German History Vol. 42, No. 1, pp.

1–19

The Imperial Court and the Localities during the

Reign of Holy Roman Emperor Friedrich III
Richard C. Schlag

The venerable tradition of constitutional history (Verfassungsgeschichte) has framed de-

bates about the late medieval Holy Roman Empire among generations of scholars.1

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In its modern formulation, inaugurated by Peter Moraw and his intellectual succes-
sors, this tradition emphasizes the unique historical trajectory of the late medieval
Reich, which precluded it from becoming a unified nation state.2 The unique insti-
tutional deficiencies and marginality of the imperial monarchy, the crown’s inability
to directly and effectively govern the localities and the ‘consolidation’ (Verdichtung)
of princely rule throughout much of the Empire’s core lands are seen as causes of
this discrepancy.3 Moraw believed that these dynamics culminated in a fundamental
transformation of the imperial government and constitution by the end of the fif-
teenth century, creating what he called ‘institutionalized dualism’ (institutionalisierter
Dualismus).4 For him, ‘institutionalized dualism’ meant the formal division of the
Reich’s government between the governing apparatus and hereditary lands (Erblande)
of the ruling Habsburg dynasty, on the one hand, and institutions controlled by
the imperial estates (Reichsstände), on the other.5 The imperial estates comprised
the prince-electors, the princes and the supposedly previously politically marginal
free and imperial cities.6 In Moraw’s narrative, these groups came together to ad-
vocate for the reform of the Empire’s overburdened and crisis-ridden government
(Reichsreform), as the imperial monarchy proved incapable of coping with the accel-
erating political changes and challenges of the final decades of the fifteenth cen-
tury.7 These reform efforts precipitated the creation of new institutions, most notably
the institutionalization of the imperial diet (Reichstag) as a regularly recurring and
partially self-governing assembly of the imperial estates.8 This dualistic model has

1
For recent discussions of this topic see P. H. Wilson and M. Schaich, ‘Introduction’, in R. J. W. Evans, M. Schaich
and P. H. Wilson (eds), The Holy Roman Empire 1495–1806 (Oxford, 2011), pp. 1–23, here pp. 3–8; B. Stollberg-
Rilinger, The Emperor’s Old Clothes: Constitutional History and the Symbolic Language of the Holy Roman Empire,
trans. T. Dunlap (New York and Oxford, 2015), pp. 5–12; D. Hardy, Associative Political Culture in the Holy Roman
Empire: Upper Germany, 1346–1521 (Oxford, 2018), pp. 4–8.
2
P. Moraw, Von offener Verfassung zu gestalteter Verdichtung: das Reich im späten Mittelalter, 1250 bis 1490
(Berlin, 1989). The peculiarity of the late medieval Empire is emphasized by K.-F. Krieger, König, Reich und
Reichsreform im Spätmittelalter (2nd edn, Munich, 2005), p. 1.
3
Moraw, Von offener Verfassung, pp. 379–85, 391.
4
Ibid., pp. 416.
5
Ibid., pp. 411–21.
6
Ibid., p. 418.
7
Ibid., pp. 416–18.
8
Ibid., pp. 417–19.

© The Author(s) 2023. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the German History Society.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://
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provided the original work is properly cited.
https://doi.org/10.1093/gerhis/ghad070
Advance Access publication 20 December 2023
2 Richard C. Schlag

received widespread acclaim and general acceptance and has become paradigmatic
in the work of many historians.9
A vital feature of this incarnation of constitutional history is its emphasis on the im-
portance of the princes and the territorialization processes of their lordships. Moraw
saw the princes and prince-electors as protagonists of imperial politics until the free
and imperial cities began to be recognized as imperial estates in their own right at im-
perial diets after 1489.10 This focus on the political activities of the princes is echoed
in newer accounts of the Reich’s constitutional and political history, even those which
profess a more positive view of the Empire’s flexible internal arrangements, emphasize

