Free Imperial City - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Holy Roman Empire

The Holy Roman Empire was a realm that existed from 962 to 1806 in Central Europe.It was ruled by the Holy Roman Emperor. Its character changed during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period, when the power of the emperor gradually weakened in favour of the princes...

, a free imperial city was a city formally ruled by the emperor

Emperor

An emperor is a monarch, usually the sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial realm. Empress, the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife or a woman who rules in her own right...

only — as opposed to the majority of cities in the Empire, which were governed by one of the many princes of the Empire, such as dukes or prince-bishop

Prince-Bishop

A Prince-Bishop is a bishop who is a territorial Prince of the Church on account of one or more secular principalities, usually pre-existent titles of nobility held concurrently with their inherent clerical office...

s. Free Cities also had independent representation in the Reichstag

Reichstag (Holy Roman Empire)

The Imperial Diet was the Diet, or general assembly, of the Imperial Estates of the Holy Roman Empire.During the period of the Empire, which lasted formally until 1806, the Diet was not a parliament in today's sense; instead, it was an assembly of the various estates of the realm...

of the Holy Roman Empire.

There was distinction on paper made between Reichsstädte (Imperial Cities) and Freie Städte (free cities). Imperial Cities were those formally ruled by secular princes. As vassals of the Emperor, they paid taxes to the Emperor and had to supply troops for his military campaigns.

Free Cities were those formally ruled by a prince-bishop. They were not required to pay Imperial taxes or raise troops except during a Crusade

Crusades

The Crusades were a series of religious wars, blessed by the Pope and the Catholic Church with the main goal of restoring Christian access to the holy places in and near Jerusalem...

, and had other additional rights and privileges (which varied greatly among them). The Free Cities gained independence from their prince-bishops during the High Middle Ages

High Middle Ages

The High Middle Ages was the period of European history around the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries . The High Middle Ages were preceded by the Early Middle Ages and followed by the Late Middle Ages, which by convention end around 1500....

. Examples are Basel

Basel

Basel or Basle In the national languages of Switzerland the city is also known as Bâle , Basilea and Basilea is Switzerland's third most populous city with about 166,000 inhabitants. Located where the Swiss, French and German borders meet, Basel also has suburbs in France and Germany...

(1000), Speyer

Speyer

Speyer is a city of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany with approximately 50,000 inhabitants. Located beside the river Rhine, Speyer is 25 km south of Ludwigshafen and Mannheim. Founded by the Romans, it is one of Germany's oldest cities...

(1111), Worms

Worms, Germany

Worms is a city in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, on the Rhine River. At the end of 2004, it had 85,829 inhabitants.Established by the Celts, who called it Borbetomagus, Worms today remains embattled with the cities Trier and Cologne over the title of "Oldest City in Germany." Worms is the only...

(1184), Mainz

Mainz

Mainz under the Holy Roman Empire, and previously was a Roman fort city which commanded the west bank of the Rhine and formed part of the northernmost frontier of the Roman Empire...

(1244, revoked 1462), Regensburg

Regensburg

Regensburg is a city in Bavaria, Germany, located at the confluence of the Danube and Regen rivers, at the northernmost bend in the Danube. To the east lies the Bavarian Forest. Regensburg is the capital of the Bavarian administrative region Upper Palatinate...

(1245), Strasbourg

Strasbourg

Strasbourg is the capital and principal city of the Alsace region in eastern France and is the official seat of the European Parliament. Located close to the border with Germany, it is the capital of the Bas-Rhin département. The city and the region of Alsace are historically German-speaking,...

(1272) and Cologne

Cologne

Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...

(1288).

But over time, the difference became more and more blurred so that the "Free and Imperial Cities" were collectively known in the Diet as "Free Imperial Cities". What mattered more was the difference in wealth: rich cities, such as Lübeck

Lübeck

The Hanseatic City of Lübeck is the second-largest city in Schleswig-Holstein, in northern Germany, and one of the major ports of Germany. It was for several centuries the "capital" of the Hanseatic League and, because of its Brick Gothic architectural heritage, is listed by UNESCO as a World...

or Augsburg

Augsburg

Augsburg is a city in the south-west of Bavaria, Germany. It is a university town and home of the Regierungsbezirk Schwaben and the Bezirk Schwaben. Augsburg is an urban district and home to the institutions of the Landkreis Augsburg. It is, as of 2008, the third-largest city in Bavaria with a...

