Cities and citizenry as factors of state formation in the Roman-German Empire of the late middle ages

Conclusions

The fundamental characteristics of older German constitutional history were not determined by the urban-bourgeois element but by that of the princely state and nobility; the King/Emperor in this respect equally was a prince. This situation appeared at a very early stage, with respect to some conditions even before the beginnings of German history in the tenth century. An average level of urbanization comparable to that in Flanders or Northern Italy, which may have created a “modern” urban atmosphere, was simply excluded in the context of the development of the Empire. Nevertheless, the urbanization process, starting mainly in the twelfth century, bringing major changes in the fields of demography, economy, and social and cultural phenomena, did have consequences with respect to the “state.” Its many effects occurred in close interaction with the leading aristocracy. This interaction stabilized the social and political aristocratic structure on the short and middle term, and only in the middle and longer term did restructuring occur. The “feudal” Empire and its princely states were for a very long period not less adequate within the European context than were other imaginable social structures.

Regional histories, however, included interesting particular cases of cities intruding in state-building processes. Normally the result was a mixture of “feudal” and urban elements. Just when one takes in consideration the many communal leagues, the conclusion must be that in most cases the “feudal” world won.

The elites playing a role in all these circumstances were not only those closely linked to the communes; persons and groups with looser contacts to particular cities often placed themselves into the service of the king or princes. When these groups formed social networks, then they adapted themselves easily to the prevailing “state” context. The main occupations in the bureaucracy, the economic life, the Church, and education existing in the eighteenth century, existed already in principle in the Middle Ages.

With respect to periodization and breaks, some time lags are to be observed in the general directions West-East and South-North. Under this remark, we can distinguish until 1800 a primary phase (from around 1250 to 1450/1470), a core phase (1450/1470 to 1650), a phase of continuation (from 1650 to after 1750) and finally a phase of transition (second half of the eighteenth century). This global situation surely can be considered to be backward in comparison to Western Europe.

When one is looking forward to bourgeois freedom in industrial society, our endeavor urges caution for all too hasty overviews of premodern history; the particular phenomena have to be placed prudently in the context of their time. In this respect, the search for a modern bourgeois alternative to the traditional constitution of the estates around 1500 tends to be anachronistic. Freedom of particular cities and the citizenry in Germany were movements within the whole of the “feudal” world, which in its turn was modified by them. As the assemblies of estates preluded to parliamentarism, the urban movement prepared the modernity in Central Europe, without being its direct and exclusive cause.