Imperial immediacy
In the Holy Roman Empire, imperial immediacy (German: Reichsunmittelbarkeit or Reichsfreiheit) was the status of an individual or a territory which was defined as 'immediate' (unmittelbar) to Emperor and Empire (Kaiser und Reich) and not to any other intermediate authorities, while one that did not possess that status was defined as 'mediate' (mittelbar). The possession of this imperial immediacy granted a constitutionally unique form of territorial authority known as "territorial superiority" (Landeshoheit) which had nearly all the attributes of sovereignty, but fell short of true sovereignty since the rulers of the Empire remained at least nominally answerable to the Empire's institutions and basic laws.