, were genuinely self-ruling enclaves within the Empire. They waged war and made peace, controlled their own trade and permitted little interference from outside. In the later Middle Ages, many Free Cities formed Städtebünde (city leagues), such as the Hanseatic League

Hanseatic League

The Hanseatic League was an economic alliance of trading cities and their merchant guilds that dominated trade along the coast of Northern Europe...

. (Some members of these alliances were never Free Cities and joined with the permission of their territorial rulers.)

The cities gained (and sometimes lost) their freedom through the vicissitudes of medieval power politics. Some favored cities gained a charter by gift. Others purchased one from a prince in need of cash. Some won it by force of arms, others took it during times of chaos. Some cities became free through the extinction of dominant families, like the Hohenstaufen

Hohenstaufen

The House of Hohenstaufen was a dynasty of German kings in the High Middle Ages, lasting from 1138 to 1254. Three of these kings were also crowned Holy Roman Emperor. In 1194 the Hohenstaufens also became Kings of Sicily...

. Free Cities also lost their privileges. Some voluntarily placed themselves under the protection of a territorial magnate. Some, like Donauwörth

Donauwörth

Donauwörth is a city in the German State of Bavaria , in the region of Swabia . It is said to have been founded by two fisherman where the Danube and Wörnitz rivers meet...

in 1607, were stripped of their privileges by the Emperor for genuine or trumped-up reasons. Some were sold by the Emperor, such as Mühlhausen

Mühlhausen

Mühlhausen is a city in the federal state of Thuringia, Germany. It is the capital of the Unstrut-Hainich district, and lies along the river Unstrut. Mühlhausen had c. 37,000 inhabitants in 2006.-History:...

, Duisburg

Duisburg

- History :A legend recorded by Johannes Aventinus holds that Duisburg, was built by the eponymous Tuisto, mythical progenitor of Germans, ca. 2395 BC...

, and Offenburg

Offenburg

Offenburg is a city located in the state of Baden-Württemberg, Germany. With about 60,000 inhabitants, it is the largest city and the capital of the Ortenaukreis.Offenburg also houses University of Applied Sciences Offenburg...

.

Free and Imperial cities were not officially admitted as a Reichsstand to the Reichstag
Reichstag (Holy Roman Empire)
The Imperial Diet was the Diet, or general assembly, of the Imperial Estates of the Holy Roman Empire.During the period of the Empire, which lasted formally until 1806, the Diet was not a parliament in today's sense; instead, it was an assembly of the various estates of the realm...

until 1489, and even then their votes were usually considered only advisory compared to the Benches of the Kurfürsten
Prince-elector
The Prince-electors of the Holy Roman Empire were the members of the electoral college of the Holy Roman Empire, having the function of electing the Roman king or, from the middle of the 16th century onwards, directly the Holy Roman Emperor.The heir-apparent to a prince-elector was known as an...

(Electors) and the Princes. The leagues of cities divided themselves into two groups, or benches, in the Imperial Diet

Diet (assembly)

In politics, a diet is a formal deliberative assembly. The term is mainly used historically for the Imperial Diet, the general assembly of the Imperial Estates of the Holy Roman Empire, and for the legislative bodies of certain countries.-Etymology:...

, the Rhenish Bench and the Swabia

Swabia

Swabia is a cultural, historic and linguistic region in southwestern Germany.-Geography:Like many cultural regions of Europe, Swabia's borders are not clearly defined...

n Bench. By the time of the Peace of Westphalia

Peace of Westphalia

The Peace of Westphalia was a series of peace treaties signed between May and October of 1648 in Osnabrück and Münster. These treaties ended the Thirty Years' War in the Holy Roman Empire, and the Eighty Years' War between Spain and the Dutch Republic, with Spain formally recognizing the...

(1648), the cities constituted a formal third "college" in the Diet. The most powerful Free Cities included Augsburg

Augsburg

, Bremen

Bremen (state)

The Free Hanseatic City of Bremen is the smallest of Germany's 16 states. A more informal name, but used in some official contexts, is Land Bremen .-Geography:...

, Cologne

Cologne

, Frankfurt

Free City of Frankfurt

For almost five centuries, the German city of Frankfurt am Main was a city-state within two major Germanic states:*The Holy Roman Empire as the Free Imperial City of Frankfurt...

, Hamburg

Hamburg

-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...

