Imperial Abbeys

Imperial abbeys (German: Reichsabteien, also Reichsklöster and Reichsstifte) were religious houses within the Holy Roman Empire which had been granted the status of Reichsunmittelbarkeit ("imperial immediacy") and therefore were answerable directly to the Emperor. The possession of imperial immediacy came with a unique form of territorial authority known as Landeshoheit, which carried with it nearly all the attributes of sovereignty. Particularly after the Peace of Westphalia (1648), all entities of the Empire possessing immediacy enjoyed and exercised de facto sovereign power. Any abbot or abbess, no matter how lilliputian his or her domain, governed with basically the same political powers as those of any secular prince such as levying taxes, rendering low and high justice, maintaining a standing army, and if they were so inclined, despatching embassies, declaring war, signing treaties, etc. About 45 Imperial abbeys (including priories) survived up to the mass secularisation of 1802-03.

The head of an Imperial abbey was generally an Imperial abbot (Reichsabt) or Imperial abbess (Reichsäbtissin). (The head of a Reichspropstei — an Imperial provostry or priory — was generally a Reichspropst). Some of the greatest establishments had the rank of ecclesiastical principalities, and were headed by a Prince-Abbot or a Prince-Provost (Fürstabt, Fürstpropst), with status comparable to that of Prince-Bishops. Most however (and many of these religious houses had only very small territories) were Imperial prelates (Reichsprelaten) and as such participated in a single collective vote in the Reichstag as members of the Bench of Prelates, later (1575) divided into the Swabian College of Imperial Prelates and the Rhenish College of Imperial Prelates.

It was not uncommon for heads of religious houses other than the Imperial abbeys to have similar titles even though their establishments did not have Reichsunmittelbarkeit. To take three examples, the Prince-Bishop of St. Gall retained his title until the abbey was secularised in 1798, even though it had ceased to be an Imperial abbey in 1648; the abbot of Muri (which had a strong Habsburg connection) was created an Imperial prince in 1710, although by that time Muri was in Switzerland; and the Prince-Abbot of St. Blaise's Abbey in Baden-Württemberg held that title, not on account of the status of the abbey, which was not reichsunmmittelbar, but because it was conferred on him by the abbey's ownership of the County of Bonndorf.