The term Volk in the medieval period (Middle High German volc) had the primary meaning of "large crowd, army", while the more general sense of "population" or "people" was expressed by diet (adjective dietsch, deutsch "popular, of the people"). It was only in the early modern period that deutsch acquired the meaning of an ethnic self-designation. Beginning in 1512, the Holy Roman Empire was named Imperium Romanum Sacrum Nationis Germanicæ, rendered in German as Heiliges Römisches Reich Deutscher Nation, suggesting that Latin germanicus "German, Germanic" was now expressed by the adjective deutsch.