Heart of Europe: A History of the Roman Empire (122 page)

Iter
Royal progress through the Empire to seek homage from those not present at the coronation.

Itio in partes
The constitutional amendment introduced by the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 that permitted the imperial Estates assembled in the Reichstag to discuss contentious religious issues in two separate confessional blocs, or
corpora
.

Kreis
Formally
Reichskreis
, or imperial circle. One of the ten regional subdivisions of the Empire into which most territories were grouped.

Kreis Assembly
or
Kreistag
Containing the members of that Kreis to debate common concerns.

Kreis Association
A formal alliance between two or more Kreise that had been ratified by the assemblies.

Kreis convenor
or
Kreisausschreibender Fürst
One who coordinated the meetings of the Kreis Assembly and dealt with formal correspondence with the emperor and imperial institutions.

Kurfürsten
see
Electors.

Landeshoheit
see
Territorial sovereignty
.

Landschaft
A form of Estates where commoners predominated.

Landtag
Territorial diet, or plenary meeting of the Estates.

Latest Imperial Recess
The last concluding document issued by the Reichstag session of 1653–4. The next meeting, of 1663, remained in permanent session and issued legislation as necessary.

Matricular system
The system for distributing fiscal and military burdens to the territories based on a list (
Matrikel
) recording their obligations.

Mediatization
The loss of the status of immediacy (q.v.), usually through annexation by another territory.

Ministeriales
A term used from the later eleventh century, replacing
servientes
, which appeared around 1020. Ministeriales were unfree knights bound in servitude to a feudal lord in return for a fief (q.v.), thereby owing military service on the basis of their birth (unfreedom) rather than voluntary submission. Some were also employed as administrators. The ministeriales were unique to Germany, Brabant and Lorraine, and were not found elsewhere in the Empire or Europe. They gradually embraced an aristocratic ethos, converting a relationship based on servitude into more conventional vassalage by 1500.

Ordines
Coronation protocols specifying the form and sequence of ceremonial elements.

Police regulation
or
Polizei
, originally spelt
Policey
Normative legislation issued by established authorities to sustain corporate society by guiding behaviour and addressing social and economic problems.

Privilege of not appealing
The
privilegium de non appellando
exempted territories from the jurisdiction of the two imperial courts. It was usually granted in limited form, though the electors acquired greater exemption.

Public peace
The
Landfrieden
declared permanent in 1495 that required all territories to renounce violence and submit disputes to arbitration through the imperial courts. Further legislation, especially between 1555 and 1570, strengthened these arrangements.

Recess
The concluding document of an assembly that listed all agreements and legislation decided at that session.

Reich
As a prefix, denoted ‘imperial’, as in
Reichsfürst
or imperial prince.

Reichsdeputation
The Imperial Deputation or special standing committee selected by the Reichstag to discuss important business. The ordinary (
ordentliche
) Imperial Deputation was established by the public peace legislation to oversee the operation of imperial justice and other measures when the Reichstag was not in session. It was effectively superseded once the Reichstag remained in permanent session after 1663. Extraordinary deputations could still be selected to discuss other business, such as the territorial redistribution of 1801–3.

Reichshofrat
The imperial aulic council established in 1497 to safeguard the emperor’s prerogatives. It developed after 1558 as a second supreme court alongside the
Reichskammergericht
(q.v.).

Reichskammergericht
The imperial cameral court created in 1495 and charged with upholding the public peace and acting as a supreme court of appeal. Its judges were mainly appointed by the imperial Estates through the Kreis structure.

Reichsstandschaft
The quality of being an imperial Estate (q.v.), entitling representation in the Reichstag.

Reichstag
The imperial diet, or assembly of the emperor and imperial Estates.

Revindication
Deriving from
revindicare
(‘to demand back’) and denoting a policy first introduced by Rudolf I in 1273 to recover crown assets alienated since the 1240s and continued intermittently until definitively abandoned in the 1370s.

Roman expedition
The journey from Germany to Rome for coronation as emperor by the pope. The practice was initiated by Otto I in 962 and often had the character of a military campaign.

Roman Month
The unit of account measuring the financial contributions from the territories paid according to the matricular system (q.v.) for common purposes, usually defence. The term came from the monthly wage bill of the troops intended to escort the emperor to his coronation in Rome.

Romans
,
king of the
The title
Römischer König
was created in 1376 and given to the successor designate chosen by the electors to succeed an incumbent emperor on his death.

Servitium regis
‘Serving the king’ through counsel, military and material support. The term used for the obligations imposed by vassalage, especially during the early Middle Ages.

Signoria
The
signoria
emerged from the patricians in thirteenth-century Italy to dominate civic government everywhere except in Umbria and Tuscany. The most successful included the Este, Montefeltro, Gonzaga and Visconti families, who all eventually secured the status of imperial prince.

Social discipline
The interpretation suggesting that society was transformed by state regulation, encouraging individuals to behave as obedient, thrifty subjects.

Stand
,
Stände
see
Estates.

Strator service
Acting as ceremonial groom to the pope, involving some or all of the following elements: prostrating oneself before the pontiff, kissing the papal stirrups, and helping the pope to dismount. Allegedly first performed by Pippin on meeting Pope Stephen II in 753, the ceremony was subsequently claimed by popes as a means of asserting superiority over emperors. Last performed by Frederick III, in 1452.

Territorial sovereignty
or
Landeshoheit
Denoting the powers accumulated and developed by the imperial Estates (q.v.) to act on their own initiative in territorial and imperial politics. These powers rested on imperial law and included the right to reform religion, maintain troops, negotiate with foreign governments and issue legislation within the relevant territory, provided these actions were not directed against the integrity and well-being of the emperor and Empire.

Territorialization
The process of identifying political power and representation in imperial institutions with a given area.

Umfrage
The practice of voicing opinion at the Reichstag and Kreis Assemblies in strict order of precedence determined by formal status.

Appendix 1: Emperors, 800–1806

Reigns dated from imperial coronation.