volume 1, chapter 1.

ALSO IN: _S. R. Maitland, The Dark Ages, 21._

CITEAUX, The Monastery of.

See CISTERCIAN ORDER.

CITIES, Chartered.

See COMMUNE; also BOROUGHS, and GUILDS.

CITIES, Free, of Italy.

See ITALY: A. D. 1056-1152, and after.

CITIES, Imperial and Free, of Germany

"The territorial disintegration of Germany [see GERMANY: 13TH CENTURY] had introduced a new and beneficial element into the national life, by allowing the rise and growth of the free cities. These were of two classes: those which stood in immediate connection with the Empire, and were practically independent republics; and those which, while owning some dependence upon spiritual or temporal princes, had yet conquered for themselves a large measure of self-government. The local distribution of the former, which is curiously unequal, depended upon the circumstances which attended the dissolution of the old tribal dukedoms. Wherever some powerful house was able to seize upon the inheritance, free cities were few: wherever the contrary was the case, they sprang up in abundance. In Swabia and on the Rhine there were more than a hundred: Franconia on the contrary counted only Nürnberg and five smaller cities: Westphalia, Dortmund and Herford: while in Bavaria, Regensburg stood alone. ... The Imperial free cities ... were self-governed, under constitutions in which the aristocratic and the democratic elements mingled in various proportions: they provided for their own defence: they were republics, in the midst of States where the personal will of the ruler counted for more and more. ... In these cities the refined and luxurious civilization, to which the princes were indifferent, and on which the knights waged predatory war, found expression in the pursuit of letters and the cultivation of the arts of life. There, too, the Imperial feeling, which was elsewhere slowly dying out of the land, retained much of its force. The cities held, so to speak, directly of the Empire, to which they looked for protection against powerful and lawless neighbours, and they felt that their liberties and privileges were bound up with the maintenance of the general order. ... In them, too, as we might naturally expect, religious life put on a freer aspect."

_C. Beard, Martin Luther and the Reformation, page 16._

"Prior to the peace of Luneville [1801], Germany possessed 133 free cities, called Reichstädte. A Reichstadt ('civitas imperii') was a town under the immediate authority of the Emperor, who was represented by an imperial official called a Vogt or Schultheis. The first mention of the term 'civitas imperii' (imperial city) occurs in an edict of the emperor Frederick II. [1214-1250], in which Lubeck was declared a 'civitas imperii' in perpetuity. In a later edict, of the year 1287, we find that King Rudolf termed the following places 'civitates regni' (royal cities), viz., Frankfort, Friedberg, Wetzlar, Oppenheim, Wesel, and Boppart. All these royal cities subsequently became imperial cities in consequence of the Kings of Germany being again raised to the dignity of Emperors. During the reign of Louis the Bavarian [1314-1347] Latin ceased to be the official language, and the imperial towns were designated in the vernacular 'Richstat.' In course of time the imperial towns acquired, either by purchase or conquest, their independence. Besides the Reichstädte, there were Freistädte, or free towns, the principal being Cologne, Basle, Mayence, Ratisbon, Spires, and Worms. The free towns appear to have enjoyed the following immunities:--1. They were exempt from the oath of allegiance to the Emperor. 2. They were not bound to furnish a contingent for any expedition beyond the Alps. 3. They were free from all imperial taxes and duties. 4. They could not be pledged. 5. They were distinguished from the imperial towns by not having the imperial eagle emblazoned on the municipal escutcheon." Subsequently "the free towns were placed on the same footing as the Reichstädt, and the term 'Freistadt,' or free town, was disused. The government of the imperial towns was in the hands of a military and civil governor. ... On the imperial towns becoming independent, the administration of the town was entrusted to a college of from four to twenty-four persons, according to the population, and the members of this kind of town council were called either Rathsmann, Rathsfreund, or Rathsherr, which means councilman or adviser. {474} The town councillors appear to have selected one or more of their number as presidents, with the title of Rathsmeister, Burgermeister, or Stadtmeister. ... Many of the imperial towns gained their autonomy either by purchase or force of arms. In like manner we find that others either lost their privileges or voluntarily became subjects of some burgrave or ecclesiastical prince, e. g., Cologne, Worms, and Spires placed themselves under the jurisdiction of their respective archbishops, whereas Altenburg, Chemnitz and Zwickau were seized by Frederick the Quarrelsome in his war with the Emperor; whilst others, like Hagenau, Colmar, Landau, and Strasburg, were annexed or torn from the German Empire. As the Imperial towns increased in wealth and power they extended the circle of their authority over the surrounding districts, and, in order to obtain a voice in the affairs of the empire, at length demanded that the country under their jurisdiction should be represented at the Reichstag (Imperial Diet). To accomplish this, they formed themselves into Bunds or confederations to assert their claims, and succeeded in forcing the Emperor and the princes to allow their representatives to take part in the deliberations of the Diet. The principal confederations brought into existence by the struggles going on in Germany were the Rhenish and Suabian Bunds, and the Hansa. [See HANSA TOWNS.] ... At the Diet held at Augsburg in 1474, it appears that almost all the imperial towns were represented, and in 1648, on the peace of Westphalia, when their presence in the Diet was formally recognized, they were formed into a separate college. ... By the peace of Luneville four of the imperial towns, viz., Aix-la-Chapelle, Cologne, Spires, and Worms, were ceded to France. In 1803, all the imperial towns lost their autonomy with the exception of the following six:--Augsburg, Nuremberg, Frankfort, Lubeck, Hamburg, and Bremen; and in 1806 the first three, and in 1810 the others, shared the same fate, but in 1815, on the fall of Napoleon, Bremen, Hamburg, Lubeck, and Frankfort, recovered their freedom, and were admitted as members of the German Bund, which they continued to be up to the year 1866."

