The first Habsburg emperor was Rudolf I, in the late 13th Century. The power struggle consumed his succession, with the various houses trading influences (and reigns).

Germany had elected its kings for many years. The most powerful tribes sent a representative to a council meeting, out of which came the selection of the king. Since Germany was the most powerful kingdom in the Holy Roman Empire, this practice carried over into the election of the King of the Romans and, by extension, the emperor. The leaders of the entities that made up the "whole kingdom" threw their support behind various candidates through the years, and the person who had the support of the most of those bishops, dukes, and kings gained the right to be named King of the Romans and, subsequently, Holy Roman Emperor. The original number of those who could so express their support for their ruler was high. This changed in 1356, when then-Emperor Charles IV (of the House of Luxembourg) issued the Golden Bull, limiting the number of imperial electors to seven:

• the Count Palatinate of the Rhine
• the Duke of Saxony
• the King of Bohemia
• the Margrave of Brandenburg
• the Archbishop of Cologne
• the Archbishop of Mainz
• the Archbishop of Trier.

In the early 16th Century, a set of reforms finalized by Maximilian I created a number of Imperial Circles, which essentially subdivided the Empire into districts grouped together to provide common security and defense as well as revenue generation. These began numbering six and, in 1512, totaled 10, each run by its own parliament-equivalent. These Circles contained most but not all of the lands held by the Empire at this time. In the same way, a number of large cities functioned as administrative centers, fronted by an imperial residence or two; among these were Aachen, Magdeburg, Munich, Palermo, Prague, and Vienna.

Further decentralizing power were the many members of the Imperial Diet, an advisory body made up of three classes: the Council of Electors, the Council of Princes, and the Council of Imperial Cities. The members of the Council of Electors voted for King of the Romans. The Council of Princes also included church officials. The Diet was not so much a group formed to produce legislation as it was a gathering intended to provide counsel and support. The Diet did not have a regular session schedule; rather, it gathered at the behest of the Emperor. Also, the Diet gathered in different places, around the Empire.

Resolving judicial disputes and other matters of law were two high courts, the Aulic Council and the Imperial Chamber Court. The Emperor appointed all the members of the former (the higher of the two high courts) and most of the members of the latter.

Advancing the Empire's political ambitions abroad was the Army of the Holy Roman Empire, which was not a standing army but was a large fighting force comprising representation from across the "whole kingdom." Consent from the Imperial Diet was needed in order for this army to be deployed. More like a standing army was the similarly named Imperial Army, which operated at the personal command of the Emperor. By and large, the European conflicts in the last few centuries of the Empire's existence involved soldiers from both imperial armies.

The rise of the Protestant Reformation in the 16th Century proved a great challenge to Emperor Charles V, who eventually saw the writing on the wall and allowed his member states to choose their own religion. Conflicts between Catholics and Protestants dominated the imperial landscape for decades after that, punctuated heavily by the Thirty Years War, initiated by one emperor, Frederick II, and ended by another, Frederick III.

The series of agreements that ended the Thirty Years War, the Peace of Westphalia, gave the member states of the Empire (which by this time numbered nearly 300) nearly complete sovereignty. From that point forward, the Empire existed as a sort of umbrella organization, providing stability in terms of tradition and leadership–two things of which the nearly sovereign entities needed less and less. (This was perhaps a natural result of the process that began with medieval emperors' granting concession in order to secure support for being elected leader in the first place.) It didn't help that the Empire rushed into a series of succession crises that dominated the European military and political landscapes in the 18th Century.

One highlight for the Empire in the late 17th Century was the successful defense of Vienna, put to the siege yet again by a massive Turkish army in 1683 and saved by imperial forces, bolstered by the timely arrival of a Polish force king John Sobieski. That was nearly the last hurrah for the Empire, however, as the rise of French dominance led by Louis XIV and then Prussian dominance led by Frederick the Great challenged and then ended imperial supremacy in Europe. The once sprawling Empire lost more and more of its territory to independent states, and it was a much reduced imperial force that succumbed to the French armies of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1806. Officially, Francis II was the last Holy Roman Emperor.

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