On the HRE's vassals

So, I have been doing some reading outside of my time period lately, and I have come to realise that much of the information easily available mostly ignores the deeply complicated relationships between the vassals and the emperors many titles and roles. I've had a particulary hard time finding any details about the vassal's duties to the emperor at diferent periods of the middle ages, as well as the political role that the prince-bishops and the cities played within the empire.

So i wanted to know if anyone around here has some answers to these questions:

What exactly were the empires vassals' (nominal) duties towards their lord, particularly during the High Middle Ages?

Did they have to pay tribute? Offer military support when needed? And to what extent was this upheld?

Where there any difference between the vassals of the Kingdom of Germany and those of the Kindom of Italy?

What did so many post-investiture controversy emperors expect to gain from the northern Italian states?
Income, manpower, prestige?

What was the role of the prince-bishops in the power balance in Germany? Did they act just like any other noble, or where they less interested in expansion? With whom did their alligiance lie in times of war between the emperor and other princes, or the emperor and the papacy?

And lastly what where the duties of the free imperial cities?

Thanks in advance :)

Edit: I'm mostly interested in the times of Frederick I's and Charles V's reigns
 
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Militarily, it is important to not confuse the Reichsarmee and the Kaiserliche Armee. It was the Kaiserliche Armee that fought in the Thirty Years War.

The "vassals" were part of larger groups called circles (if I remember correctly) and each circle was to provide a certain number of troops to the Reichsarmee if needed. The following link shows the numbers in 1681 when the composition was decided upon: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_of_the_Holy_Roman_Empire

I hope this is of some help.
 

PhilippeO

Banned
try google : worms reichmatrikei

from may 1521 version each vassal appear to provide horse, foot and money.
 
I'll give you a fast and loose answer.

The main nominal duties towards their feudal lords were providing men for their campaigns, and to provide monetary duties (such as tolls) and aids.
Tribute was paid according to the perceived value of the entrusted land, and to the various agreements and conventions. Tithes were common (one tenth of the value), though mostly collected by religious authorities; some of which were, however, important polities on the Empire.
Initially, the overlords were clearly far stronger and could basically order their comes (what would later be called Counts) around; but with the steady decline of the central authority (both in strength and directly controlled territory), the balance shifted towards nobles which managed to get more and more rights (such as limited assistance, rather than unlimited solicitation as it was in the beginning) forcing the Emperors to rely more on their own, dynastic domains rather than unreliable and often limited vassal levies and taxes.
As the Emperor was King of both Germany and Italy, on paper, there was no difference between the two; however, the Italian kingdom was comparatively small, had a low number of feudal lords, and as such remained out of the various German-dominated reforms Imperial institutions such as the Imperial Diet, or the creation of the Imperial Circles. What little power the Emperor could exert after the XIV century was usually entrusted to plenipotentiaries.
The importance of Italy was twofold - symbolic (because of it being close to Rome, and of the Emperor effectively holding the Italian Kingship) and monetary. An Emperor which could secure rich, populated, trading Italy would have a real strong powerbase with which to bend the unruly German vassals to his will. It was just too rich, too tempting to let go - even though the two centuries spent bickering with the Pope and the Italian communes probably doomed the Emperor's control over German lands to inefficacy.
Prince-Bishops were essentially Bishops which also held important Duchies, meant to help the Emperor have a stronger grasp on the important bits of the Empire, and rewarded with important privileges otherwise meant for the Emperors; they were not hereditary and three of them also were Electorates, able to vote for the new Emperor. They weren't as much interested in expanding, but the backing of the Emperors meant a slow trickle of land to the church which only stopped post-Reformation and was abrogated with the dissolution of the Empire.
Prince-Bishops tended to side with Emperors in their interal conflicts, though rarely giving real military support. They were more about money, and diplomacy; especially in case of Papacy friction, when the Bishops tended to side more against the Emperor (but again, rarely in an active, dangerous way).
Lastly, Free Imperial Cities were only subject to the Emperor; it meant that, very often, they were free to do as they pleased, as long as they gave some taxes and acknowledged the suzerainty of the Emperor. Since controlling them was hard as they were VERY sparse, geographically, they didn't even bother to participate in the Imperial Diet - only working to prevent taxes and edicts which could curtail their own riches.
 
¿What exactly were the empires vassals' (nominal) duties towards their lord, particularly during the High Middle Ages? ¿Did they have to pay tribute? ¿Offer military support when needed? ¿And to what extent was this upheld? ¿Where there any difference between the vassals of the Kingdom of Germany and those of the Kindom of Italy?

I suggest you reading Marc Bloch's masterpiece. A bit old by now, but still a masterpiece.

Depends on the era. Originally the vassals were more like appointed officials - their position was not hereditary, and the emperor could freely recall them. The peculiarity is that since in that era the usage of money was very uncommon, instead of a paid salary they received the benefit of the land they administered (literally it was originally called a "benefit" and not a fief), aka the labour services of the serfs and tithes, they were also the judges and the legislators of those lands.

