Kaiserliche Reichspost

Kaiserliche Reichspost (German: [ˈʁaɪçsˌpɔst], Imperial Mail) was the name of the country-wide postal service of the Holy Roman Empire.

It was founded by Jannetto de Tassis in 1495. The Bergamascan Tasso family had built up postal routes throughout Italy since c. 1290 and Jannetto's uncleRuggiero had worked for Frederick III since the mid-15th century. Ruggiero had already connected Vienna and Innsbruck with Italy, Styria, and Brussels, before Maximilian expanded from those routes throughout his realm. Maximilian's Philip of Burgundy appointed Jannetto's brother Francisco as capitaine et maistre de nos postes in 1502 and it was a payment dispute between the two which caused Francisco to open the family's network to public correspondence in 1506. Charles V confirmed Jannetto's son Giovanni Battista as Postmaster General (chief et maistre general de noz postes par tous noz royaumes, pays, et seigneuries) in 1520. Confirmed by Emperor Rudolph II in 1595, the Imperial postal service remained a monopoly of the Thurn und Taxis family (officially hereditary from 1615 onwards) until it was terminated with the end of the Empire in 1806.

The Imperial Reichspost was based in Brussels in the Spanish Netherlands, from where the original ("Dutch") route led via Namur, Bastogne, Lieser, Wöllstein, Rheinhausen, and Augsburg to Innsbruck and Trento. It was also used to bypass the Kingdom of France in order to keep in touch with Habsburg Spain during times of hostility. Competing services were prohibited, although the Imperial cities were permitted to maintain their own communication system.

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