Favours and welfare

In addition to the privileges for institutions, the royal charter system also covered favours to natural persons. The special prerogatives of the king and emperor included the power of disposal over imperial fiefs that had become vacant, i.e. over rights and goods that formally belonged to the empire but were transferred for an unlimited period as heritable and even alienable property to mostly noble or ecclesiastical recipients and only reverted to the empire when the owner died without heirs. Medieval feudal law is the subject of current research after older ideas about a comprehensive feudal system proved untenable. The royally certified reassignment of a fief was undoubtedly a special favour, but it was also based on a certain routine. Ludwig the Bavarian (born 1282/86, ruled 1314-1347) also entered into special obligations for the benefit of deserving people at his court and their family members. Since there was no legal regulation for royal welfare, individual agreements were required, the documentation of which gave the beneficiaries legal security.

Thomas Krüger