Martin Schürrer

Cities between Emperor and Prince: A Third Type of City in the Early Modern Period, Considered Using the Example of Einbeck and the Saxon League of Cities. From the perspective of urban history, the early modern period was long considered a "valley of cities" - a time with only a few new foundations. However, certain types of towns only developed during this period. For the Holy Roman Empire, a distinction is made between imperial cities and country towns: the former were directly subject to the emperor, the latter to a sovereign. In northern Germany, which was ostensibly "far from the empire", a third type of city existed, which contemporaries called civitas mixta and for which historical research coined the term autonomous city, without defining it more precisely. These autonomous cities were not a remnant of the Middle Ages, but established themselves only in the 16th century. Using Einbeck and the Saxon League of Towns as examples, Philip Haas and Martin Schürrer take an in-depth look at this type of town for the first time, work out its structural features and trace lines of development. This is done with recourse to a large number of archival sources and by evaluating learned early modern journalism. By adapting established and using innovative political tools, autonomous cities were able to hold their own well into the 17th century.