"Um wenigstens aus dem Schiffbruch zu retten, was noch zu retten war" - Die freie Reichsritterschaft um 1800

Lecture by Regina Fürsich M. A. at the Württembergischer Geschichts- und Altertumsverein

It saw itself as the jewel of the German Empire, its opponents defamed it as an alliance of wren: The free, direct imperial knighthood. It was undoubtedly a curiosity in the Old Empire. Hundreds of families of the lower nobility were loosely united in this corporation. Although they were not represented at the Imperial Diet, they were nevertheless directly subordinate to the emperor. In the turbulent period of wars and crises around 1800, even powerful imperial cities and ecclesiastical princes lost their status through mediatization and secularization before the end of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. However, the Imperial Knighthood was able to assert itself against all odds and even against the will of some powerful imperial princes almost until the fall of the Old Empire. The lecture sheds light on how the Imperial Knighthood as a corporation navigated through this phase of fundamental transformation.