Cultures of Law in Urban Northern Europe (Themes in Medieval and Early Modern History) by Jackson W. Armstrong & Edda Frankot

Author:Jackson W. Armstrong & Edda Frankot [Armstrong, Jackson W. & Frankot, Edda]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2020-11-23T23:00:00+00:00

Concluding remarks

Urban peace is not only an important feature of legal practice in the German towns, but a social term, which characterises a specific form of human cohabitation. We can gain more insight into the social, economic and political aspects of town life when we study the pax urbana. We can distinguish at least two types of urban peace: on the one hand, a municipal peace, which depended on the association of citizens and, on the other hand, a negotiated peace, which depended on the mutual agreement of a town council and the lord of the town. One could argue that there was also a third kind of urban peace which was settled as a solution in the struggle between a town and its feudal lord such as, for example, in Braunschweig in 1487 and 1503. In those years, the dukes of Braunschweig issued letters of favour (‘Huldbriefe’) in which they granted the council the right of legislation, military sovereignty and legal jurisdiction as well as confirming the urban privileges.44 These different kinds of urban peace had in common that they were based on the idea of solving struggles by negotiation between two more or less equal partners. In all cases mentioned in this chapter, urban peace was the answer to a conflict. This indicates that the upholding of pax urbana was identical with the effective implementation of the norms of urban law in mundane practice. In this respect, the urban peace was at the core of urban legal culture.

The examples of Magdeburg and Braunschweig, who had been able to negotiate with their lord because the aldermen and the citizens were united, are not, however, typical for the overall situation in Germany around 1500. Halle is more typical in this respect. In the majority of towns, councils developed from an institution that represented, and acted in the name of, the association of citizens into a kind of authority that tried to turn the citizens into its subjects.45 This was an intention that town councils shared with territorial lords. The pax urbana was thus no longer the product of mutual negotiation and respect, but a peace dictated from above. During the sixteenth century, this development had an effect on urban legal culture. Instead of informal arbitration proceedings to reconcile conflicts and restore peace, court proceedings became dominant. As a consequence, urban legal culture became increasingly constricted to the formal procedures contained in the laws. Trained lawyers in imperial and canon law gained the most important influence on legal culture in towns and elsewhere in Germany.

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