_W. J. Wyatt, History of Prussia, volume 2, pages 427-432._

"According to the German historians the period of the greatest splendour of these towns was during the 14th and 15th centuries. ... In the 16th century they still enjoyed the same prosperity, but the period of their decay was come. The Thirty-Years War hastened their fall, and scarcely one of them escaped destruction and ruin during that period. Nevertheless, the treaty of Westphalia mentions them positively, and asserts their position as immediate states, that is to say, states which depended immediately upon the Emperor; but the neighbouring Sovereigns, on the one hand, and on the other the Emperor himself, the exercise of whose power, since the Thirty-Years War, was limited to the lesser vassals of the empire, restricted their sovereignty within narrower and narrower limits. In the 18th century, 51 of them were still in existence, they filled two benches at the diet, and had an independent vote there; but, in fact, they no longer exercised any influence upon the direction of general affairs. At home they were all heavily burthened with debts, partly because they continued to be charged for the Imperial taxes at a rate suited to their former splendour, and partly because their own administration was extremely bad. It is very remarkable that this bad administration seemed to be the result of some secret disease which was common to them all, whatever might be the form of their constitution. ... Their population decreased, and distress prevailed in them. They were no longer the abodes of German civilization; the arts left them, and went to shine in the new towns created by the Sovereigns, and representing modern society. Trade forsook them--their ancient energy and patriotic vigour disappeared. Hamburg almost alone still remained a great centre of wealth and intelligence, but this was owing to causes quite peculiar to herself."

_A. de Tocqueville, State of Society in France before 1789, note C._

See, also, HANSA TOWNS.

Of the 48 Free Cities of the Empire remaining in 1803, 42 were then robbed of their franchises, under the exigencies of the Treaty of Luneville (see GERMANY: A. D. 1801-1803). After the Peace of Pressburg only three survived, namely, Hamburg, Lubeck and Bremen (see GERMANY: A. D. 1805-1806). These were annexed to France by Napoleon in 1810.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1810 (FEBRUARY-DECEMBER).

The Congress of Vienna, in 1815, restored freedom to them, and to Frankfort, likewise, and they became members of the Germanic Confederation then formed.

See VIENNA, THE CONGRESS of.

Lubeck gave up its privileges as a free city in 1866, joining the Prussian Customs Union. Hamburg and Bremen did the same in 1888, being absorbed in the Empire. This extinguished the last of the "free cities."

See GERMANY: A. D. 1888.

CITY.

See BOROUGH.

CITY OF THE VIOLET CROWN.

"Ancient poets called Athens 'The City of the Violet Crown,' with an unmistakable play upon the name of the Ionian stock to which it belonged, and which called to mind the Greek word for violet."

_G. Schömann, Antiquities of Greece: The State,