Distinction Between Free Imperial Cities and Other Cities
Of the approximately 4000 urban settlements of the Empire - with over nine-tenth having fewer than 1000 inhabitants around 1600 - fewer than 200 enjoyed the status of Free Imperial City during the late Middle Ages, in some cases only for a few decades. The military tax register (Reichsmatrikel) of 1521 listed 85, a figure that was down to 65 by the time of the Peace of Augsburg in 1555. From the Peace of Westphalia of 1648 to 1803, their number oscillated at around 50.
Unlike the Free Imperial Cities, the second category of towns and cities - the territorial cities - were subject to a lay or ecclesiastical lord, and while many of them enjoyed self-rule to varying degrees, this was a precarious privilege which might be curtailed or abolished according to the will of the lord.
Reflecting the extraordinary complex constitutional set-up of the Holy Roman Empire, a third category, composed of semi-autonomous cities that belonged to neither of those two types, is distinguished by some historians. They were cities whose size and economic strength was sufficient to sustain a substantial independence from surrounding territorial lords for a considerable long time, even though no formal right to independence existed. Those cities were typically located in small territories where the ruler was weak. They were nevertheless the exception among the multitude of territorial towns and cities. Cities of both latter categories normally had representation in territorial diets (Landtage), but not in the Reichstag.
Read more about this topic: Free Imperial City
Famous quotes containing the words distinction between, distinction, free, imperial and/or cities:
“What! Would you make no distinction between hypocrisy and devotion? Would you give them the same names, and respect the mask as you do the face? Would you equate artifice and sincerity? Confound appearance with truth? Regard the phantom as the very person? Value counterfeit as cash?”
—Molière [Jean Baptiste Poquelin] (1622–1673)
“We mustn’t be stiff and stand-off, you know. We must be thoroughly democratic, and patronize everybody without distinction of class.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“We must be free or die, who speak the tongue
That Shakespeare spake; the faith and morals hold
Which Milton held.”
—William Wordsworth (1770–1850)
“If you are ambitious of climbing up to the difficult, and in a manner inaccessible, summit of the Temple of Fame, your surest way is to leave on one hand the narrow path of Poetry, and follow the narrower track of Knight-Errantry, which in a trice may raise you to an imperial throne.”
—Miguel De Cervantes (1547–1616)
“How far men go for the material of their houses! The inhabitants of the most civilized cities, in all ages, send into far, primitive forests, beyond the bounds of their civilization, where the moose and bear and savage dwell, for their pine boards for ordinary use. And, on the other hand, the savage soon receives from cities iron arrow-points, hatchets, and guns, to point his savageness with.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)