While the Europe-wide cultural impact of the fall of Constantinople to Sultan Mehmed II is well known, its political reverberations in the Holy Roman Empire have received comparatively little attention. This article argues that the events of 1453 inaugurated a new dynamic in the empire that facilitated the polity's consolidation and the creation of new collective institutions within it long before Maximilian I (1486–1519), whose reign is often presented as a constitutional turning point. Some prince-electors had been calling for more effective peace-keeping and judicial institutions for decades before 1453 but lacked the leverage to compel kings and emperors of the Romans to accept political change on their terms. The fall of Constantinople provided a focal point for these negotiations: in return for promising to support an anti-Ottoman crusade, the reformists were able to force a compromise on new peace-keeping legislation at the diets of the 1450s and 1460s. This compromise was catalyzed by public pressure. There was a widely held expectation that leading imperial protagonists should fulfill this mission to defend Christendom, manifested in orations, diplomatic missives, poetry and songs, plays, and early printed pamphlets produced within and for a range of German-speaking public spheres.

虽然君士坦丁堡陷落给苏丹穆罕默德二世造成的欧洲文化影响众所周知，但其在神圣罗马帝国的政治影响却相对较少受到关注。本文认为，早在马克西米利安一世（Maximilian I，1486-1519 年）统治之前，1453 年的事件就在帝国中开启了一种新的动力，促进了政体的巩固和新的集体机构的创建，马克西米利安一世的统治常常被视为宪法的转折点。 1453 年之前的几十年里，一些王子选帝侯一直呼吁建立更有效的维和和司法机构，但缺乏影响力来迫使罗马国王和皇帝按照他们的条件接受政治变革。君士坦丁堡的陷落为这些谈判提供了一个焦点：作为承诺支持反奥斯曼十字军的回报，改革派能够在 1450 年代和 1460 年代的会议上迫使新的维和立法达成妥协。这种妥协是在公众压力的推动下做出的。人们普遍期望帝国的主要主角应该履行保卫基督教世界的使命，这体现在演讲、外交公文、诗歌和歌曲、戏剧以及在一系列德语公共领域内制作并为之服务的早期印刷小册子中。