Imperial Village
The Imperial Villages (Reichsdörfer, singular Reichsdorf) were the smallest component entities of the Holy Roman Empire.[1] They possessed imperial immediacy, having no lord but the Emperor, but were not estates, were unencircled and did not have representation in the Imperial Diet. Their inhabitants were free men.[2]
The Imperial Villages—relicts of the royal demesne during the era of the Hohenstaufen—were all located in southern and western Germany and in Alsace.[2] Originally there were 120 villages, but this was greatly reduced by the early modern period. At the time of the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss—the final imperial reform—in 1803, there were only five: Gochsheim, Sennfeld, the Free Men of Leutkirche Heide, Soden and Sulzbach. These had preserved their rights of justice and their free status for centuries without force of arms, a "testimony to the progressive 'juridification' of the Reich".[2]
Notes
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- ↑ Whaley 2012, p. 44: "the most minuscule and least significant independent entities of the Reich".
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Whaley 2012, p. 44.
