English portfolio
ideological pillars of the tsarist empire -- the Russian orthodox church; though as the
Landeskirche in the Estonian and Livonian territories, the Lutheran church long maintained a
de facto predominance.
The most important organ of Baltic German local government was the Diet, consisting of all
the noble families who had been `selected' in a list of the eligible. Although jealously
guarding their privileges, the knighthoods still never became entirely closed. Between
sessions of a Diet, the legislative power of the knighthoods belonged to the Council of the
Diet.
The towns were governed by the
Town Councils, which
supplemented their ranks from
among the representatives of
merchants and lawyers. The
citizens and the inhabitants of a
town did not coincide -- most of
the population had no civic rights. The lower class mainly consisted of Estonians. While an
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