  X-ray selected BL Lac objects dominate the population of extragalactic
sources detected in the very high energy (VHE; photon energies >100GeV)
gamma-ray regime with ground-based Cherenkov Telescopes. These are not the only
extragalactic VHE emitters, however, since also other types of active galactic
nuclei (AGN) have recently been established as VHE sources as well. They
include radio galaxies, optically-selected BL Lacs, and Flat-Spectrum Radio
Quasars. Here we review the current status of the ongoing AGN studies with the
H.E.S.S. instrument, concentrating on the following main three topics: (i)
constraints on the structure of the blazar emitting zone, and on the energy
dissipation processes involved in the production of the high-energy emission in
AGN, enabled by detailed timing and spectral analysis of the H.E.S.S. data;
(ii) constraints on the extragalactic background light (EBL) using H.E.S.S.
observations of blazars, and (iii) the phenomenological picture of the
gamma-ray loud AGN population emerging from combined VHE and multi-wavelength
observations of different classes of active galaxies.