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the cooperative and consensus-based relationship between emperor and princes and
are more sceptical of the dualistic interpretation.11 One consequence of this historio-
graphical tendency is the restriction of discussions of political and governmental pro-
cesses at the imperial level to a rather small group of actors, namely the princes and the
attendees of imperial diets.
However, some developments within recent scholarship have come to challenge these
views. Two of these developments are of particular relevance. First, several historians
have begun to revise our understanding of the reach and effectiveness of the late medi-
eval imperial monarchy. This shift in perspective has perhaps been most pronounced
in the literature on the reign of Emperor Friedrich III of Habsburg (r. 1440–1493).
For Moraw, and many historians before him, Friedrich III’s long ‘peripheral kingship’
(Randkönigtum) marked the crown’s final alienation from the Empire’s core lands, which
came increasingly under the control and administration of the territorial principal-
ities.12 Newer studies of Friedrich III’s rule have, however, presented evidence for his
ability to effectively manage disputes and networks, to intervene decisively in the local-
ities and to augment imperial rights and authority.13 The political significance of the
imperial court and central government institutions such as the emperor’s supreme law
court has emerged as a core theme of the literature on the Reich’s longest-reigning
monarch.14

9
On the reception and impact of Moraw’s ideas see, for example, Krieger, König, pp. 59–60; Hardy, Associative
Political Culture, p. 8; L. Scales and J. Whaley, ‘Rewriting the History of the Holy Roman Empire’, German History,
36, 3 (2018), pp. 331–48, here p. 339.
10
Moraw, Von offener Verfassung, p. 418.
11
O. Auge, ‘König, Reich und Fürsten im Mittelalter—eine Hinführung’, in N. Kühnle and O. Auge (eds), König,
Reich und Fürsten im Mittelalter: Abschlusstagung des Greifswalder ‘Principes-Projekts’. Festschrift für Karl-Heinz
Spieß (Stuttgart, 2017), pp. 13–22, here p. 16; P. H. Wilson, The Holy Roman Empire: A Thousand Years of
Europe’s History (London, 2017), chap. 8.
12
Moraw, Von offener Verfassung, pp. 379–85.
13
H. Koller, ‘Probleme der Schriftlichkeit und Verwaltung unter Kaiser Friedrich III.’, in F. Seibt and W. Eberhard (eds),
Europa 1500: Integrationsprozesse im Widerstreit. Staaten, Regionen, Personenverbände, Christenheit (Stuttgart,
1987), pp. 96–114; P. F. Kramml, ‘Die Revindikationspolitik Kaiser Friedrichs III. am Beispiel der Stadtsteuern
von Memmingen’, in P.-J. Heinig (ed.), Kaiser Friedrich III. (1440–1493) in seiner Zeit: Studien anläßlich des 500.
Todestags am 19. August 1493/1993 (Cologne, 1993), pp. 139–72; P.-J. Heinig, Kaiser Friedrich III. (1440–1493):
Hof, Regierung und Politik, 3 vols (Cologne, 1997); H. Koller, Kaiser Friedrich III. (Darmstadt, 2005), pp. 22, 171;
P.-J. Heinig, ‘Monarchismus und Monarchisten am Hof Friedrichs III.’, in F. Fuchs, P.-J. Heinig and M. Wagendorfer
(eds), König und Kanzlist, Kaiser und Papst: Friedrich III. und Enea Silvio Piccolomini in Wiener Neustadt (Vienna,
2013), pp. 151–79, here pp. 162–3, 167.
14
C. Reinle, ‘Zur Gerichtspraxis Kaiser Friedrichs III.’, in Heinig, Kaiser Friedrich III. (1440–1493) in seiner Zeit,
pp. 317–53, here pp. 348, 351–3; Heinig, Kaiser Friedrich III. (1440–1493): Hof, Regierung und Politik, vol.
 The Imperial Court and the Localities 3

Despite this reappraisal of the late medieval imperial monarchy, the full scale, ex-
tent and overarching political impact of interactions between the emperors and their
non-princely subjects are still insufficiently researched and understood. Comprehensive
studies of the crown’s relationship to the majority of its subjects, which are becoming
more common in the historiography of late medieval western European kingdoms
and the early modern Reich, remain rare within the scholarship on the late medi-
eval Empire.15 The most notable exception is Ralf Mitsch’s seminal work on Friedrich
III’s use of short-term commissions to flexibly delegate governmental tasks while
maintaining a framework of imperial authority.16 By contrast, much of the most recent

