The , the families entitled to the Inner Council, represented the actual center of power in Nuremberg until the French occupation in 1806.
Patricians had also emerged in other German imperial cities as well as in upper Italian cities since the 11th century from former local nobility or local ministeriality. They called themselves " Geschlechter", only later the term patricius appears in Latin documents. From about the middle of the 14th century, economic activities, long-distance trade, mining enterprises and financial transactions of the Nuremberg patricians caused the city and country nobility to increasingly distance themselves from each other. Nevertheless, the Nuremberg dynasties remained capable of holding feuds and bore knightly coats of arms.
From 1256 until the French occupation and subsequent annexation by the Kingdom of Bavaria on September 15, 1806, Nuremberg was governed by the Council, although until 1427 many powers in the city and surrounding area were still held by the Burgraves of Nuremberg, who were appointed from 1105. After the purchase of the burgrave's office in 1427, the council held sole rule in the city and the immediate surrounding area.
The Council was divided into the Inner Council and the Great Council. The Inner Council represented the actual center of power and the holder of sovereignty. In addition to only eight representatives of the trades, only the "councilable" families were represented in it, thus forming the patriciate of the city. The imperial city of Nuremberg itself - like other free and imperial cities or the Italian city-states - referred to itself as a "republic" (res publica). In addition to the reference to the Roman model, the term here also signifies the contrast to the otherwise customary monarchical forms of government. "Republic" must not be equated with "democracy," however. As a bourgeois republic with an aristocratic constitutional order (also referred to by historians as an "aristocratic republic"), however, Nuremberg did not possess feudal rule based on the feudal system, despite such state organization, but formed an early modern civil society .
History
Origin
The families entitled to the council, who - albeit only since the Renaissance - also called themselves patricians after the Roman model, were the politically, economically, and socially leading families of the imperial city. Most of them came from the unfree ministry. After the fall of the Hohenstaufen Empire around 1250, families of the imperial ministers from the surrounding area, such as the Pfinzing, Stromer, Haller, or from the imperial estate (Terra Imperii) they had previously managed, moved into the city, while the former governors of the Hohenstaufen emperors, the burgraves of Nuremberg from the House of Hohenzollern, appropriated large territories in the area around Nuremberg. However, tensions soon arose between the Council of the Free Imperial City and the Burgraves, who moved their residence from the to the Cadolzburg as early as 1260. After the Burggrafenburg was destroyed by Duke Ludwig VII of Bavaria-Ingolstadt in 1420, the Hohenzollern sold the castle, the surrounding area, and the burgrave office to the city council in 1427, thus finally leaving Nuremberg. From then on, the city was made directly imperial by the Inner Council, which was recruited from the patrician families ruled. The two margraviates Brandenburg-Ansbach and Brandenburg-Kulmbach were formed from the territories of the Hohenzollern. In the First and Second Margrave Wars, they then tried in vain to regain their influence over the wealthy imperial city.
Council rule
The council, first mentioned in 1256, formed the first rules around 1285, which were codified as customary law around the year 1320. The merchant families who had become rich through their trade were represented in the city council and initially appeared as "families". The number of members and eligible families changed over the centuries. In later times, in particular, some craftsmen's guilds had a certain say in the matter, but never (unlike in cities under Magdeburg or Luebian law, for example ) became part of the circle of actual councilors. In contrast to the Cologne Richerzeche, for example, the guild of rich patricians, which was disempowered by the craftsmen's guilds as early as 1396, the Nuremberg city-state remained the prime example of a patrician city-republic until the end of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806. Similar to the Republic of Venice, this was under the oligarchical rule of a closed circle of patrician families and, like there, the constitution was determined by a finely tuned balance of power between the influential "lines" and the individual government organs (see: Constitution of the Republic of Venice ). The principle of the careful balancing of power and mutual control of the various bodies was always observed.
No family was allowed to have more than two members in the council (senators), membership was mostly lifelong, but the councilors were formally re-elected every year in May, later on, the first Tuesday after Easter. The election process was complicated, but the result was always voted on beforehand. Two consuls presided over the council, called "elder" and "junior mayors"; unlike the ancient Roman consulate, these rotated not annually, but monthly and were purely honorary positions. The senior mayor, however, was the formal head of the city (duumvir primarius) and appeared as such on imperial visits, for example. The "older mayors" again became a Septemvirale elected, seven people who formed the actual government of the city and were also called the College of Elderly Men. From their midst, the three captains were appointed: the “Foremost Losunger ” (the highest public office in the imperial city that had control over the finances) and his deputy, the younger Losunger. They were entrusted with the city treasury and the maintenance of the seals and letters of freedom. They were no longer allowed to trade or trade. The third was the "captain" to which the war and construction industries were subordinate. If the foremost Losunger died, the younger Losunger followed him and the captain became the younger Losunger. The more ceremonial office of the " Reichsschultheiss " represented the emperor in the city and formed the top of the judiciary. Other honorary posts were the “Crown Guardian and Custodian of Imperial Regalia ” and the “Caretaker of the Twelve Brothers House Foundations ”.
