Free Imperial Cities, in the German empire, were those cities which owed allegiance to none but the emperor, which exercised suzerain rights within their own territories, and had the right of sitting and voting in the imperial diet. At first free cities were distinguished from imperial cities, the difference consisting in the fact that the former paid no feudal dues to the emperor, whereas the latter did. But from the 13th century there was practically no distinction, all towns which formed an integral part of the imperial polity of states being called free imperial cities. These cities, which had not a uniform municipal organisation, some being governed on democratic, others on aristocratic principles, were generally ruled by one or two imperial officers, called Reichsvogt, Schultheiss, or Burggraf. The peculiar privileges attaching to these cities were acquired in different ways—by creation of the emperor, by purchasing freedom from the minor prince or lord to whom they owed allegiance, by the dying out of the family of the territorial superior, or by force of arms. And they were lost by the corresponding opposite means: some towns were seized by the neighbouring lords, others passed by conquest out of the empire altogether, others voluntarily sold their privileges of freedom, others again were deprived of their position by the emperor as punishment for contumacy. The creation of free imperial cities was generally encouraged by the emperors, who found in them a useful means of checkmating the ambitions of the petty princes. But between the 13th and 15th centuries the majority of them succeeded in securing the office of Reichsvogt,
Schultheiss, or Burggraf for their own citizens. In 1474 the free imperial cities formed two groups in the diet, the Rhenish and the Swabian; and they were formally constituted the third college of the diet after the Peace of Westphalia (1648). In February 1803 all the free imperial towns of Germany, except Hamburg, Lübeck, Bremen, Augsburg, Nuremberg, and Frankfort-on-Main, lost their privileges; and of these Augsburg, Nuremberg, and Frankfort ceased to be free imperial cities in 1806. In 1815, however, the three Hanse towns, together with Frankfort, were admitted into the German Confederation as free towns. But by the incorporation of Frankfort with Prussia in 1866 there were left but three free cities in Germany—Lübeck, Bremen, and Hamburg.