Equal imperial city

The administrative status of some Swabian cities in the late phase of the Holy Roman Empire (1648–1806) is referred to as a parity imperial city . Half of the approximately fifty former imperial cities are in southwest Germany . Many of them have been or are confessionally mixed since the Reformation . In the Peace of Westphalia at the end of the Thirty Years War , denominational parity was set for (only) four imperial cities:

• augsburg
• Biberach an der Riss
• Ravensburg
• Dinkelsbühl

In addition, there was, with certain restrictions, denominational parity in the two imperial cities

• Leutkirch and
• Kaufbeuren .

The parity ran through all administrative areas of these city republics. Not only did the city council have equal numbers of Catholics and Protestants , but also every administrative office and every municipal committee had to exist twice, each for a Catholic and a Protestant. Other forms of power sharing were alternating rule by both religious groups.

With the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss 1803 and the Reichsolution 1806 came the end of the parity imperial cities . Augsburg, Dinkelsbühl and Kaufbeuren have belonged to Bavaria since then, while Biberach belonged to Württemberg and, since 1810, Ravensburg and Leutkirch, which were initially Bavarian.

Both denominations usually had their own churches and cemeteries. In Biberach the parish church has been used as a simultaneous church since the Reformation , while there are separate cemeteries there to this day . Conversely, after the Reformation, Ravensburg continued to have a common cemetery, but separate churches: the nave of the Carmelite monastery (built with donations and foundations from the patricians who have now become predominantly Protestant) served as the Protestant church , while the choir continued to be used as a Protestant church was used by the monks.

There was a comparable parity in the Swiss canton of Glarus , which from the 2nd Glarus Treaty of 1564 until the founding of the Helvetic Republic had a common parish and a separate parish for Reformed and Catholics.

literature

• Paul Warmbrunn: Two denominations in one city. The coexistence of Catholics and Protestants in the equal imperial cities of Augsburg, Biberach, Ravensburg and Dinkelsbühl from 1548 to 1648. Steiner, Wiesbaden 1983, ISBN 3-515-03782-9 (also dissertation, University of Freiburg im Breisgau, 1981/82).
• Andreas Schmauder (Ed.): Cock and Cross. 450 years of parity in Ravensburg (=  Historic City of Ravensburg. Volume 4). UVK, Konstanz 2005, ISBN 3-89669-565-7 .
• Andrea Riotte: This so often sighed parity. Biberach 1649-1825: Politics - Denomination - Everyday life. Stuttgart 2017, ISBN 978-3-17-033577-6 .
• See also the general literature on city history in the articles on the individual imperial cities.