Since the beginning of the 14th century, the “Council of the Named” (or “Great Council”) was added to the actual “Council”. This included the gentlemen "named" (ie appointed) by the councilors, mostly influential representatives of the craft guilds or traders. The council of the named met only when the "Inner Council" was convened. The "named" were not considered to be "Ratsfähig" (for the "Inner Council"), so they were not considered part of the (patrician) city regiment. However, around the patrician families, there was another circle of respected trading families who were referred to as "Erbare". Their relatives were “capable of judging”, so they could preside over a court under the authority of the Council. The patrician families “Ratsfähig” also entered into marriages with the “heritable” families, and later some families from their circle were accepted into the “inner council” and thus into the patriciate as successors for extinct generations.
The city temporarily had up to eleven administrative offices in the surrounding area, through which it administered its immediate imperial territory. Mostly patricians officiated as carers at the nursing castles. They were subordinate to one of the Septemviri, who was appointed "Prefect of the Provinces". In addition, around 40 families and a number of council institutions, including above all the Heilig-Geist-Spital and, after the Reformation, the “Nuremberg Landalmosen”, owned extensive manors and subjects subject to tax in the Nuremberg area.
City Adel
In the beginning, there were no big differences between the landed gentry and the city gentry. So the oldest families still built residential towers in the city, as the ministerials did in the country. Of the 65 “ dynasty towers ” that existed in Nuremberg around 1430, only the Nassau house is still preserved today, unlike in Regensburg, for example, where there are even more examples. But since about the middle of the 14th century, the paths diverged. As a rule, the new city nobility achieved great wealth through trade, especially with spices and cloths, with trade connections reaching as far as Cologne and Flanders, Lyon, Bologna, and Venice, also to Bohemia, Austria, and Hungary, furthermore through profitable investments in mining, especially in the Upper Palatinate, Thuringia, and Tyrol, as well as through financial transactions. The wealth of the patriciate gradually enabled him to found an urban aristocracy. Patricians were merchants, but they devoted themselves - in contrast to those who sold "by yard, pound and lot " - exclusively to wholesale and long-distance trade.
The land-based noble families of the Franconian knight circle, who lived on the rather modest taxes from their manors, provided they did not hold lucrative court offices or military positions, often took credit from the rich Nuremberg patricians. In return, however, they denied their equality and thus also their ability to become a pen and tournament, since in their eyes the merchants no longer led a knightly way of life and therefore, regardless of their sometimes aristocratic origins, would have "forfeited" their class affiliation. From their proud castles, they looked half arrogantly, half disapprovingly at the “pepper sacks“ who worked in their trading posts within the city walls. These in turn fought - in league with other cities and the princes - the emerging robber barons of the impoverished landed gentry, such as the Schnapphahn Thomas von Absberg, who had several Nuremberg merchants on his conscience, in the Franconian War of 1523.
Since the aristocracy did not allow the patricians to attend the aristocratic tournaments, the patricians' sons regularly and almost demonstratively carried out so-called " journeyman's stings ", festive knightly lance stings on the large market (today the main market) to underline their rank, for the last time in the year 1561. The patriciate also began to found their own monasteries, which served them to care for younger children and as burial places, for example, the Carmelite monastery in 1287 by the Peßler family, in 1295 the Dominican monastery (Katharinenkloster) by the Neumarkter and Pfinzing, 1380 the Carthusian monastery from the merchant Marquard Mendel and in 1412 the Terziarinnenspital from the Poor Clare Abbess Katharina Pfinzing. In 1343, the patrician Konrad Groß participated in the founding of the Cistercian monastery Himmelthron in Großgründlach and in 1345 also founded the monastery Pillenreuth for the Augustinian choir women. He had already founded the Heilig-Geist-Spital in Nuremberg in 1331. The last founding of the monastery was in 1422 when the Gnadenberg Monastery was donated to the Order of the Birgit in the Upper Palatinate. Although it was not in Nuremberg's sphere of influence, it was donated by the Count Palatine von Neumarkt, albeit with the strong support of the Nuremberg patricians, especially the princes, and the city held the patronage of the monastery until the Reformation.