free imperial city

English
The free imperial cities of the Holy Roman Empire in 1792

Alternative forms
  • free and imperial city

Etymology

A calque of German Freie Reichsstadt (short singular form of Freie und Reichsstädte) or Latin urbs imperialis libera.

Noun

free imperial city (plural free imperial cities)

  1. (historical) A self-ruling city within the Holy Roman Empire that had some autonomy and was represented in the Imperial Diet.
    A free imperial city held the status of Imperial immediacy, and was thus subordinate only to the Holy Roman Emperor, whereas a territorial city or town (Landstadt) was subordinate to a territorial prince – either an ecclesiastical lord (prince-bishop or prince-abbot) or a secular prince (duke (Herzog), margrave, count (Graf), etc.).
    • 1996, John Dornberg, Western Europe, Oryx Press, page 56,
      The city-states of Germany and the Holy Roman Empire had their origins as free imperial cities, a term coined in the late eleventh century.
    • 2007, Carlos Ramirez-Faria, Concise Encyclopedia Of World History, Atlantic Publishers, page 243,
      Verdun was an ancient bishopric and a free imperial city, which France conquered in 1552 (together with Metz and Toul) and made into a fortress to protect its eastern borders.
    • 2012, Joel Van Amberg, A Real Presence: Religious and Social Dynamics of the Eucharistic Conflicts in Early Modern Augsburg 1520—1530, BRILL, page 7,
      Like many free imperial cities, Augsburg in the early Middle Ages was an Episcopal city.

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