, Lübeck

Lübeck

, and Nuremberg

Nuremberg

Nuremberg[p] is a city in the German state of Bavaria, in the administrative region of Middle Franconia. Situated on the Pegnitz river and the Rhine–Main–Danube Canal, it is located about north of Munich and is Franconia's largest city. The population is 505,664...

.

The number of Free Cities varied greatly over the centuries, as did their geographic distribution. In general, there were more Free Cities in areas where there were many small domains than in areas where individual princes held large territories. The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica mentions a list drawn up in 1422 with 75 free cities, and another drawn up in 1521 with 84. Territorial consolidation gradually shrank the number to the 51 cities present at the 1792 Reichstag towards the end of the Empire. Most were in the southwest and Franconia

Franconia

Franconia is a region of Germany comprising the northern parts of the modern state of Bavaria, a small part of southern Thuringia, and a region in northeastern Baden-Württemberg called Tauberfranken...

, some in the north and west, none in the east. Some were former members of the Hanseatic League.

In the 16th and 17th century, a number of Free Cities were separated from the Empire due to external territorial change. Henry II of France

Henry II of France

Henry II was King of France from 31 March 1547 until his death in 1559.-Early years:Henry was born in the royal Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, near Paris, the son of Francis I and Claude, Duchess of Brittany .His father was captured at the Battle of Pavia in 1525 by his sworn enemy,...

seized the free cities connected to the Three Bishoprics

Three Bishoprics

The Three Bishoprics constituted a province of pre-Revolutionary France consisting of the prince-bishoprics of Verdun, Metz, and Toul within the Lorraine region....

of Metz

Metz

Metz is a city in the northeast of France located at the confluence of the Moselle and the Seille rivers.Metz is the capital of the Lorraine region and prefecture of the Moselle department. Located near the tripoint along the junction of France, Germany, and Luxembourg, Metz forms a central place...

, Verdun

Verdun

Verdun is a city in the Meuse department in Lorraine in north-eastern France. It is a sub-prefecture of the department.Verdun is the biggest city in Meuse, although the capital of the department is the slightly smaller city of Bar-le-Duc.- History :...

and Toul

Toul

Toul is a commune in the Meurthe-et-Moselle department in north-eastern France.It is a sub-prefecture of the department.-Geography:Toul is located between Commercy and Nancy, and situated between the Moselle River and the Canal de la Marne au Rhin....

. Similarly, Louis XIV of France

Louis XIV of France

Louis XIV , known as Louis the Great or the Sun King , was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre. His reign, from 1643 to his death in 1715, began at the age of four and lasted seventy-two years, three months, and eighteen days...

seized many cities based on claims produced by his Chambers of Reunion

Chambers of Reunion

The Chambers of Reunion were French courts established by King Louis XIV in the early 1680s. The purpose of these courts was to increase French territory. Louis had been expanding the borders of France in a series of wars. Territory was gained in the Treaty of Nijmegen in 1679 and the Treaty of...

. That way, Strasbourg

Strasbourg

and the ten cities of the Décapole

Décapole

The Décapole was an alliance formed in 1354 by ten Imperial cities of the Holy Roman Empire in the Alsace region to maintain their rights, it was disbanded in 1679....

were annexed. Also, when the Old Swiss Confederacy

Old Swiss Confederacy

The Old Swiss Confederacy was the precursor of modern-day Switzerland....

gained its independence from the Empire in 1648, the Swiss Imperial Cities of Basel

Basel

, Bern, Lucerne

Lucerne

Lucerne is a city in north-central Switzerland, in the German-speaking portion of that country. Lucerne is the capital of the Canton of Lucerne and the capital of the district of the same name. With a population of about 76,200 people, Lucerne is the most populous city in Central Switzerland, and...

, St. Gallen

St. Gallen

St. Gallen is the capital of the canton of St. Gallen in Switzerland. It evolved from the hermitage of Saint Gall, founded in the 7th century. Today, it is a large urban agglomeration and represents the center of eastern Switzerland. The town mainly relies on the service sector for its economic...

, Schaffhausen

Schaffhausen

Schaffhausen is a city in northern Switzerland and the capital of the canton of the same name; it has an estimated population of 34,587 ....

, Solothurn

Solothurn

The city of Solothurn is the capital of the Canton of Solothurn in Switzerland. The city also comprises the only municipality of the district of the same name.-Pre-roman settlement:...

, and Zürich

Zürich

Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...

left the Empire as cantons of the confederacy.

