really centralizing as its neighbours, but unifying around the imperial kingship, as sort of a federation (the challenge there being managing to put that between hegemonic imperial ambitions and HRE entities own centralisation)

Given the historical situation of the empire, the challenges he had to face, and how it was definied, I think a centralisation as it happened in Britain, France or inside HRE states wouldn't work.

Not only a political organisation as such, but (even uneasy) a subodrinated collegiality of power (as in, in the case of Salian victory over sacerdotal conflicts, having prince-bishops remaining as part of direct imperial administration rather than living their own) and being able to enjoy favourable conditions that are not directly due to reforms (such as dynastical stability, allowing de facto hereditary transmission being slowed considered as natural, as in Capetian France).
 
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It really depends from what you search, and on which decline we're talking about. It lasted up to XIXth century after all (while the last century was really down), so it might be more strong than usually tought, isn't.

It lasted enough, at least, to know several crisis (and survive it) : Sacerdotal Wars, Welfs, Great Interregum, Reformation, etc. Depending which period you have in mind, very different things could be discussed (and keep in mind that emperors and imperial administration did launched, sometimes successfully, reforms of their own).

On a more general note, I think that reinforcement of the HRE (as not only Germany, but the whole imperial institution) would have to pass trough its own unique way.
As in, keeping a relativly open structure, not really centralizing as its neighbours, but unifying around the imperial kingship, as sort of a federation.
Given the historical situation of the empire, the challenges he had to face, and how it was definied, I think a centralisation as it happened in Britain, France or inside HRE states wouldn't work.

In my aborted Burgundian inheritance Timeline I kind had that same idea... A early federal empire would be cool.
 
How would a federal empire look like?

It depends a lot of how it's reached. It could go the way of a German Confederation or Austria-Hungary up to Second Reich for exemple, and probably its own sui generis entity.
More the unification process is delayed, more confederal it's going to tend to be, German states knowing their own process of centralisation.

I think, but that's an overall point of view rather than backed for every possible outcome, that while imperial kingship could be a really important factor of unity (would it be only for being a regulation factor), a certain dose of collegiality (even if under the direction of the imperial authority) is bound to happen including, inside imperial administration, between the emperors, the aristocracy, the bishops (and the papacy if HRE holds Italy).
More important and universalist the HRE, more collegial the authority may be, while a more Germanic based empire (as OTL late medieval HRE) would develop a national identity, providing a base for more unified entity.

Of course, the centralizing model of its neighbours is going to impact, but the constituting entities of HRE are going to follow them as well than imperial authority itself. Simple institutional copy/paste wouldn't be enough (and probably hurtful at term).
 
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