From the Middle Ages, a usually ruled a territory known as a (county). In the Holy Roman Empire, many Imperial counts () retained near-sovereign authority in their lands until the Congress of Vienna subordinated them to larger, neighboring monarchs through the German mediatisation process of 1815, preserving their precedence, allocating familial representation in local legislatures, some jurisdictional immunities and the prestigious privilege of . In regions of Europe where nobles did not actually exercise "Landeshoheit" over the populace, the long retained specific feudal privileges over the land and in the villages in his county, such as rights to peasant service, to periodic fees for use of common infrastructure such as timber, mills, wells and pastures.