families independent of legal obligations of a secondary nature, and they were not subordinated to any other families or dynasties, apart from the German King or Holy Roman Emperor. In contrast, the ministeriales, meaning originally "servitors" or "agents", were unfree nobles, however trained knights who made up a large majority of what could be described as the German knighthood during that time. These people were raised up from serfdom to be placed in positions of power and responsibility in the service of lords, counts or bishops. From about 1200 they gradually accumulated power and fiefs, at some point more than the Edelfrei knights. Poorer Edelfrei knights passed into ministerialis service, primarily to be granted new administrative positions and fiefs. The powerful overlords, mostly edelfrei themselves, had no interest in raising any competition to their power by sharing it with their peers, rather attempting to subject these by making them their vassals. In the 14th century, the edelfrei and ministerialis classes finally mixed and intermarried. Those ministeriales who directly served the German king or emperor (the "ministeriales of the Empire" or Reichsministerialen) often accumulated large imperial fiefs, later sometimes enabling them to rise to comital or princely rank. Ministeriales mostly rose by elevation to the knightly status. Knightings were usually granted to squires having bravely fought as armored horsemen in a battle, yet sometimes also to simple men-at-arms. A ministeriales family however was considered a "knightly family" only after three subsequent generations of knights (or at least of leading a "knightly way of life", including equal marriage). Since it is a coincidence from what period of time documents have been received or not, the initially more strict definition, as described in Der Große Brockhaus in 1928 (vol. 1, s.v. "Adel"), which required an attestation prior to the year 1350 to establish status, has been extended to the year 1400 because even the knightly families documented as dating from the Late Middle Ages (between about 1350 and 1400) are likely to have had already at least a century of possessing that status. Many have in fact risen to noble or knightly status already before 1300. is also closely connected with the system of medieval fiefs, granted by an overlord to a vassal who held it in fealty (or "in fee") in return for a form of feudal allegiance and service, usually given by the personal ceremonies of homage and fealty. Therefore feudal