Talk:Imperial Estate

Persons and Territories

State in this context should not be confused with territories. The Reichsstand was a person who held rights and titles or it was a corporation, like a city, that was represented by a person. In other words it was the prince, i.e. duke, or the count, or the imperial knight, or the imperial abbot or pricely bishop or the mayor representing his city that was called Reichstand. Territories only began to establish themselves in the late 15th and in the 16th century. Truely synonymous the term Reichstand and Territory only became after the Peace of Westphalia at the end of the Thirty Years war. Especially in the English language it is important to make this distinction. In German Stand ≠ Staat. --23:29, 15 June 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wuselig (talk • contribs)

NEEDLESS CONFUSION

It would have been sooooo much better to have titled this article 'Imperial Estate', instead of 'Imperial State' to avoid needless confusion. I suppose it's too late now. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lubiesque (talk • contribs) 22:45, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

I am changing "state" by "Estate" everywhere in this article except (unfortunately) in the title since it is out of reach. All the English-language sources I have consulted use exclusively "Estate". With one exception, they all capitalize the word, so I do as they do and capitalize.

"Thus the diet comprised a rich variety of imperial Estates" (Karl Härer, "The Permanent Imperial Diet in the European Context, 1663-1806".) "France was a member of the union of the powerful Estates of the Empire." (...) "the imperial army should be drawn from the armies of the larger Estates" (Karl von Aretin, “The Old Reich: A Federation of Hierarchical System?"). "by protecting the less powerful members of the Empire against the threat posed by the bigger Estates" (Leopold Auer, “The Role of the Imperial Aulic Council" etc...) "These fiefs, together with their rulers, collectively became known as the ‘imperial estates’ (Reichsstände)" (Peter H. Wilson, The Holy Roman Empire 1495-1806. "Those assembled at the Reichstag represented the Imperial Estates (...) "Disputes between Imperial Estates..." (Joachim Whaley, Germany and the Holy Roman Empire, vol II). "as firmly grounded in law as those of any Estate of the Empire” (Gagliardo, Reich and Nation). --Lubiesque (talk) 13:25, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

I think the translation of "estate" for "Reichstand" or the territory attached thereto is the source of the confusion, not the reverse. Substituting "estate" for "state" in this article aggravates the problem. That problem consists in the fact that, regardless of technical definitions, both words have multiple connotations and uses in English, which do not map well with the kind of entity that was a voting constituent of the Holy Roman Empire.

In English "state" suggests 1. an entity internationally recognized as internally sovereign, but may or may not also be externally independent (e.g. Emirate of Dubai) or 2. an entity which is internationally recognized as externally sovereign and independent (e.g. United Arab Emirates. Note that Dubai is not externally independent, being a member of the UAR, which controls external affairs, yet both Dubai and UAR are commonly referred to as "states"). 3. An administrative territory within a country, which may exercise some executive and legislative authority, but is neither internally sovereign nor externally independent (e.g. Florida in the US).

Unfortunately, "estate" suffers from the same ambiguity in English. It connotes 1. a privately held property of significant enough size that people, other than the owner/residents, perform regular maintenance work, such as a mansion and its grounds, manor, plantation, ranch, French peerage, etc. Such an estate usually exercises few or none of the attributes of a sovereign entity and is subject to provincial, national and international law. 3. an organized assembly (House of Lords, parlement, Diet), which convenes to decide, legislatively or judicially, public policy enforceable within a realm. 3. one sector of a realm's society (clergy, nobility, burghers, commoners, constituents of a state or legislative district, etc) that is legally represented in public policymaking by legislators, jurors or peers (e.g. the Third Estate), or is distinct in composition from other estates of the Realm (e.g. the Fourth Estate).

Because the constituent entities of the Holy Roman Emperor and their rulers incarnated several of the above definitions but not all at once, it is unclear in which sense either "state" or "estate" is being used. Therefore I recommend that the article define the term that will be used to translate and/or refer to any Reichstand (based on reliable historical sources), and then use the term consistently and exclusively that way throughout. Because in current English "estate" most strongly connotes a privately owned property with a home on it, it captures less of what a Reichsstand was than "state", so use of the latter term is less confusing when describing an entity which exercised a significant degree of legal authority over land and people (sovereignty). I recommend "state" be substituted for "estate" throughout, but that the older use of estate to refer to an entity that had some legislative/judicial authority be explained at the beginning. Whichever word is used, it is bad current English for it to be capitalized unless it is part of the official name of the specific entity being referred to: historical texts sometimes violate this rule, but it is jarring for the ordinary, native English reader: generic nouns are not capitalized in English. FactStraight (talk) 16:21, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

Arguably the three foremost English-language historians of the HRE of the last few decades (Gagliardo, Whaley, Wilson) use Estate, and not State (or state). "Estate" appears to be by far the most common usage in English to refer to a Stand. I also think they are right to capitalize because the word is not used as a generic noun.

Incidentally, German historians have long criticized the widespread use of the word "state" in English to refer to the HRE's political units. In the HRE context, they themselves seldom use the word Staat (state) and prefer Territorium instead. English-language historians now tend to use more and more the word "territories" ("the territories bordering France", rather than "the states bordering France", "the territorial assemblies (or armies, etc.) rather than the state assemblies or armies, etc. I think it is better to ban the word "state" in all instances when dealing with the HRE. Lubiesque (talk) 21:03, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

I don't doubt you're right nor dispute historians' preferred usage, but do consider it academic jargon: the word "estate" in ordinary English is overwhelmingly used to refer to landed property that exercises no governmental jurisdiction over people (let alone has a foreign policy), whereas a "state" is an entity that does. Calling Bavaria or Saxony an "estate" rather than a "state", especially after the Peace of Westphalia, will convey a misconception of what kind of an entity is being described to the ordinary lay reader (and "territory", in lay usage, connotes land that is governed by an authority other than itself). However, if you feel strongly about it, I won't object so long as we carefully define and distinguish the usage upfront. Capitalization is a less flexible matter, as English Wikipedia has specific, long fought-over and settled rules on capitalization with which we are bound to be in compliance, so I want to be clear what you mean when you say that this article (and presumably others on the historical Holy Roman Empire) should not consider "Estate" a generic noun: In lay English, the words "country", "nation", "state", "kingdom", etc. are not capitalized unless they are part of an entity's name (e.g. "The United Kingdom"), yet you believe that while those words should remain un-capitalized in these articles, "Estate" should be capitalized to show that it refers exclusively to units of the HRE? FactStraight (talk) 22:27, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

I'm not sure why Lubiesque thought the article title untouchable. I just moved it. In any case, I agree about historians' usage: "estate" predominates. (If FactStraight wants to move it back and do an RM, that's fine by me.) Both terms can cause confusion to the one unfamiliar with the Reich. This is especially so because the states of standard historiography, like Austria and Prussia, were not Imperial Estates per se, but composite states combining territories within and without the Empire under a single ruler. Another reason to avoid "state" is to avoid the error FactStraight subtly committed above: the Imperial Estates were not sovereign. Not at all, not even a bit. They possessed territorial supremacy (Landeshoheit) but were completely and totally subject to imperial law and could not legally pursue a foreign policy at odds with the peace and integrity of the Reich. They were not independent international actors, although many imperial princes were also that by virtue of foreign titles. Srnec (talk) 01:44, 10 November 2016 (UTC)