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research on late medieval Germany continues to focus on princely politics.17 Research
undertakings such as the recently concluded interdisciplinary Principes-project, on the
social, cultural and familial worlds of the secular imperial princes and the group dy-
namics and internal hierarchies of the princes as an estate (Stand), have reinforced this
tendency.18
Ironically, this focus on the centrality of the territorial princes in the Reich’s political
life comes at a time when their pre-eminence within their regional political ecosystems
has come under mounting scrutiny from historians outside of Germany. The challenge
to princely political dominance is the second major development in recent scholarship
on the late medieval Empire. It is one of the key insights of research on the structures
of local and regional politics, particularly in Upper Germany. Among the contribu-
tions to this scholarship is Hillay Zmora’s work on the princely states and aristocracy
of Franconia. Zmora draws attention to the vital role that the servants, officers and
creditors of Franconian princes, most of them drawn from the lower, untitled nobility,
played in upholding the princes’ rule and the interdependence of the two groups.19
The interdependence of political elites and their reliance on other social groups is
also explored in the recent work of Duncan Hardy. His research examines practices

1; F. Fuchs, ‘Die Praxis des kaiserlichen Kammergerichts im Spiegel Nürnberger Gesandtschaftsberichte des 15.
Jahrhunderts’, in G. Annas, M. Rothmann and P. Schulte (eds), Gerechtigkeit im gesellschaftlichen Diskurs des
späteren Mittelalters (Berlin, 2012), pp. 255–76, here pp. 255–6.
15
On governance in late medieval Western Europe see, for example, C. Fletcher, J. P. Genet and J. Watts (eds),
Government and Political Life in England and France, c.1300–c.1500 (Cambridge, 2015). On the governance of
the early modern Empire see, for example, L. Auer, ‘The Role of the Imperial Aulic Council in the Constitutional
Structure of the Holy Roman Empire’, in Evans, Schaich and Wilson, Holy Roman Empire, pp. 63–75; S. Westphal,
‘Does the Holy Roman Empire Need a New Institutional History?’, in Evans, Schaich and Wilson, Holy Roman
Empire, pp. 77–94, as well as the literature surveyed in B. Kümin, ‘Political Culture in the Holy Roman Empire’,
German History, 27, 1 (2009), pp. 131–44.
16
R. Mitsch, Das Kommissionswesen unter Kaiser Friedrich III. (Mainz, 2015).
17
O. Auge, R.-G. Werlich and G. Zeilinger (eds), Fürsten an der Zeitenwende zwischen Gruppenbild und
Individualität: Formen fürstlicher Selbstdarstellung und ihre Rezeption (1450–1550). Wissenschaftliche Tagung,
Landeskulturzentrum Schloß Salzau, 27.–29. März 2008 (Ostfildern, 2009); F. Fuchs, P.-J. Heinig and J. Schwarz
(eds), König, Fürsten und Reich im 15. Jahrhundert (Cologne, 2009); O. Auge, ‘“Kleine” Fürsten als Verlierer
der spätmittelalterlichen Reichsreform’, in A. Bihrer and D. Schiersner (eds), Reformverlierer 1000–1800: zum
Umgang mit Niederlagen in der europäischen Vormoderne (Berlin, 2016), pp. 133–58; F. Fuchs and P. Spiess
(eds), Friedrich der Siegreiche (1425–1476): Beiträge zur Erforschung eines spätmittelalterlichen Landesfürsten
(Neustadt/Weinstrasse, 2016).
18
Auge, ‘König, Reich und Fürsten’, pp. 13–16.
19
H. Zmora, ‘Princely State-Making and the “Crisis of the Aristocracy” in Late Medieval Germany’, Past & Present,
153 (1996), pp. 37–63; Zmora, ‘The Princely State and the Noble Family: Conflict and Co-operation in the
Margraviates Ansbach-Kulmbach in the Early Sixteenth Century’, Historical Journal, 49, 1 (2006), pp. 1–21.
4 Richard C. Schlag

of treaty-making, negotiation and mediation within Upper German leagues, alliances

and other forms of association.20 This research has helped reveal the sprawling scale of
horizontal networks and lateral interactions among a regional elite of which the terri-
torial princes were only one part.21 This greater awareness of the princes’ reliance on
their partners has also made more apparent the limits and even fragility of their power
and the susceptibility of princely networks to interference and co-optation by the im-
perial monarchy.22
The historiography now seems poised for a new political and governmental history
of the late medieval Holy Roman Empire which incorporates both novel insights about

