In the Holy Roman Empire, the collective term Free and Imperial Cities , briefly worded Free imperial city (Freie Reichsstadt, ), was used from the 15th century to denote a self-ruling city that enjoyed a certain amount of autonomy and was represented in the Imperial Diet. An imperial city held the status of Imperial immediacy, and as such, was subordinate only to the emperor, as opposed to a territorial city or town (Landstadt) which was subordinate to a territorial prince – be it an ecclesiastical lord (prince-bishop, prince-abbot) or a secular prince (duke (Herzog), margrave, count (Graf), etc.).