Urban Conflicts and the Imperial Constitution in Seventeenth-Century Germany

Abstract

German cities and towns experienced a turbulent political life in the two and a half centuries between the Reformation and the French Revolution. Many German towns, of course, escaped all political turmoil. But dozens of communities, including most of the largest cities in the Holy Roman Empire, were racked by episodes of bitter conflict, leading in some cases to the overthrow of existing regimes and the seizure of power at least temporarily by revolutionary opponents. 1 This is an aspect of German urban history which has only recently come to be fully appreciated. Earlier accounts of political conflict in the premodern German city tended to focus on the burgher struggles of the Middle Ages or the urban conflicts that accompanied the Reformation. Increasingly, however, it has come to be recognized that political conflict continued to be characteristic of German urban life right down to the end of the Holy Roman Empire. The rich tradition of local history in Germany has, of course, insured that almost all of these urban conflicts have been described in some form or other by historians. But such treatments have been highly uneven in quality and quantity. A few episodes have been thoroughly studied. Most notable among these is the Fettmilch Uprising, which took place in Frankfurt from 1612 to 1614: this episode has generated an extensive (though in some cases repetitious) literature, and in recent years it even became the subject of a popular paperback and a television drama.2 By