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the effectiveness of the imperial regime and the complex, multi-layered and inter-
dependent nature of local politics. This article sets out to provide a sketch of how such
a history of the interconnectedness of the affairs of the Reich’s monarchs and the polit-
ical experiences and activities of their non-princely subjects in the localities might look.
As we have seen, the reign of Emperor Friedrich III is at the centre of many ongoing
debates about late medieval German and imperial politics, and his court and govern-
ment will thus be the focus of this article.
We will begin with a brief survey of how recent scholarship has characterized
Friedrich III’s court and its place within the Reich’s politics. How this relationship op-
erated in practice will subsequently be elaborated in two case studies. These will cover
two protracted legal disputes in which communities of different size, importance and
location came into the court’s orbit seeking to protect their rights and interests. These
case studies provide illustrative examples of how routine matters and local conflicts
could be inextricably bound up in the structures of the Reich’s government. The events
of both case studies are particularly relevant to our understanding of the late medieval
imperial monarchy, as they took place during the early and middle decades of Friedrich
III’s reign, which have traditionally been seen as low points in the initiative and effect-
iveness of his government.23

I. Friedrich III’s Court and Government Reconsidered

Over the last decades, Friedrich III’s court has become a key object of interest for
historians of the late medieval Reich.24 Aside from the emperor’s personal house-
hold, the court encompassed the main government departments: the chamber or
treasury (Kammer), the emperor’s council (Hofrat), the chancery, which for most
of our period was divided between two separate departments dealing with the
affairs of the Austrian hereditary lands (österreichische Hofkanzlei) and the rest of
the Empire (römische or Reichs-Hofkanzlei), and the two supreme law courts, the
imperial court tribunal (Reichshofgericht, discontinued around 1451/52) and the

20
Hardy, Associative Political Culture.
21
Ibid., chaps 1–8; Hardy, ‘Tage (Courts, Councils and Diets): Political and Judicial Nodal Points in the Holy Roman
Empire, c.1300–1550’, German History, 36, 3 (2018), pp. 381–400.
22
Zmora, ‘Princely State and the Noble Family’, pp. 18–21: H. Zmora, ‘The Formation of the Imperial Knighthood
in Franconia: A Comparative European Perspective’, in Evans, Schaich and Wilson, Holy Roman Empire, pp. 283–
302; Hardy, Associative Political Culture, p. 215.
23
Moraw, Von offener Verfassung, p. 380; Wilson, Holy Roman Empire, p. 414.
24
Most extensively, Heinig, Kaiser Friedrich III. (1440–1493): Hof, Regierung und Politik, vol. 1.
 The Imperial Court and the Localities 5

emperor’s cameral court (Kammergericht).25 Historians such as Paul-Joachim Heinig

have drawn attention to the court’s role as an arena for managing the interper-
sonal relationships between the monarch and his subjects. Detailed examination
of the imperial regime’s policy and decision-making has revealed the complex and
at times opaque relationship between the initiatives of the emperor, his leading
courtiers and powerful local groups. Horst Carl has explained, for instance, that
the creation of the Swabian League in 1487/88 was as much a product of the
emperor’s mandates as of the efforts of the eminent court officer Count Haug XI
of Werdenberg-Trochtelfingen-Sigmaringen-Heiligenberg and the initiative of his

