Page:History of the Thirty Years' War - Gindely - Volume 1.djvu/44

 include all who stood at the head of independent governments. On the side of the ecclesiastics were the bishops and the abbots, or heads of monasteries. The secular princes were the dukes, counts, margraves, and burg, graves. Only the latter two terms will require explanation. The margrave, called in England marquis, acquired his name from the fact that his lands bordered on a foreign country, against which he must defend it, as the Margraviate of Brandenburg, for instance, bounded the Empire next to the Slavic lands. The burggrave, originally but the commander of a castle in the service of the Emperor or a prince, became in some instances himself a prince, appearing in the Diet as such.

3. The deputies of the free cities. These cities—there were also mere villages which enjoyed this freedom—were of two kinds. There were the cities composing the great Hanseatic League, which had such importance in the commerce of the later Middle Age. These were, like any of the principalities, independent governments, and, as such, represented themselves by deputies in the Imperial Diets. Then there were cities and even villages in various parts of the Empire which had, in one way and another, acquired the right of placing themselves in immediate connection (Unmittelbarkeit) with the Emperor. To illustrate the manner in which these arose: when, in the thirteenth century, the duchies of Swabia and Franconia were extinguished, the prevalent anarchy gave opportunity for the assertion of independence, of which many took advantage. Besides numerous smaller places, there arose in this section the imperial cities of Augsburg, Kempten, Ulm, Nuremberg, and Donauwerth. Thus, and in other ways, imperial cities and villages were multiplied. The deputies of these immediate dependencies of the Empire,