The Free Imperial Knights (German: ReichsritterLatin: Eques imperii) were free nobles of the Holy Roman Empire, whose direct overlord was the Emperor. They were the remnants of the medieval free nobility (edelfrei) and the ministeriales. What distinguished them from other knights, who were vassals of a higher lord, was that they had been granted Imperial immediacy, and as such were the equals in most respects to the other individuals or entities, such as the secular and ecclesiastical territorial rulers of the Empire (margraves, dukes, princes, counts, archbishops, bishops, abbots, etc.) and the free imperial cities, that also enjoyed Imperial immediacy. However, unlike all of those, the Imperial knights did not possess the status of Estates (Stände) of the Empire, and therefore were not represented, individually or collectively, in the Imperial Diet.[1] They tended to define their responsibilities to the Empire in terms of feudalized obligations to the Emperor, including personal service and strictly voluntary financial offerings paid to the Emperor himself.[2]
To protect their rights and avoid vassalage to more powerful nobles, they organized themselves into three unions (Partheien) in the late 15th century and into a single body in 1577, and fought to win recognition. This status, beholden only to the Emperor himself rather than through a more powerful noble, meant the Imperial Knights were "immediate subjects" (their fealty was unmediated by another lord). As such, the Imperial Knights exercised a limited form of sovereignty within their territories.
The Imperial Knighthood was a regional phenomenon limited to southwestern and south-central Germany—Swabia, Franconia and the Middle Rhine area—zones which were highly fragmented politically and where no powerful states were able to develop. In northern and northeastern Germany, as well as in Bavaria and the Archduchy of Austria, the local nobles, facing larger states and stronger rulers, were incapable of developing and maintaining their independence. They formed the territorial nobility.[3]
The immediate status of the Imperial Knights was recognized at the Peace of Westphalia. They never gained access to the Imperial Diet, the parliament of lords, and were not considered Hochadel, the high nobility, belonging to the Lower Nobility.
History
Origins
The Free Imperial Knights arose in the 14th century, the fusion of the remnants of the old free lords (Edelfrei) and the stronger elements of the unfree ministeriales that had won noble status.
Around 1300, the manorial economy suffered contraction due to the fluctuation in the price of agricultural foodstuffs. Ministeriales who were in a stronger economic position were better able to survive the weakening of their basis as landowners. The vast majority languished in poverty, resorting to selling lands to the Church, or to brigandage.
The minority of ministeriales rich enough to weather the crises soon came to be identified with the remnants of the free nobility, and were thus seen as constituting one noble order. By 1422, some of these nobles had achieved jurisdictional autonomy under the Emperor (‘immediacy’), and the corporation of free imperial knights was born. The other ministeriales that did not manage to receive the status of immediate vassals of the Emperor were gradually transformed into a titled nobility of free status: the Freiherren (Barons). By 1577, the Imperial Knights achieved the status of a noble corporate body within the empire: the corpus equestre.
In the Peace of Westphalia, the privileges of the Imperial Knights were confirmed. The knights paid their own tax (voluntary) to the Emperor, possessed limited sovereignty (rights of legislation, taxation, civil jurisdiction, police, coin, tariff, hunt; certain forms of justice), and the ius reformandi (the right to establish an official Christian denomination in their territories). The knightly families had the right of house legislation, subject to the Emperor's approval, and so could control such things as the marriage of members and set the terms of the inheritance of family property. Imperial knights did not, however, have access to the Imperial Diet.
Concerning the rights of Free Imperial Knights, Joseph Friederich von Ledersheim wrote in 1715 (De jure et privilegiis nobilium liberorum et immediatorum, Von des H. Röm. Reichs Freyen unmittelbahren Ritterschafft Discursus):
Section XII: “…they possess forestry rights (ius forestae)…the right of hunting (ius venandi); the right to establish an archive (ius archivi, a right of sovereignty); the capacity to make laws (facultatem leges atque statuas condendi); to send ambassadors (ius mittendi legatos) not only to the Emperor but to other kings and princes and those of whatever status; the right to establish pacts (ius constituendi foederae), of conducting war (bellum movendi), of constructing fortifications and walling forts (fortalitia extruendi et arces muniendi); without the need for permission they are able to call and hold assizes….they acknowledge no court but that of the Emperor, even though they hold no fiefs of the Emperor; the privilege against new fiefs being erected, the right to arbitration (ius Austregarum) no less than other states of the Empire have, even if they hold certain mediate fiefs from another prince.”
