Die Stadt der Ritter

Knights and city - this combination, which is still unusual in German research, was a distinctive feature of late medieval Cologne. In the late Middle Ages, an elite established itself in the metropolis on the Rhine, which developed an emphatically chivalric habitus. A much larger number of Cologne citizens than previously known were knighted, travelled on horseback to the battlefields of Europe or acquired castles and rights of dominion in the countryside. This book examines the history of these knightly citizens, reporting on their rise and fall, their transformations and their afterlife. Chivalric Cologne is closely linked to the rule of the so-called dynasties in the 13th and 14th centuries. Their fall in 1396 brought new families to power, who in turn reacted to the narratives and habitus forms established in the city and established new forms of rule. With a comparative view of the bourgeoisie, chivalry and warfare, cultural and social-historical observations are combined with urban and military-historical perspectives. For the period from the 13th to the early 16th century, a new picture emerges of a widely networked urban elite that was more closely integrated into the world of the landed gentry than previously assumed.