The author aims to study the prerequisites that contributed to the maturation of the processes that took place in the Holy Roman Empire in the era of the Reformation. In the introduction, he criticizes foreign (‘bourgeois’) historians. In spite of the fact that the main focus of the work is on studying the social and political prerequisites, it does not overlook the religious aspect. In particular, in the third chapter, the author traces the formation of religious and political programs. One of the documents reviewed is the treatise ‘The Reformation of the Emperor Sigismund’. In the author’s opinion, that document reflected primarily the interests of the burghers, and its main requirements were not only economic, but also religious: such as reforming Catholic Church. The author noted a certain radicalism of the requirements of the ‘The Reformation of the Emperor Sigismund’, arguing that the views expressed in it were in some ways more radical than the ideas of the burghers of the Peasant War era. Particularly, he pointed out that in matters of religious reform, the author of the pamphlet ‘was still alien to that burgher limitation, which was characteristic of the official German Reformation of the sixteenth century’. The author drew attention to the anti-feudal character of the speeches of the peasantry and the burghers at the turn of the fifteenth – sixteenth centuries. He attributed this to social and economic reasons. However, he noted that among the imperial princes, against whom the speeches were compiled, there were also representatives of Church – bishops and archbishops.