Section XV: “they enjoy the freedom of religion (pace religionis fruuntur) and therefore of establishing the Protestant Religion in churches and schools not only in their own hereditary territories but also in those fiefs held from another state…they are able whenever they wish to abolish and introduce either religion [Catholic or Protestant] if they hold the position of vogt over the possessions.”
All matters relating to the Imperial Knights' legal status as immediate vassals of the Emperor (house laws, debt, etc.) were managed by the Imperial Aulic Council.
Organization
Estates of Imperial Knights (Mainz)
Lacking access to the Imperial Diet, in 1650 the immediate knights organized themselves into three circles (Ritterkreise): the Franconian, Swabian, and Rhenish Circles. The Circles in turn were divided into cantons (Ritterkantone), each of which exercised a high degree of autonomy. Each canton possessed a directorate (Direktorium), led by a director (Ritterhauptmann), who was elected for life, and a council (Ritterräte), whose members were elected for fixed terms. The director and councilors were knights themselves, but the daily activities of the Direktorium were carried out by legal experts (Konsulenten) and committees (Ausschüsse) staffed by non-nobles.[4]
The Knights as a group were governed by the General Directorate (Generaldirektorium). This exercised the jus retractus, the right to buy back any land sold to a non-knight for the original price within three years, and the jus collectandi, the right to collect taxes for the upkeep of the knightly order, even on estates that had been sold to non-knights. The knights also had the right to tax their subjects directly, and also possessed the feudal rights to the corvée and the bannum. The knights' reputation for heavy taxes (the maligned Rittersteuer) and high judicial fines rendered them an anachronism in the eyes of imperial reformers.[4]
From 1577 on, the Imperial Knights met in a congress called the Generalkorrespondenztag ("General Correspondence Diet"), but the Circles and especially the Cantons became somewhat more important as their proximity meant that their interests were more closely aligned. Some immediate imperial fiefs, however, fell outside the structure of the Circles and their Cantons. The autonomous barony (Freiherrschaft) of Haldenstein (in modern-day Switzerland) is an example.
By the late eighteenth century, the organization of the circles was as following:
The Franconian Circle from Des heiligen Römischen Reichs ohnmittelbahr - Freyer Ritterschafft Der Sechs Ort in Francken, 1720
(Note: The semi-autonomous District Ortenau was affiliated with canton Neckar-Schwarzwald. District Ortenau served as the chief organizational connection to the empire for the Alsatian immediate nobility that had been absorbed by the French reunions of the seventeenth century.)
Whether or not an individual, an institution, or an area was directly subject to the Emperor's authority defined the status of ‘immediate’ and ‘mediate’ subject of the Empire (reichsunmittelbar, reichsmittelbar). The distinction was not restricted to noble subjects of the Emperor; for example, a number of high officials in the imperial courts and the chancery were immediate, whether noble or not.
Arising from the feudal connection between tenure of land and jurisdiction, the status of immediate subject was further distinct from that of a state of the Empire. There were many immediate territories that were not states of the Empire, and there could be states that were not immediate. Examples of tiny immediate territories include villages (Gochsheim and Sennfeld near Schweinfurt), and some farms in Upper Swabia. The status of immediate subject of the Emperor could be held by an institution: the family of Thurn und Taxis held the imperial post as an immediate fief from the Emperor.
Mediate entities were subjects arranged under an intermediate jurisdiction between the entity itself and the Emperor.
Role in the Empire
The Imperial Knights were called very often to war by the emperor and therefore won significant influence in the Military and the Administration of the Empire and also over the more powerful nobles. Every Canton had its own Ritterhauptmann or Captain and kept detailed records of noble families and properties. The Imperial Knights were exempt from imperial taxes and were not required to quarter troops.
After the Protestant Reformation, most Imperial Knights remained Catholic and their families made up a substantial fraction of noble Catholics in much of the Empire outside Austria and Bavaria. This eventually led to the Imperial Knights exerting significant influence in the selection of several prince-bishops and prince-archbishops, giving them some influence in the Imperial Diet and the College of Princes.
Decline
Over time the title of Imperial Knight became a title of nobility rather than occupation. Many Imperial Knights even as early as the 16th century are more famous for their scholarly, artistic, or diplomatic work than their military achievements. During the demise of the Holy Roman Empire in 1803, the Knights' estates, which were generally enclaves, were seized by the great territorial states like Bavaria and Württemberg in the so-called Rittersturm. In 1806, the Treaty of the Confederation of the Rhine gave the great states unilateral powers and the Imperial Knights' possessions, hitherto completely independent under the Emperor, formally became part of the territories of the higher rulers, by whose territory they were surrounded. They, for the most part, took the title of Freiherr and submitted themselves to their new lords.
