Free Imperial City - Distinction Between Free Imperial Cities and Other Cities

Distinction Between Free Imperial Cities and Other Cities

Of the approximately 4000 urban settlements of the Empire - with over nine-tenth having fewer than 1000 inhabitants around 1600 - fewer than 200 enjoyed the status of Free Imperial City during the late Middle Ages, in some cases only for a few decades. The military tax register (Reichsmatrikel) of 1521 listed 85, a figure that was down to 65 by the time of the Peace of Augsburg in 1555. From the Peace of Westphalia of 1648 to 1803, their number oscillated at around 50.

Unlike the Free Imperial Cities, the second category of towns and cities - the territorial cities - were subject to a lay or ecclesiastical lord, and while many of them enjoyed self-rule to varying degrees, this was a precarious privilege which might be curtailed or abolished according to the will of the lord.

Reflecting the extraordinary complex constitutional set-up of the Holy Roman Empire, a third category, composed of semi-autonomous cities that belonged to neither of those two types, is distinguished by some historians. They were cities whose size and economic strength was sufficient to sustain a substantial independence from surrounding territorial lords for a considerable long time, even though no formal right to independence existed. Those cities were typically located in small territories where the ruler was weak. They were nevertheless the exception among the multitude of territorial towns and cities. Cities of both latter categories normally had representation in territorial diets (Landtage), but not in the Reichstag.