Indeed, he is (2) obligated to publish in his principality and lands the regulations and laws of the Empire that were enacted properly and with a common decision of the estates, and also to ensure that the same are followed, and to punish transgressors. Especially since many imperial decrees contain a certain punishment against the authorities who fail to follow them, which, in such cases, are customarily enforced by the highest Imperial Court or the Imperial Chamber.
§ 4. With respect to the third point, namely, jurisdiction, in many lands of the Empire, those who are unwilling to content themselves with the declarations and judgments of the territorial lords and their chanceries and courts, but believe that they are unlawfully burdened by them, can and may appeal to the Imperial Chamber Court or the Imperial Court Council, and have the matter recognized there. However, several princes and estates are exempt – up to a certain sum involved in a matter or entirely – through imperial privilege and old custom, and no one is admitted to an appeal of their judgments and decisions. At the same time, however, they are all the more obligated to accord law and justice to those who appeal to them, and to adjudicate the disputed matters of their subjects, lest, in cases where they are too slow or even denied them law, the subjects must therefore submit the hearing and examination of such matters to higher places.
§ 5. Fourth, even though, as shall be explained in detail below, a territorial prince shall, in order to exercise his sovereignty and carry out his exercise of dominion, establish this or that means of coercion, and even employ and establish a military constitution in the land, this is authorized with respect to His Imperial Majesty and the Empire to the extent that he does not turn his power and force against the same, or attack and insult another prince and estate of the Empire with it, just as he may not pursue the grievances he has against one of his peers or the neighbors, who have the same rights, not with a military campaign and force, but, as is customary in the Empire, with proper law, and is thus obligated to maintain the public peace In the Empire, as much as up to him, and he is not attacked with force by someone else, a point that shall be described with multiple explanations in its proper places. [ . . . ]
Cap. IV. Of the measure of the territorial prince’s sovereignty and government, which is derived from various rights and authorizations from the estates and subjects of the land and principality
§ 1. From what we have stated above about the power of the territorial lord in general, that it is not like the arbitrary rule of the master of a house over his domestics, it can be readily inferred that the subjects of the land are not slaves, and are not beholden as property to their lord in body and possessions; instead, they are governed and maintained in obedience like freeborn men, and that, under his lawful governance, as people gathered together for the welfare of their bodies and souls, they should be legally protected and cared for by a Christian authority who is directed by the laws of God, nature, and the Empire; the following chapters will elaborate on all the most noble parts of this praiseworthy form of government in the tradition of the German principalities.
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