1.
Imperial Abbey
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An Imperial abbey was a religious establishment within the Holy Roman Empire which enjoyed the status of imperial immediacy and therefore was answerable directly to the Emperor. The possession of imperial immediacy came with a form of territorial authority known as Landeshoheit. Particularly after the Peace of Westphalia, all entities of the Empire possessing immediacy enjoyed and exercised de facto sovereign power, about 45 Imperial abbeys survived up to the mass secularisation of 1802–03. The head of an Imperial abbey was generally an Imperial abbot or Imperial abbess, collectively, Imperial abbots, provosts and priors were formally known as Reichsprälaten. Despite their difference of status within the Imperial Diet, both the Imperial Prelates and the Prince-Abbots exercised the same degree of authority over their principality and this was the case with Kreuzlingen, Allerheiligen, Einsiedeln, Muri and Saint-Maurice abbeys. One major exception was the large and powerful Abbey of St. Elsewhere, the following list includes the Imperial abbeys which had seat and voice at the Imperial Diet of 1792. They, along with the two Teutonic Order commanderies whose commanders ranked as prelates, are listed according to their order on the two Benches of Prelates of the Diet. Not shown are the abbeys of Stablo, Kempten and Corvey, whose abbots had princely status, for additional information on individual abbeys, see, List A, Imperial abbeys named in the Matrikel below this list. Three of these survive and are accessible, from 1521,1755 and 1792. This list includes the Principalities, Imperial abbeys, Imperial colleges, Imperial provostries or priories, some of the imperial abbeys were dissolved during the Reformation, others were absorbed into other territories at various times in the general course of political life. Those in Alsace and Switzerland passed out of the Empire in 1648, any that survived lost their Imperial status when the Holy Roman Empire was wound up in 1806. Description and Imperial status column, RA stands for Reichsabtei RF stands for Reichsfürstentum RP stands for Reichspropstei Lost imm. column, Imperial immediacy Sec. secularised Med. mediatised Switz. The following list is far from complete, and possibly some of those listed may not in fact have been immediate. In German, Matthäi, George,1877, Die Klosterpolitik Kaiser Heinrichs II, ein Beitrag zur *Geschichte der Reichsabteien. Brennich, Max,1908, Die Besetzung der Reichsabteien in den Jahren 1138–1209, polzin, Johannes, Die Abtswahlen in den Reichsabteien von 1024–1056. Riese, Heinrich,1911, Die Besetzung der Reichsabteien in den Jahren 1056–1137,1971, Die politische Stellung der deutschen Reichsabteien während des Investiturstreites. 1755 and 1792, on Heraldica website 1521 Reichsmatrikel Sarah Hadry, Reichsstifte
2.
Holy Roman Empire
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The Holy Roman Empire was a multi-ethnic complex of territories in central Europe that developed during the Early Middle Ages and continued until its dissolution in 1806. On 25 December 800, Pope Leo III crowned the Frankish king Charlemagne as Emperor, reviving the title in Western Europe, more than three centuries after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. The title was revived in 962 when Otto I was crowned emperor, fashioning himself as the successor of Charlemagne, some historians refer to the coronation of Charlemagne as the origin of the empire, while others prefer the coronation of Otto I as its beginning. Scholars generally concur, however, in relating an evolution of the institutions and principles constituting the empire, the office of Holy Roman Emperor was traditionally elective, although frequently controlled by dynasties. Emperor Francis II dissolved the empire on 6 August 1806, after the creation of the Confederation of the Rhine by Napoleon, before 1157, the realm was merely referred to as the Roman Empire. In a decree following the 1512 Diet of Cologne, the name was changed to Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, by the end of the 18th century, the term Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation had fallen out of official use. As Roman power in Gaul declined during the 5th century, local Germanic tribes assumed control, by the middle of the 8th century, however, the Merovingians had been reduced to figureheads, and the Carolingians, led by Charles Martel, had become the de facto rulers. In 751, Martel’s son Pepin became King of the Franks, the Carolingians would maintain a close alliance with the Papacy. In 768 Pepin’s son Charlemagne became King of the Franks and began an expansion of the realm. He eventually incorporated the territories of present-day France, Germany, northern Italy, on Christmas Day of 800, Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne emperor, restoring the title in the west for the first time in over three centuries. After the death of Charles the Fat in 888, however, the Carolingian Empire broke apart, according to Regino of Prüm, the parts of the realm spewed forth kinglets, and each part elected a kinglet from its own bowels. After the death of Charles the Fat, those crowned emperor by the pope controlled only territories in Italy, the last such emperor was Berengar I of Italy, who died in 924. Around 900, autonomous stem duchies reemerged in East Francia, on his deathbed, Conrad yielded the crown to his main rival, Henry the Fowler of Saxony, who was elected king at the Diet of Fritzlar in 919. Henry reached a truce with the raiding Magyars, and in 933 he won a first victory against them in the Battle of Riade, Henry died in 936, but his descendants, the Liudolfing dynasty, would continue to rule the Eastern kingdom for roughly a century. Upon Henry the Fowlers death, Otto, his son and designated successor, was elected King in Aachen in 936 and he overcame a series of revolts from an elder brother and from several dukes. After that, the managed to control the appointment of dukes. In 951, Otto came to the aid of Adelaide, the queen of Italy, defeating her enemies, marrying her. In 955, Otto won a victory over the Magyars in the Battle of Lechfeld
3.