As expected, this system was unstable, especially as the prince-electors chose the King of Germany / emperor, so those offices eventually became hereditary and they became the actual heads of state of those provinces, while the provinces, by 1815, transformed into actual kingdoms. By this point their duties were merely "going to the aid of the emperor when he goes to war", paying some negligible fees, and relying on the emperor as the highest seat of arbitration, but they rarely gave a crap about it as there was no law banning feuds (funny to imagine say the 30-years war as a feud).

The Kingdom of Italy kept a lot of the Roman legacy institutions - a literate populace, lawyers, paid bureaucrats. With the exception of the Hohenstaufen who ruled from Sicily, no emperor ever really acquired a real grasp of Italy and they merely relied on their alliance with the papacy and the strong families of Lombardy.

¿What did so many post-investiture controversy emperors expect to gain from the northern Italian states? ¿Income, manpower, prestige?

It is important to clear out what the investiture war was about. It was customary in that era that rulers appointed bishops and in general the community's clergy (even if it was only a small baronette and a village priest). The fact that the emperor's power was not just challenged but were even defeated in such an ordinary matter proves the total impotence of the imperial institution. Afterwards all of the campaigns and attempts were about trying to reclaim this power, unsuccessfully.

What was the role of the prince-bishops in the power balance in Germany? ¿Did they act just like any other noble, or where they less interested in expansion? ¿With whom did their alligiance lie in times of war between the emperor and other princes, or the emperor and the papacy?

Basically, the prince-bishops couldn't transform into hereditary powers (with a very few exceptions) and their power was very significantly checked by the religious institutions of the time. Essentially, the prince-bishoprics and the city states were the emperor's power base as they did not have the power to develop into expansive dynasties and they needed the emperors to keep their independence from the expansion principalities.

And lastly ¿what where the duties of the free imperial cities?

Levying and paying taxes. The wealthy families of the city states were often awarded the tax farms in all medieval and pre-modern states.
 
Can't answer this right now but I'd recommend Heart of Europe: A History of the Holy Roman Empire by Peter H. Wilson. Its an incredible source on everything related to the HRE.
 
The organization of the HRE developed over the centuries, it is therefore difficult to generalize for the hole middle ages.
It would be useful to separate between several periods.
1. East Francia (late Carolingians)
2. Ottonian and Salian Dynasty (role of the dukes, role of the bishops inside the "Ottonisch-Salisches Reichskirchensystem" (ottonian-salian empire church systems -> nearly untranslatable word, I honestly don't know the correct English term) and the investiture controversy)
3. The Hohenstaufen
4. The "Interregnum" (rise of the electors)
5. Several Dynasties (Mainly Habsburg; Luxemburg and Wittelsbach)
6. Habsburg and the end of the middle ages

You should also look at the 7 electors (3 archbishops, Köln, Mainz, Trier, and 4 secular rulers, Palatinate, Saxony, Bohemia, Brandenburg), which had since the 13. century the right to elect the roman king.

It was for the most time necessary for becoming emperor to travel towards Rome (and have some negotiations with the pope). Some kings never achieved this. And the title emperor means the formal claim to be above all the other kings. Italy was much richer than the northern parts of the Holy Roman Empire. But if you travel to Italy you need to fight between the various Italian cities without being able to solve the problems in the North. If you remain most of your time in the North, you can't properly use your claims of power over Northern Italy.

I don't know much about the bishops and archbishops after the investiture controversy, but before it, the king or emperor had the power to decide who was appointed as bishop or in many monasteries as abbot. At the same time, the monasteries gained many possessions and rights through donations. Bishops and Abbots had to give troops, allow the king to stay there and give him some "Gifts", of course the amount of these Services varied between the different monasteries and bishoprics. The king/emperor used often candidates from his court. This was the "Ottonisch-Salisches Reichskirchensystem".
Different Bishops and Archbishops aligned at different times with different groups. (I currently don't know which side was favoured by them during the investiture controversy)

There was a difference between free cities (with much lesser obligations compared to the imperial cities) and imperial cities. Both are according to the "Lexikon des Mittelalters"(LexMa) not exactly defined. The imperial cities are according to the LexMa founded on imperial territory or on the territory of imperial monsteries or imperial church land. This started during the reign of the Hohenstaufen. According to the LexMa, only 100 of the 3000 towns in (I think) the Empire north of the Alps ( because Italian cities are a completely different story) where imperial cities, their number decreased later (16. century around 65). The importance of the imperial cities varied greatly They gained during the late 14. century more and more independence, but even later their role and power inside the structures and institutions was insufficient compared with their economic power.

In the late middle ages, some institutions developed ("Reichsstände", "Reichstag", "Reichskammergericht") which acted more and more independent from the king/emperor. Some form of Dualism between "Kaiser" and "Reich" developed: (Therefore the two heads of the imperial eagle).

I don't have the time to answer all of your questions. Maybe I'm at the beginning of studying history in Germany, but I don't understand all the nuances of the organization of the Holy Roman Empire myself.

(I have the Idea for an weird ASB-Story in which the USA uses somehow the "constitution" of the Holy Roman Empire at the dawn of the Reformation)

I also recommend the "Reichsmartrikel", their is even an earlier version from 1422 against the Hussites.
 
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