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There is an obvious gap between the importance jurists gave to the feudal rituals in the Holy Empire until the end of the 18th century, and the poor opinion historians hold upon these “mere formalities” today. This discrepancy gives reason to a closer look at the rituals of investiture by which imperial princes received their fiefs. It is argued in this paper that these rituals solemnly enacted the constitutional order of the Empire and its hierarchy of ranks. Throughout the Early Modern period, they gave rise to changes and conflicts resulting from the clashing pretensions of the Emperor and the imperial princes. The paper precisely describes these transformations taking them as a seismograph of the institutional and hierarchical changes within the political body of the Empire.