With the rise of Revolutionary France in Europe, this trend accelerated enormously. First between 1789 and 1792 the areas west of the Rhine were annexed by the revolutionary armies ending the long tradition of free cities as diverse as Cologne

Cologne

, Aachen

Aachen

Aachen has historically been a spa town in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Aachen was a favoured residence of Charlemagne, and the place of coronation of the Kings of Germany. Geographically, Aachen is the westernmost town of Germany, located along its borders with Belgium and the Netherlands, ...

, Düren

Düren

Düren is a town in North Rhine-Westphalia, capital of Düren district. It is located between Aachen and Cologne on the river Rur.-Roman era:Celts inhabited Düren's area before the Romans. They called their small settlement Durum . After the Celts other Germanic tribes settled this area...

, Speyer

Speyer

and Worms

Worms, Germany

. Then, the Napoleonic Wars

Napoleonic Wars

The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...

led to the reorganization of the Empire in 1803 (see German Mediatisation

German Mediatisation

The German Mediatisation was the series of mediatisations and secularisations that occurred in Germany between 1795 and 1814, during the latter part of the era of the French Revolution and then the Napoleonic Era....

), where all of the free cities but six — the Hanseatic cities of Hamburg

Hamburg

, Bremen

Bremen (state)

The Free Hanseatic City of Bremen is the smallest of Germany's 16 states. A more informal name, but used in some official contexts, is Land Bremen .-Geography:...

, and Lübeck

Lübeck

, and the cities of Frankfurt

Frankfurt

Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...

, Augsburg

Augsburg

, and Nuremberg

Nuremberg

— were eliminated. Finally, Napoléon dissolved the Empire in 1806. By 1811, all of the free cities had been eliminated — Augsburg and Nuremberg had been annexed by Bavaria

Bavaria

Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...

, Frankfurt had become the center of the Grand Duchy of Frankfurt

Grand Duchy of Frankfurt

The Grand Duchy of Frankfurt was a German satellite state of Napoleonic creation. It came into existence in 1810 through the combination of the former territories of the Archbishops of Mainz along with the Free Imperial City of Frankfurt itself....

, a Napoleonic puppet state, and the three Hanseatic cities had been directly annexed by France as part of its effort to enforce the Continental Blockade

Continental System

The Continental System or Continental Blockade was the foreign policy of Napoleon I of France in his struggle against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland during the Napoleonic Wars. It was a large-scale embargo against British trade, which began on November 21, 1806...

against Britain. Hamburg and Lübeck with surrounding territories formed the département Bouches-de-l'Elbe

Bouches-de-l'Elbe

Bouches-de-l'Elbe is the name of a département of the First French Empire in present Germany that survived three years. It is named after the mouth of the river Elbe...

, and Bremen the Bouches-du-Weser

Bouches-du-Weser

Bouches-du-Weser is the name of a département of the First French Empire in present Germany. It is named after the mouth of the river Weser. It was formed in 1811, when the region was annexed by France...

.

When the German Confederation

German Confederation

The German Confederation was the loose association of Central European states created by the Congress of Vienna in 1815 to coordinate the economies of separate German-speaking countries. It acted as a buffer between the powerful states of Austria and Prussia...

was established in 1815, Hamburg, Lübeck, Bremen and Frankfurt were once again made free cities. Frankfurt was annexed by Prussia

Prussia

Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...

in consequence of the part it took in the Austro-Prussian War

Austro-Prussian War

The Austro-Prussian War was a war fought in 1866 between the German Confederation under the leadership of the Austrian Empire and its German allies on one side and the Kingdom of Prussia with its German allies and Italy on the...

of 1866. The three Hanseatic cities remained as constituent states of the new German Empire

German Empire

The German Empire refers to Germany during the "Second Reich" period from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.The German...

, and retained this role in the Weimar Republic

Weimar Republic

The Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government...

and into the Third Reich, although under Hitler

Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...

this status was purely notional. Due to Hitler's distaste for Lübeck and the need to compensate Prussia

Prussia

for its territorial losses under the Greater Hamburg Act, it was annexed to the latter in 1937. In the Federal Republic of Germany which was established after the war, Bremen and Hamburg became constituent states (Länder
States of Germany
Germany is made up of sixteen which are partly sovereign constituent states of the Federal Republic of Germany. Land literally translates as "country", and constitutionally speaking, they are constituent countries...

), a status which they retain to the present day. Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

, which had never been a free city in its history, also received the status of a state after the war due to its status in divided post-war Germany.

See also