Imperial immediacy

In the Holy Roman Empire, imperial immediacy (German: Reichsunmittelbarkeit or Reichsfreiheit) was the status of an individual or a territory which was defined as 'immediate' (unmittelbar) to Emperor and Empire (Kaiser und Reich) and not to any other intermediate authorities, while one that did not possess that status was defined as 'mediate' (mittelbar).^[1]

The possession of this imperial immediacy granted a constitutionally unique form of territorial authority known as "territorial superiority" (Landeshoheit) which had nearly all the attributes of sovereignty, but fell short of true sovereignty since the rulers of the Empire remained answerable to the Empire's institutions and basic laws. In the early modern period, the Empire consisted of over 1,800 immediate territories, ranging in size from quite large such as Austria, Bavaria, Saxony, and Brandenburg, down to the several hundred tiny immediate estates of the Imperial knights of only a few square kilometers or less, which were by far the most numerous.^[2][3]

The granting of immediacy began in the High Middle Ages, and for those bishops, abbots, and cities then the main beneficiaries of that status, immediacy could be exacting and often meant subjection to the fiscal, military, and hospitality demands of their overlord, the Emperor. However, from the mid-13th century onwards, with the gradually diminishing importance of the Emperor, whose authority to exercise power became increasingly limited to the enforcement of legislative acts promulgated by the Imperial Diet, entities privileged by imperial immediacy eventually found themselves vested with considerable rights and powers previously exercised by the emperor.