Freiherr
[3] The title Freiherr derives from the historical situation in which an owner held free (allodial) title to his land, as opposed "unmittelbar" ("unintermediated"), or held without any intermediate feudal tenure; or unlike the ordinary baron, who was originally a knight (Ritter) in vassalage to a higher lord or sovereign, unlike medieval German ministerials, who were bound to provide administrative services for a lord.
A Freiherr sometimes exercised hereditary administrative and judicial prerogatives over those resident in his barony instead of the liege lord, who might be the duke (Herzog) or count (Graf).
After the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, Reichsfreiherren did not belong to the noble hierarchy of any realm, but by a decision of the Congress of Vienna in 1815, their titles were nonetheless officially recognised.
From 1806 the then independent German monarchies, such as Bavaria, Württemberg and Lippe could create their own nobility, including Freiherren (although the Elector of Brandenburg had, as king of the originally exclusively extraterritorial Prussia even before that date, arrogated to himself the prerogative of ennoblement).
Some of the older baronial families began to use Reichsfreiherr in formal contexts to distinguish themselves from the new classes of barons created by monarchs of lesser stature than the Holy Roman Emperors, and this usage is far from obsolete.
After the First World War, the monarchies were abolished in most German-speaking areas of Europe, and the nobility lost recognition as a legal class in the newly created republics of Germany and Austria.
As dependent parts of the surnames ("nichtselbständige Namensbestandteile") they are ignored in alphabetical sorting of names, as is a possible nobiliary particle, such as von, and might or might not be used by those bearing them.
Female forms of titles have been legally accepted as a variation in the surname after 1919 by a still valid decision of the former German High Court (Reichsgericht).
Similar titles have been seen in parts of Europe that have historically been dominated by Germany (in the cultural sense): the Baltic States, Austria–Hungary, Sweden, Finland and to some extent in Denmark–Norway.
[10] From the Middle Ages onward, each head of a Swedish noble house was entitled to vote in any provincial council when held, as in the Realm's Herredag, later Riddarhuset.
[11] In the now valid Swedish Instrument of Government (1974), the possibility to create nobility is eliminated; and since the beginning of the twenty-first century, noble dignities have passed from the official sphere to the private.
In subsequent centuries, while Finland remained an autonomous grand duchy, many families were raised in rank as counts, vapaaherras, or as untitled nobles.
