page_title: Imperial immediacy
hierarchical_section_title: Imperial immediacy
caption_attribution_description: English: Introductory paragraph of an administrative document dated 1748 by Abbot Edmund II of the Imperial Abbey of Marchtal (also Marchthal, Obermarchtal) in Swabia. The words IMMEDIAT and EXEMPT are emphasized to stress the fact that the abbey is an Imperial Estate, and therefore immediate to the Empire and Emperor (Reich und Kaiser) and exempt from any external judicial jurisdiction. Like some 40 other Imperial abbots and abbesses of the Holy Roman Empire, the Abbot of Marchtal had seat and voice in the Imperial Diet, where he sat on the Bench of the Prelates of Swabia. Cropped from a Commons document: File:Schulordnung Marchtal 1748.jpg
context_page_description: Imperial immediacy was a privileged constitutional and political status rooted in German feudal law under which the Imperial estates of the Holy Roman Empire such as Imperial cities, prince-bishoprics and secular principalities, and individuals such as the Imperial knights, were declared free from the authority of any local lord and placed under the direct authority of the Holy Roman Emperor, and later of the institutions of the Empire such as the Diet, the Imperial Chamber of Justice and the Aulic Council.
  The granting of immediacy began in the Early Middle Ages, and for the immediate bishops, abbots and cities, then the main beneficiaries of that status, immediacy could be exacting and often meant being subjected to the fiscal, military and hospitality demands of their overlord, the Emperor. However, with the gradual exit of the Emperor from the centre stage from the mid-13th century onwards, holders of imperial immediacy eventually found themselves vested with considerable rights and powers previously exercised by the emperor.
context_section_description: Imperial immediacy (German: Reichsfreiheit or Reichsunmittelbarkeit) was a privileged constitutional and political status rooted in German feudal law under which the Imperial estates of the Holy Roman Empire such as Imperial cities, prince-bishoprics and secular principalities, and individuals such as the Imperial knights, were declared free from the authority of any local lord and placed under the direct ("immediate", in the sense of "without an intermediary") authority of the Holy Roman Emperor, and later of the institutions of the Empire such as the Diet (Reichstag), the Imperial Chamber of Justice and the Aulic Council.
  The granting of immediacy began in the Early Middle Ages, and for the immediate bishops, abbots and cities, then the main beneficiaries of that status, immediacy could be exacting and often meant being subjected to the fiscal, military and hospitality demands of their overlord, the Emperor. However, with the gradual exit of the Emperor from the centre stage from the mid-13th century onwards, holders of imperial immediacy eventually found themselves vested with considerable rights and powers previously exercised by the emperor.
  As confirmed by the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, the possession of imperial immediacy came with a particular form of territorial authority known as territorial superiority (Landeshoheit or superioritas territorialis in German and Latin documents of the time). In today's terms, it would be understood as a limited form of sovereignty.
caption: Document signed by the Abbot of Marchtal, "immediate and exempt"
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