How had the Holy Roman Empire evolved politically, economically, socially, and religiously by 1648?
The political change involved, from the founding of the Holy Roman Empire to 1648, was that its members were now acting like fully-independent states; even making war on each other. One of its members, the Austrian Empire, had become the dominant entity in the region; and had territory beyond the Holy Roman Empire as well. Austria’s dominance within the HRE would last until the HRE itself fell. And also that the Netherlands had become independent of the Spanish Habsburgs who ruled over it. Religiously, the HRE came out of the religious wars of the Reformation, settling on the principle that each member-state should have the same religion as its ruler. Thus the Austrian Empire and southern Germany remained Catholic; the rest was Protestant.