Numbers and membership
Estates of Imperial Knights (Fulda)
Exact numbers of Free Imperial Knights are difficult to assess. It is often stated that there were 350 knightly families in all three Circles, owning around 1,500 estates (around 200 German square miles, or about 4,400 English square miles), with a total population of 350,000–450,000 inhabitants. These figures, however, are drawn from claims for compensation made after the upheavals of the French Revolution, and are more accurate for their description of geographical extent than of the total membership in the order. There were at least 400 families possessing land and many more of knightly rank that did not possess land, the so-called Personalisten. With these latter included, the total number of knightly families rises to perhaps as high as 500. The discrepancies in the numbers stem from the list of membership for the Lower Rhenish canton being incomplete and from the absence of Personalisten from the claims of compensation.[5]
From early on, the membership of the corporation of Imperial Knights controlled access to admission to its Circles and Cantons. There were two kinds of membership possible within the order: personal and landed. Landed members were families enrolled in a Circle and Canton who owned an immediate fief, and thus were subordinate to the Emperor directly. The personal members (Personalisten) were non-landed members – regularly admitted – who had not yet acquired estates under knightly jurisdiction. As a result, the Personalisten were not included in claims made for compensation. Consequently, the numbers of landed families were probably closer to 400, with the Personalisten adding another 100, bringing the total number of knightly families to around 500 at the time of the corporation's dissolution.
Franconia is a region of Germany, characterised by its culture and East Franconian dialect . Franconia is made up of the three Regierungsbezirke of Lower, Middle and Upper Franconia in Bavaria, the adjacent, Franconian-speaking, South Thuringia, south of the Thuringian Forest—which constitutes the language boundary between Franconian and Thuringian—and the eastern parts of Heilbronn-Franconia in Baden-Württemberg.
The Neckar is a 362-kilometre-long (225 mi) river in Germany, mainly flowing through the southwestern state of Baden-Württemberg, with a short section through Hesse. The Neckar is a major right tributary of the Rhine. Rising in the Schwarzwald-Baar-Kreis near Schwenningen in the Schwenninger Moos conservation area at a height of 706 m (2,316 ft) above sea level, it passes through Rottweil, Rottenburg am Neckar, Kilchberg, Tübingen, Wernau, Nürtingen, Plochingen, Esslingen, Stuttgart, Ludwigsburg, Marbach, Heilbronn and Heidelberg, before discharging on average 145 m3/s (5,100 cu ft/s) of water into the Rhine at Mannheim, at 95 m (312 ft) above sea level, making the Neckar its 4th largest tributary, and the 10th largest river in Germany. Since 1968, the Neckar has been navigable for cargo ships via 27 locks for about 200 kilometres (120 mi) upstream from Mannheim to the river port of Plochingen, at the confluence with the Fils.
The Odenwald is a low mountain range in the German states of Hesse, Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg.
Landkreis Heilbronn is a Landkreis (district) in the north of Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Neighboring districts are Neckar-Odenwald, Hohenlohe, Schwäbisch Hall, Rems-Murr, Ludwigsburg, Enz, Karlsruhe and Rhein-Neckar. In the centre of it is the free-city of Heilbronn, which is its own separate administrative area.
The Brigach is the shorter of two streams that jointly form the river Danube in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The Brigach has its source at 925 m (3,035 ft) above sea level within St. Georgen in the Black Forest. The Brigach crosses the city Villingen-Schwenningen. 40.4 km (25.1 mi) from the source, the Brigach joins the Breg in Donaueschingen to form the Danube River.
Ortenaukreis is a Landkreis (district) in the west of Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Neighboring districts are Rastatt, Freudenstadt, Rottweil, Schwarzwald-Baar and Emmendingen. To the west it borders the French Bas-Rhin département.
The Rhön Mountains are a group of low mountains in central Germany, located around the border area where the states of Hesse, Bavaria and Thuringia come together. These mountains, which are at the extreme southeast end of the East Hesse Highlands, are partly a result of ancient volcanic activity. They are separated from the Vogelsberg Mountains by the river Fulda and its valley. The highest mountain in the Rhön is the Wasserkuppe, which is in Hesse. The Rhön Mountains are a popular tourist destination and walking area.
Swabia is a cultural, historic and linguistic region in southwestern Germany. The name is ultimately derived from the medieval Duchy of Swabia, one of the German stem duchies, representing the territory of Alemannia, whose inhabitants interchangeably were called Alemanni or Suebi.