Middle Ages
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In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or Medieval Period lasted from the 5th to the 15th century. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and merged into the Renaissance, the Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history, classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is subdivided into the Early, High. Population decline, counterurbanisation, invasion, and movement of peoples, the large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. In the seventh century, North Africa and the Middle East—once part of the Byzantine Empire—came under the rule of the Umayyad Caliphate, although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, the break with classical antiquity was not complete. The still-sizeable Byzantine Empire survived in the east and remained a major power, the empires law code, the Corpus Juris Civilis or Code of Justinian, was rediscovered in Northern Italy in 1070 and became widely admired later in the Middle Ages. In the West, most kingdoms incorporated the few extant Roman institutions, monasteries were founded as campaigns to Christianise pagan Europe continued. The Franks, under the Carolingian dynasty, briefly established the Carolingian Empire during the later 8th, the Crusades, first preached in 1095, were military attempts by Western European Christians to regain control of the Holy Land from Muslims. Kings became the heads of centralised nation states, reducing crime and violence, intellectual life was marked by scholasticism, a philosophy that emphasised joining faith to reason, and by the founding of universities. Controversy, heresy, and the Western Schism within the Catholic Church paralleled the conflict, civil strife. Cultural and technological developments transformed European society, concluding the Late Middle Ages, the Middle Ages is one of the three major periods in the most enduring scheme for analysing European history, classical civilisation, or Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Modern Period. Medieval writers divided history into periods such as the Six Ages or the Four Empires, when referring to their own times, they spoke of them as being modern. In the 1330s, the humanist and poet Petrarch referred to pre-Christian times as antiqua, leonardo Bruni was the first historian to use tripartite periodisation in his History of the Florentine People. Bruni and later argued that Italy had recovered since Petrarchs time. The Middle Ages first appears in Latin in 1469 as media tempestas or middle season, in early usage, there were many variants, including medium aevum, or middle age, first recorded in 1604, and media saecula, or middle ages, first recorded in 1625. The alternative term medieval derives from medium aevum, tripartite periodisation became standard after the German 17th-century historian Christoph Cellarius divided history into three periods, Ancient, Medieval, and Modern. The most commonly given starting point for the Middle Ages is 476, for Europe as a whole,1500 is often considered to be the end of the Middle Ages, but there is no universally agreed upon end date. English historians often use the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 to mark the end of the period
4.
Imperial immediacy
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As confirmed by the Peace of Westphalia, the possession of imperial immediacy came with a particular form of territorial authority known as territorial superiority. In todays terms, it would be understood as a form of sovereignty. They formed the Imperial Estates, together with roughly 100 immediate counts,40 Imperial prelates and 50 Imperial Cities who only enjoyed a collective vote. Additional advantages might include the rights to collect taxes and tolls, to hold a market, to mint coins, to bear arms, the last of these might include the so-called Blutgericht through which capital punishment could be administered. These rights varied according to the patents granted by the emperor. Immediate rights might be lost if the Emperor and/or the Imperial Diet could not defend them against external aggression, as occurred in the French Revolutionary wars and the Napoleonic Wars. The Treaty of Lunéville in 1801 required the emperor to renounce all claims to the portions of the Holy Roman Empire west of the Rhine. The practical application of the rights of immediacy was complex, this makes the history of the Holy Roman Empire particularly difficult to understand, even such contemporaries as Goethe and Fichte called the Empire a monstrosity. Prussian historian Heinrich von Treitschke described it in the 19th century as having become a mess of rotted imperial forms. Pointing out that people like Goethe meant monster as a compliment in modern understanding, free Imperial City German mediatization Imperial Abbey Imperial Estate Imperial Village List of states of the Holy Roman Empire Braun, B. Reichsunmittelbarkeit in German, French and Italian in the online Historical Dictionary of Switzerland, 2005-05-03
5.
