page_title: Imperial Knight
section_title: Partial list of knightly families
hierarchical_section_title: Imperial Knight / Partial list of knightly families
caption_attribution_description: Español: Hanisch von Greifenthal grabstone, Cathedral Our Lady of Snow, Praga
context_page_description: The Free Imperial knights were free nobles of the Holy Roman Empire, whose direct overlord was the Emperor. They were the remnants of the medieval free nobility and the ministeriales. What distinguished them from other knights, who were vassals of a higher lord, was the fact 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 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 of the Empire, and therefore were not represented, individually or collectively, in the Imperial Diet.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.
  To protect their rights and avoid vassalage to more powerful nobles, they organized themselves into three unions in the late 15th century and into a single body in 1577, and fought to win recognition.
caption: Johannes Hanisch von Greifenthal
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