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:
“If you are ambitious of climbing up to the difficult, and in a manner inaccessible, summit of the Temple of Fame, your surest way is to leave on one hand the narrow path of Poetry, and follow the narrower track of Knight-Errantry, which in a trice may raise you to an imperial throne.”
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“A State, in idea, is the opposite of a Church. A State regards classes, and not individuals; and it estimates classes, not by internal merit, but external accidents, as property, birth, etc. But a church does the reverse of this, and disregards all external accidents, and looks at men as individual persons, allowing no gradations of ranks, but such as greater or less wisdom, learning, and holiness ought to confer. A Church is, therefore, in idea, the only pure democracy.”
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