Duchy of Cleves
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The Duchy of Cleves was a State of the Holy Roman Empire emerged from the mediaeval Duisburggau. Its history is related to that of its southern neighbours, the Duchies of Jülich and Berg, as well as Guelders. The Duchy was archaically known as Cleveland in English, a County of Cleves was first mentioned in the 11th century. In 1417, the county became a duchy, upon the death of Count Johann in 1368, the fief was inherited by his nephew Adolf III of the Marck. Cleves and the Marck were finally ruled in personal union by the House of La Marck after Adolfs elder brother Count Engelbert III had died without issue in 1391. King Sigismund of Germany raised Count Adolph I to the status of a duke, the Cleves-Mark territories became one of the most significant estates of the Lower Rhenish–Westphalian Circle in 1500, rivaled by the Prince-Bishops of Münster. In 1511 John III of La Marck, son of Duke John II of Cleves, by his marriage with Maria inherited the fiefs of Jülich and Berge upon the death of his father-in-law Duke William IV. When John III succeeded his father as Duke of Cleves in 1521, when the last duke of Jülich-Cleves-Berge died issueless in 1609, the War of the Jülich succession broke out. The Hohenzollern margraves thereby got a first foothold in the Rhineland, however, in 1795 the Duchy of Cleves west of the Rhine and Wesel was occupied by France, and became part of the French département of the Roer. The rest of the duchy was occupied between 1803 and 1805, and became part of the département of Yssel-Supérieur and the puppet-state Grand Duchy of Berg. In 1815, after the defeat of Napoleon, the became part of the Prussian Province of Jülich-Cleves-Berg. The cities Gennep, Zevenaar, and Huissen became part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands as a result of the 1815 Congress of Vienna
6.
County of Mark
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The County of Mark was a county and state of the Holy Roman Empire in the Lower Rhenish–Westphalian Circle. It lay on both sides of the Ruhr river along the Volme and Lenne rivers, the Counts of the Mark were among the most powerful and influential Westphalian lords in the Holy Roman Empire. The name Mark is recalled in the present-day Märkischer Kreis district in south of the Ruhr in North Rhine-Westphalia. The northern portion is still called Hohe Mark, while the former Lower Mark is—for the most part—merged in the present Ruhr area. The County of the Mark enclosed an area of approximately 3,000 km², the east-west flowing Ruhr separated the county into two different regions, the northern, fertile lowlands of Hellweg Börde, and the southern hills of the Süder Uplands. In the south-north direction the southern part of the county was crossed by the Lenne, in the region of the Lower Lenne was the County of Limburg, a fiefdom of Berg. The seat of the Counts of the Mark von de Marck or de la Marck was originally the Burg Altena in the Sauerland region, but moved to Burg Mark near Hamm in the 1220s. The county was bordered by Vest Recklinghausen, the County of Dortmund, the Bishopric of Münster, the County of Limburg, Werden Abbey, the coat of arms of the county was Or a fess chequy Gules and Argent of three. These arms have been used by the city of Hamm since 1226, many other places in the area include the red and white checkered fess in their arms as a reference to the county and often to their founders. Originally belonging to a line of the counts of Berg at Altena. About 1198 Count Frederick I purchased the Mark Oberhof, a land on the territory of the Edelherren of Rüdenberg. Here Frederick had the Mark Castle erected as the residence of the new Counts of the Mark. The nearby town of Hamm was founded by his son Adolf I, Count of the Mark in 1226, as Brabant and its allies were victorious, the County of Mark gained supremacy in southern Westphalia and became independent of the Archbishopric of Cologne. The territory of Mark was for long restricted to the lands between the Ruhr and Lippe rivers, new territories in the north were gained during the 14th century in wars against the Prince-Bishopric of Münster. In 1332 Count Adolph II married Margarete, the daughter of Count Dietrich VIII of Cleves, adolphs younger son Adolph III upon the death of Dietrichs brother Count John acquired the County of Cleves on the western banks of the Rhine in 1368. In 1391 Adolph III also inherited the Mark from his elder brother Engelbert III, in 1509 the heir to the throne of Cleves-Mark John III the Peaceful married Maria, the daughter of Duke William IV of Berg and Jülich. The dynasty of Jülich-Cleves-Berg became extinct in 1609, when the insane last duke John William had died and it then became part of the Kingdom of Prussia after 1701. In 1807 the County of the Mark passed from Prussia to France in the Treaties of Tilsit, in 1808 Napoleon then gave Mark to the elevated Grand Duchy of Berg, which was divided into four departments along the lines of Napoleonic France
7.
