Ancient German dukes, princes, counts and other Imperial Estates (Reichsstände) continued to enjoy real sovereignty (Landeshoheit) over their lands until the end of the Holy Roman Empire. From the 17th century the emperors granted various titles like the Imperial Prince (Reichsfürst) and the Imperial Count (Reichsgraf) to people that had no sovereign lordships. Some of these people even claimed the right to participate in the Imperial Diet (Reichstag). The Imperial Estates protested. In 1641 their lawyers worked out several rules that helped to distinguish them from titled nobility without real sovereignty. Thus the Imperial Estates had to be members of one of the ten Imperial Circles (Reichskreise).

This membership (Kreisstand) meant the ownership of an immediate territory inside a Circle with the right to sit and vote in a Circle Diet (Kreistag). This requirement forced some high-rank Austrian aristocrats (Auersperg, Dietrichstein, Lobkowitz,Abensberg-Traun, Thurn und Taxis, Windisch-Grätz, Kaunitz, Sinzendorf, Stadion,  etc) to acquire tiny but immediate territories in Imperial Circles. 

The history of Liechtenstein and its ruling family gives us an interesting example of such acquisitions. Liechtensteins were Imperial Princes since 1608 and owned about 5800 square km in Bohemia, Moravia and Austria including 24 towns, 35 large and 756 smaller villages as well as 46 castles.  But they could not get the recognition as an Imperial Estate until the family bough 2 small immediate lordships (Vaduz and Schellenberg) in the Swabian Circle (Schwäbische Kreis) in 1699 and 1712. The Princes of Liechtenstein paid huge amount for these poor lands that added nothing to their income but allowed to become formal owners of a new immediate principality. The first Prince to visit his country was Alois II in 1842.

GLOSSARY

Imperial Circles of the Holy Roman Empire ca. 1792

Bayerische Kreis [Bavarian Circle]