City Day (historical)
In the 15th and 16th centuries, the City Council was an important institution of the Free and Imperial Cities in the Holy Roman Empire and in other areas where German law was applied without belonging to the Empire, for example in the Teutonic Order .
background
In contrast to the less powerful imperial counts and imperial knights, the imperial cities not only formed their own Reichstag curia at the Reichstag , divided into Swabian and Rhineland , but also developed another empire-wide institution, which emerged from 1471, due to their special position with the city council. The emergence of this communicative platform was at the same time the expression of a political consolidation process around 1500 and it was decisive for the political positioning of the municipalities in the Reich.
purpose
The city council represented a relatively loose association of all free and imperial cities, in which they agreed with each other and balanced interests. The meetings were called as needed and took place in different cities of the empire, sometimes at the same time as a diet. Often the behavior of the cities was coordinated with one another in the run-up to a Reichstag. The intensive exchange between the imperial cities was a major reason why the vast majority adopted the Reformation and thus had particular influence on its spread.
development
The City Council soon developed into the decisive center of all urban activities in the empire, which reached the height of its political importance in the first half of the 16th century. At the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, the city council, as the "city curia" of the Reichstag de jure, was granted the long controversial "votum decisivum". With the establishment of the perpetual Reichstag in Regensburg from 1653/54, at which the cities were increasingly represented by Regensburg citizens, the city council became functionless.
Individual evidence
- ↑ http://www.historicum.net/themen/reformation/reformation-politikgeschicht/das-reich-rahmenbedingungen/1g-reichsstaedte/ September 18, 2009
- ↑ Helmut Neuhaus , The Empire in the Early Modern Age . (= Encyclopedia of German History. Volume 42). Oldenbourg, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-486-56729-2 .