Territorial state

The term territorial state (German: Territorialstaat) has been used since the High Middle Ages to refer to a state, typically in the Holy Roman Empire, in which the sovereignty or 'claim to power' (Herrschaftsanspruch) of the territorial prince, extended over a specific territory and its people. The constitution of such a state is referred to as the territorial constitution (Territorialverfassung).

Unlike the old stem duchies or lordships organised as a personal union, the sovereignty of a territorial state was based on its land or territory and not on membership of a dynastic family or other personally-related rights. Until the 16th century and, in some cases, beyond that, territorial states were characterised by a certain dualism, in that the territorial lords (the princes) held power jointly with the estates or Landstände and both sides often had rights with respect to the other as well as separate institutions and administrations. This was especially true of the Holy Roman Empire, whose 300 individual territories gradually acquired territorial sovereignty.

The princely territorial state shares many characteristics with the institutional, geographically-defined state typical of the modern era.

As early as about 3,000 BC the first features of a territorial state may be recognised in the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt. The lower level princely states of the Holy Roman Empire embodied symbolically the structures and types of lordship of a territorial state.

The territorial state emerged in the 12th century as a consequence of the transfer of royal sovereign rights for a particular region to a feudal lord. The territorial state arose from the personal union state (Personenverbandsstaat) which depended not on lordship of a defined area, but on the sovereign rights of individuals. Nevertheless, the territorial state and personal union state are not mutually exclusive; both forms of government could be found in one and the same political entity.

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