Principality of Heitersheim

The Principality of Heitersheim (Fürstentum Heitersheim) was an imperial estate of the Holy Roman Empire from 1548 until 1806. It was a territory of the Knights Hospitaller (Order of Saint John) consisting of several noncontiguous enclaves in the Breisgau. It was a member of the Upper Rhenish Circle. Before its expansion in 1803, it had an area of about 4 square Reichsmeilen (50 km2) and a population of about 5,000. Its chief town, Heitersheim, was acquired by the knights in 1272 as a fief of Margrave Henry II of Hachberg. In 1276, Henry granted the knights the right to hold court (Landgericht) and to act as Vogt. In 1428, Heitersheim, which had by then obtained imperial immediacy, became the temporary seat of the Grand Prior of Germany, the top Hospitaller official in the German kingdom. From 1505, Heitersheim was the permanent seat of the grand priory. In 1548, as a reward for the knights' service in the wars against the Turks, Emperor Charles V granted it princely rank and admitted it to the Imperial Diet "with seat and vote" (mit Sitz und Stimme). The head of the Hospitallers in Germany thus held the rank of Prince-Prior (Fürstprior). A contemporary Dutch document refers to "the Master and Grand Prior of Germany, being a worldly ruler and a Prince of the Holy Empire, as also [formerly] of Rhodes and, now, of Malta", comparing the prior's Landeshoheit (territorial supremacy)

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