An Imperial State or Imperial Estate (Latin: Status Imperii German: Reichsstand, plural: Reichsstände) was an entity in the Holy Roman Empire with a vote in the Imperial Diet (Reichstag) assemblies. Several territories of the Empire were not represented, while some officials (such as the Hereditary Usher) were non-voting members; neither qualified as Imperial States.
Rulers of Imperial States were immediate, which meant that they had no authority above them except the Holy Roman Emperor himself; furthermore, they possessed several important rights and privileges, including a degree of autonomy in the rule of their territories. On the other hand, the Imperial Knights, as well as several Imperial abbeys and minor territories, had an immediate status without admittance to membership of the Imperial Diet.
Read more about Imperial State: Composition, Rights and Privileges, Imperial Diet
Famous quotes containing the words imperial and/or state:
“Their bodies are buried in peace; but their name liveth for evermore.”
—Apocrypha. Ecclesiasticus, 44:14.
The line “their name liveth for evermore” was chosen by Rudyard Kipling on behalf of the Imperial War Graves Commission as an epitaph to be used in Commonwealth War Cemeteries. Kipling had himself lost a son in the fighting.
“A sound mind in a sound body, is a short, but full description of a happy state in this World: he that has these two, has little more to wish for; and he that wants either of them, will be little the better for anything else.”
—John Locke (1632–1704)