The interest of each was felt to be the interest of all, and the interest of all no less the interest of each.
But in many towns, outside the town population properly speaking, outside the patrician families who generally governed the Rath, outside the guilds, outside the city organization altogether, there were other bodies dwelling within the walls and forming _imperia in imperiis_.

These were the religious corporations, whose possessions were often extensive, and who, dwelling within their own walls, shut out from the rest of the town, were subject only to their own ordinances.

The quasi-religious, quasi-military Order of the Teutonic Knights (_Deutscher Orden_), founded at the time of the Crusades, was the wealthiest and largest of these corporations.

In addition to the extensive territories which it held in various parts of the empire, it had establishments in a large number of cities.

Besides this there were, of course, the Orders of the Augustinians and Carthusians, and a number of less important foundations, who had their cloisters in various towns.