An Imperial State or Imperial Estate was a part of the Holy Roman Empire with representation and the right to vote in the Imperial Diet. Rulers of these Estates were able to exercise significant rights and privileges and were "immediate", meaning that the only authority above them was the Holy Roman Emperor. They were thus able to rule their territories with a considerable degree of autonomy.
Alamannia, or Alemannia, was the kingdom established and inhabited by the Alemanni, a Germanic tribal confederation that had broken through the Roman limes in 213.
The Limes Germanicus, or 'Germanic Limes', is the name given in modern times to a line of frontier fortifications that bounded the ancient Roman provinces of Germania Inferior, Germania Superior and Raetia, dividing the Roman Empire and the unsubdued Germanic tribes from the years 83 to about 260 AD. The frontier used either a natural boundary such as a river or typically an earth bank and ditch with a wooden palisade and watchtowers at intervals, and a system of linked forts was built behind them.
Pfullendorf is a small town of about 13,000 inhabitants located 25 km (16 mi) north of Lake Constance in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It was a Free Imperial City of the Holy Roman Empire for nearly 600 years.
The Archdiocese of Freiburg im Breisgau is a Latin Church diocese of the Catholic Church in Baden-Württemberg comprising the former states of Baden and Hohenzollern. The Archdiocese of Freiburg is led by an archbishop, who also serves as the metropolitan bishop of the Upper-Rhine ecclesiastical province for the suffragan dioceses of Mainz and Rottenburg-Stuttgart. Its seat is Freiburg Minster in Freiburg im Breisgau.
The Kinzig is a river in southwestern Germany, a right tributary of the Rhine.
Gengenbach Abbey was a Benedictine monastery in Gengenbach in the district of Ortenau, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It was an Imperial Abbey from the late Carolingian period to 1803.
48.473°N 8.003°E
Hohengeroldseck was a state of the Holy Roman Empire. It was founded by the House of Geroldseck, a German noble family which arrived in the Ortenau region of Swabia reputedly in 948, though the first mention of the family is documented in the 1080s. The family line went extinct in 1634 and was succeeded by the Kronberg and Leyen families. In 1806, the county was raised to a Principality and adopted the family name of Leyen. Late in 1813, the Principality was mediatized by Austria and its name reverted to Hohengeroldseck, but the history of the state ended when Austria ceded it to the Grand Duchy of Baden in 1819 and merged with the district of Lahr in 1831.
References
↑ Gagliardo, J. G., Reich and Nation: the Holy Roman Empire as Idea and Reality, 1763-1806, Indiana University Press, 1980, p. 12-13
↑ Hillay Zmora, "The Formation of the Imperial Knighthood in Franconia: A Comparative European Perspective", in The Holy Roman Empire, 1495–1806, Edited by R. J. W. Evans, Michael Schaich, and Peter H. Wilson, Oxford, 2011, p. 283–284.
1 2 Klaus Epstein, The Genesis of German Conservatism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1966), 617–18.
B. Arnold: German Knighthood, 1050–1300, Oxford, 1985
O. Eberbach: Die deutsche Reichsritterschaft in ihrer staatsrechlich-politischen Entwicklung von den Anfängen bis zum Jahre 1422, Dresden 1912
William D. Godsey: Nobles and Nation in Central Europe: Free Imperial Knights in the Age of Revolution, 1750–1850. Cambridge, 2004.
H. Müller: Der letzte Kampf der Reichsritterschaft um ihre Selbstständigkeit (1751–1815), Historische Studien, 77. Berlin: Emil Eberling, 1910
V. Press: Reichsritterschaft, in: Handwörterbuch zur deutschen Rechtsgeschichte, Berlin 1961–1998
Anton P. Rahrbach: Reichsritter in Mainfranken: Zu Wappen und Geschichte fränkischer Adelsfamilien, Bauer & Raspe: Die Siebmacher'schen Wappenbücher, Neustadt an der Aisch 2003
Kurt Freiherr Rüdt von Collenberg: Die reichsunmittelbare freie Ritterschaft, in: Deutsches Adelsblatt 1925, 106ff
Roth v. Schreckenstein: Geschichte der ehemaligen freien Reichsritterschaft in Schwaben, Franken und am Rheinstrome 1–2, Tübingen 1859–1871
L. Wolff: Großer Historischer Weltatlas III 38 (1789) D2; Heimatchronik des Kreises Einbeck, 1955.
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