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Prince of the Holy Roman Empire (Latin:princeps imperii,German:Reichsfürst, cf.Fürst) was a title attributed to a hereditary ruler, nobleman or prelate recognised by theHoly Roman Emperor.
Originally, possessors of theprincely title bore it asimmediate vassals of the Emperor who held afief (secular or ecclesiastical) that had nosuzerain except the Emperor. However, by the time theHoly Roman Empire was abolished in 1806, there were a number of holders of Imperial princely titles who did not meet these criteria.
Thus, there were two main types of princes: those who exercisedLandeshoheit (sovereignty within one's territory while respecting the laws and traditions of the empire) as well as an individual or shared vote in theCollege of Princes, and those whose title washonorary (the possessor lacking an immediate Imperial fief and/or a vote in the Imperial Diet). The first came to be reckoned as "royalty" in the sense of being treated as sovereigns, entitled tointer-marry with reigning dynasties. The second tier consisted of high-ranking nobles whose princely title did not, however, imply equality with royalty. These distinctions evolved within the Empire, but were codified by theCongress of Vienna in 1815 when it created theGerman Confederation and recognised a specific, elevated status (Standesherren orMediatized Houses) for themediatized princes of the defunct Empire.
The actual titles used by Imperial nobles varied considerably for historical reasons, and includedarchdukes,dukes,margraves,landgraves,counts palatine,princely counts (Gefürstete Grafen), as well as princes andprince-electors. Moreover, most of the German fiefs in the Empire (except electorships) were heritable by all males of a family rather than byprimogeniture, the princely title (or whatever title the family used) being likewise shared by allagnatic family members, male and female.
Theestate of imperial princes orReichsfürstenstand[1] was established in a legal sense in theLate Middle Ages. A particular estate of "the Princes" was first mentioned in the decree issued by EmperorFrederick Barbarossa in 1180 at theImperial Diet ofGelnhausen, in which he divested DukeHenry the Lion ofSaxony andBavaria. About fifty years later,Eike of Repgow codified it as an emanation of feudal law recorded in hisSachsenspiegel, where the lay princes formed the third level orHeerschild in the feudal military structure below ecclesiastical princes. Officially the princely states of theHoly Roman Empire had to meet three requirements:
Not all states met all three requirements, so one may distinguish between effective and honorary princes of the Holy Roman Empire.[2][3]
The Princes of the Empire ranked below the sevenPrince-electors (Kurfürsten; archaic spellingChurfürsten) designated by theGolden Bull of 1356 (and later electors), but above theReichsgrafen (imperial counts),Freiherren (barons) andReichsprälaten (imperial prelates), who formed with them theImperial Diet assemblies, but held only collective votes. Around 1180, the secular Princes comprised theHerzöge (Dukes) who generally ruled larger territories within the Empire in the tradition of the former Germanstem duchies, but also the Counts ofAnhalt andNamur, the Landgraves ofThuringia and the Margraves ofMeissen.
From the 13th century onwards, further estates were formally raised to the princely status by the emperor. Among the most important of these were theWelf descendants of Henry the Lion inBrunswick-Lüneburg, elevated to Princes of the Empire and vested with the ducal title by EmperorFrederick II in 1235, and theLandgraves of Hesse in 1292. The resolutions of theDiet of Augsburg in 1582 explicitly stated that the status was inextricably linked with the possession of a particular Imperial territory. Later elevated noble families like theFürstenberg,Liechtenstein orThurn und Taxis dynasties subsequently began to refer to their territory as a "principality" and assumed the awarded rank of aPrince (Fürst) as ahereditary title. Most of the Counts who ruled territories were raised to Princely rank in the decades before the end of the Empire in 1806.
Ecclesiastical Princes were thePrince-Bishops (including the Prince-Archbishops ofBesançon,Bremen,Magdeburg andSalzburg) as well as the actualPrince-abbots. They comprised a number of political entities which were secularized and mediatized after the 1648Peace of Westphalia.
The honorary status of prince of the Holy Roman Empire might be granted to certain individuals. These individuals included:
