Imperial Knights

in the Holy Roman Empire (prior to 1806), the lower feudal gentry (primarily from the southern and western regions of Germany) who held imperial fiefs and were in direct vassal dependence on the emperor; the majority of these knights were former members of the imperial ministerials. They had no representation in the Reichstag. During the 15th and 16th centuries they were not strong enough to oppose the princes; they were ruined, and during the period of the decline of central power they became dependent on the princes. The Knights Uprising (1522–23), in which the knights rose up against the oppression of the princes, was suppressed. With the abolition of the empire (1806) the holdings of the imperial knights (approximately 5,000 sq km) were included in the states of the Confederation of the Rhine.