The German term ''Herrschaft'' (plural: ''Herrschaften'') covers a broad semantic field and only the context will tell whether it means, "rule", "power", "dominion", "authority", "territory" or "lordship". In its most abstract sense, it refers to power relations in general while more concretely it may refer to the individuals or institutions that exercise that power. Finally, in a spatial sense in the Holy Roman Empire, it refers to a territory over which this power is exercised.Rachel Renaul
"Herrschaft", ''Histoire du Saint-Empire''

The Herrschaft as a territory

The ''Herrschaft'', whose closest equivalent was the French ''

seigneurie In English law, seignory or seigniory, spelled ''signiory'' in Early Modern English (; french: seigneur, lit=lord; la, senior, lit=elder), is the lordship (authority) remaining to a grantor after the grant of an estate in fee simple. ''Nulle terre ...

'', usually translated as "lordship" in English, denoted a specific area of land with rights over both the soil and its inhabitants. While the lord (''

Herr Herr may refer to: * Herr (honorific), a German honorific * Herr (surname) * Herr (title), a German title * Herr, Indiana Herr is an unincorporated community in Perry Township, Boone County, in the U.S. state of Indiana Indiana () is a ...

'') was often a noble, it could also be a

commoner A commoner, also known as the ''common man'', ''commoners'', the ''common people'' or the ''masses'', was in earlier use an ordinary person in a community or nation who did not have any significant social status, especially a member of neither ...

such as a burgher, or a corporate entity such as a bishopric, a cathedral chapter, an abbey, a hospice or a town. Most lordships were ''mediate'', which meant that their lords and inhabitants owed allegiance to a territorial ruler — such as a duke, a margrave, a count, a prince, a prince-elector or a prince-bishop — who exercised a number of sovereign rights over them, including high justice, taxation and military conscription. However, several lordships were immediate, having gained that coveted status usually at some time during the Middle Ages.

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Bibliography

*Hanns Hubert Hofmann: Quellen zum Verfassungsorganismus des Heiligen Römischen Reiches Deutscher Nation 1495–1815, Darmstadt 1976. German feudalism

The Herrschaft as a territory

See also

References

Bibliography