Vogt
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The territory or area of responsibility of a Vogt is called a Vogtei. The term also denotes a mayor of a village, the range of social status and degrees of responsibility of persons so titled varied greatly, from the humble—the equivalents of the English reeve or bailiff—to the very elevated. The concept of the Vogt was related to the Old German idea of the Munt, or guardian, such representatives had been assigned to the church since late antiquity, as it was not supposed to act for itself in worldly affairs. Beyond that, he administered the high justice instead of the count from the Vogt court, in the German-ruled Holy Roman Empire, the term Vogt can refer to two different offices, church vogt or imperial vogt. Imperial vogts are further subdivided into land vogts and city vogts, in addition, the term vogt was used for administrative officers of territorial rulers, such as bailiffs. In private and family monasteries the proprietor himself often also held the office of Vogt, in Austria, the teaching of the Church that, according to canon law individuals were prohibited from exercising authority over Church property, was only with reluctance accepted by the nobles. An imperial Vogt was an officer of the king, who served as administrator and judge of a subdivision of royal property, the seat of an imperial Vogt was often at an imperial city. When the imperial cities gained more independence, the office was split into city Vogt for the cities, the offices of city volts were usually bought by the imperial cities by the late Middle Ages, which led to the independence of the cities. Most land Vogt offices became meaningless as the amount of property was reduced more and more in favor of territorial rulers. The land Vogt office of the Alsace, consisting of the ten cities of the Décapole, was ceded to the king of France in 1648. However, the cities were soon annexed by France. Several small land votes continued to exist until the end of the Empire in 1806, the title of Landvogt appears in the Old Swiss Confederacy in 1415. A Landvogt ruled a Landvogtei, either representing a sovereign canton, or acting on behalf of the Confederacy, or a subset thereof, in the case of condominiums, the cantons took turns in appointing a Landvogt for a period of two years. In exceptional cases, the population of the Landvogtei was allowed to elect their own Landvogt and this concerned Oberhasli in particular, which was nominally a subject territory of Berne, but enjoyed a special status as a military ally. The office of Landvogt was abolished in 1798, with the foundation of the Helvetic Republic, the monarchs reigning in Madrid and Vienna controlled these through governors known variously as landvoogd or gouverneur-generaal. The status of protective lordship, however, in relation to ecclesiastical estates as held, there is no single equivalent in English history. The office of reeve was much the same at a village or peasant level, in France, the office of vidame, the temporal administrator for certain bishoprics, showed some connection. The most frequent translations in that connection are either advocate or lord protector, in medieval Poland the title of Wójt was used to denote hereditary heads of towns
8.
Kingdom of Prussia
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It was the driving force behind the unification of Germany in 1871 and was the leading state of the German Empire until its dissolution in 1918. Although it took its name from the region called Prussia, it was based in the Margraviate of Brandenburg, the kings of Prussia were from the House of Hohenzollern. Prussia was a power from the time it became a kingdom, through its predecessor, Brandenburg-Prussia. Prussia continued its rise to power under the guidance of Frederick II, more known as Frederick the Great. After the might of Prussia was revealed it was considered as a power among the German states. Throughout the next hundred years Prussia went on to win many battles and it was because of its power that Prussia continuously tried to unify all the German states under its rule. Attempts at creation of a federation remained unsuccessful and the German Confederation collapsed in 1866 when war ensued between its two most powerful states, Prussia and Austria. The North German Confederation which lasted from 1867–1871, created a union between the Prussian-aligned states while Austria and most of Southern Germany remained independent. The North German Confederation was seen as more of an alliance of military strength in the aftermath of the Austro-Prussian War, the German Empire lasted from 1871–1918 with the successful unification of all the German states under Prussian hegemony. This was due to the defeat of Napoleon III in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, in 1871, Germany unified into a single country, minus Austria and Switzerland, with Prussia the dominant power. Prussia is considered the predecessor of the unified German Reich. The Kingdom left a significant cultural legacy, today notably promoted by the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, in 1415 a Hohenzollern Burgrave came from the south to the March of Brandenburg and took control of the area as elector. In 1417 the Hohenzollern was made an elector of the Holy Roman Empire, after the Polish wars, the newly established Baltic towns of the German states including Prussia, suffered many economic setbacks. Many of the Prussian towns could not even afford to attend political meetings outside of Prussia, the towns were poverty stricken, with even the largest town, Danzig, having to borrow money from elsewhere to pay for trade. Poverty in these towns was partly caused by Prussias neighbors, who had established and developed such a monopoly on trading that these new towns simply could not compete and these issues led to feuds, wars, trade competition and invasions. However, the fall of these gave rise to the nobility, separated the east and the west. It was clear in 1440 how different Brandenburg was from the other German territories, not only did it face partition from within but also the threat of its neighbors. It prevented the issue of partition by enacting the Dispositio Achillea which instilled the principle of primogeniture to both the Brandenburg and Franconian territories, the second issue was solved through expansion
Germany
