Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 11.djvu/199

 NUREMBERG

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NUREMBERG

The population increased when Henry IV transferred (1062) from Ftirth to Nuremberg the right to hold a fair and to coin money. The cult of its patron St. Sebald, also helped its development. In times of war the emperors often found refuge in the town, for which Henry V granted it freedom from custom duties (1112). King Lothair (1112-1137) claimed Nuremberg as part of his empire, while the Hohen- staufen brothers, Conrad and Frederick, claimed it as part of their inheritance under the Salic law. In 1130 the city surrendered to the emperor and the Guelph Henry. The latter possessed it until 1138, when it reverted to the empire. Conrad III liked to visit the flourishing city, and made it an asylum for the then persecuted .Jews. Several diets took place in Nuremberg under Frederick Barbarossa, who built a splendid new imperial castle adjoining the old castle of the burggraves (li urggrafen). From the end of the eleventh century the city was independent of the burg- graves, who, in the early times, in their capacity as im- perial officials, exercised jurisdiction in all judicial and military matters and appropriated two-thirds of all moneys collected in criminal and civil cases. When the burggraves (at first descendants of the house of Raabs in Lower Austria, and, when it became extinct in 1190, the house of Zollern) en- deavoured to extend their private posses- sions at the expense of the empire, the emperors of the twelfth century took over the administra- tion of the imperial possessions belong- ing to the burg, and installed a castellan or overseer in the imperial castle. This castellan not only administered the im- perial lands sur- rounding Nurem- berg, but levied taxes

and constitutetl the _ v/Aon-t uu

highest judicial court in matters relating to poaching and forestry; he also was the appointed protector of the various ecclesiastical establishments, churches, and monasteries, even of the Bishopric of Bamberg. The privileges of this castellanship were transferred to the city during the last years of the fourteenth, and the first years of the fifteenth centuries. The strained relations between the burggraves and the castellan finally broke into out open enmity, which greatly in- fluenced the history of the city.

In 1219 Nuremberg became a free imperial city, when Frederick II presented it with a most important charter, freeing it from all authority excepting that of the emperor himself. The administration was en- trusted to a council, presided over, since the middle of the thirteenth century, by the Reichsschultheiss. The "Schoff'enkollegium", who assisted this oflicial in his judicial work, also sat in the council. The council be- came more and more independent, an<l in 1320 was invested by Louis the Bavarian with supreme juris- diction. This conflicted with the rights (pf the Schul- theios (usually a knight), whose appoint I uent, however, rested with the council after 1396. Thisaccunuilation of rights and privileges made the power of the council eqtial to that of the sfivereign or territorial lords, while the acquisition of the imperial forest near Nurem- berg had furnished a basis for future development. Until the middle of the thirteenth century, the Kleine

(little) or reigning council consisted of thirteen magis- trates and thirteen councillors; towards the end of the century were added eight members of the practically unimportant Grnsse (great) council, and, since 1370, eight representatives of the artisans' associations. The members of the council were chosen by the people usually from the wealthier class; this custom led to the establishment of a circle of "eligibles", to which the artisan class was strongly opposed as being politically an illegal element. With the increasing importance of handicraft a spirit of independence developed among the artisans, and they determined to have a voice in the government of the city. In 1349 the members of the trade unions unsuccessfully rebelled against the patricians. Their unions were then dis- solved, and the oligarchic element remained in power while Nuremberg was a free city.

Ecclesiastically speaking, Nuremberg belonged first to the Bishopric of Eichstatt, and from 101.5 to that of Bamberg. In place of the oldest chapel in Nurem- berg, the Peterskapellc, a church was consecrated in 1070 to St. Sebaldus; this was replaced by a new edi- fice in the thirteenth century. The second church in importance was the Lorcnzkirche, built about 1278. There also arose the Gothic St. Jacob's Church (twelfth century), which was trans- ferred to the Teu- tonic Knights in 1209; the Scots Ab- bey (1 140); the mon- asteries and chapels of the Franciscans, 1227 (thirteenth cen- turv), the Augustin- ians (1218); the Do- minicans (1248); the Carmelites (1255); the Carthusians (1382); the Order of Mary ISlagda,lene (Riiiiriiiiii'h) incor- l>or;i I e<l with the

P •Cliires in 1279,

and the cloister of St. Nuremberg Catherine, a society

of nurses. The hospital of the Holy Ghost was founded 1334-39. At the beginning of the fourteenth century Nuremberg had become wonderfully developed. Charles IV conferred upon it the right to conclude alli- ances independently, thereby placing it upon a politi- cally etiual foi it ing with the princes of the empire. The city protected itsi'lf from hostile attacksby a wall and successfully defended its extensive trade against the barons. I'requent fights took place with the burngra\cs without, however, inflicting lasting damage U|i(in the city. After the castle had been destroyec 1 1 )y lire in 1420 during a feud between Count Frederick (since 1417 Margrave of Brandenburg) and the Duke of Bavaria- Ingolstadt, the ruins and the forest belonging to the castlewerepurchasedby the city (1427), whieli Ihereliv became master of all that lay within its bimndaries. The imperial castle had been ceded to t he <it y by Em- peror Sigismund in 1422, on condition that the imperial suite of rooms should be reserve<l for the emperor. Through these and other acquisitions the city accu- mulated considei-iMe territory. In 1 est the [iiipiila- tion was about 2'_',s(l(l including 714(i p<rsons (jiLililied to bear arms, 381 secular and regular i)ricst.s; 7 1 1 Jews .and non-citizens, 'i'he Hussite wars, the plagu(^ of 1437, the fights with the buiggraves (then also mar- graves of Brandenburg, Anspach, and Bayreuth, re- duced it to 20,800 in 1450;

At the beginning of the sixteenth century the war of