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extensive local network.26
A defining feature of the court and government of Friedrich III was the informality
and variability of their internal arrangements. As is apparent from Heinig’s detailed
account, the government departments and offices were tied to the emperor’s personal
retinue, rather than acting as independent institutions. Officers remained freely at the
emperor’s disposal, to be appointed and deployed flexibly as he deemed appropriate. In
the absence of clearly demarcated institutional responsibilities and limits on the scope
of officeholders’ duties, the emperor’s servants were assigned tasks on the basis of trust,
ability and initiative, rather than office. In the absence of established procedures and
mechanisms regulating the appointment of the emperor’s officials, appointments were
achieved by individual influence and initiative, the management of trust and favour,
and the exertion of political power.
This informality of the court and government appears to have amplified inter-
actions between court politics and wider political society. First, major princes and
influential politicians made it a priority to win key offices for themselves and their
servants. The appointment of new officers or the degradation of older ones was fre-
quently a result of changes in the relationship between the emperor and his leading
subjects. During the 1460s, for instance, the growing political gulf between the em-
peror and his former chief princely court officer Albrecht Achilles of Hohenzollern,
margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach, manifested in the marginalization of the
Hohenzollern prince’s office of Hofmeister (master of the household).27 Instead, Count
Haug of Werdenberg, a partner of the margrave’s Bavarian rivals, was installed in the
new dual offices of oberster Truchsess (supreme steward) and Stäbelmeister (a ceremonial
officer whose tasks included the serving of the emperor’s food), which took over sev-
eral functions formerly tied to the office of Hofmeister.28 Plans were also advanced for
Duke Ludwig IX of Bavaria-Landshut to take on the office of Hofmeister and for his
chief minister, the Franconian jurist Martin Mair, to head the imperial chancery.29 As
we will see, this fluidity and variability of office, favour and advancement at court also
ensured that subjects could always hope for a better deal when inevitably the situation
changed. The court thus remained attractive even to those whose position was mo-
mentarily unfavourable.
25
On these departments of the government, see ibid., vol. 1.
26
H. Carl, Der Schwäbische Bund, 1488–1534: Landfrieden und Genossenschaft im Übergang vom Spätmittelalter
zur Reformation (Leinfelden-Echterdingen, 2000), pp. 21–31.
27
Heinig, Kaiser Friedrich III. (1440–1493): Hof, Regierung und Politik, vol. 1, pp. 61–3, 402.
28
Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 65–6, 338–41.
29
Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 61–3, 101–2, 391, 653.
6 Richard C. Schlag

Contrary to older narratives of Friedrich III’s emperorship, it is also becoming in-

creasingly clear that the emperor’s officers could exercise considerable authority in the
localities. For instance, the Fiskalprokurator (prosecutor on behalf of the rights of the em-
peror, Empire and imperial fisc before the Kammergericht) Johann Keller was appointed
governor of the Upper German imperial cities of Weißenburg and Donauwörth in the
1480s.30 This double role, in the emperor’s central government and in local administra-
tion, entailed major assignments such as the investigation, dismissal and replacement
of the city councillors of Weißenburg following allegations of corruption in 1480/81.31
A few years later, the emperor’s distinguished councillor and former chaplain Bishop

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Matthias Scheit of Seckau was entrusted with a whole range of regulatory and admin-
istrative responsibilities. He was tasked with reviewing the activities and qualifications
of public notaries throughout the Empire, confirming the feudal oaths of the emperor’s
Italian and French vassals and collecting financial aid for the imperial war effort against
Hungary from the cities of Toul and Besançon.32
The magnetism of the court was thus an artefact of both the potential power and
influence wielded by its officers and the flexibility and malleability of its political ar-
rangements and priorities. Gaining the support and patronage of leading court politi-
cians thus became an important means by which the Reich’s subjects endeavoured to
pursue their aims. The favour of the emperor and his ministers was typically won by
overtly mercenary means, through awarding Ehrungen (honorary gifts).33 This practice
soon became so routinized that the rates at which certain favours could be purchased
were firmly established and recorded.34 In most cases, these favours took the form of
diplomas granting or confirming highly sought-after rights and privileges. As Heinrich
Koller has convincingly argued, the significant increase in the number of these docu-
ments produced by Friedrich III’s imperial chancery was probably an outcome of their
more widespread use and of their mounting importance in legal proceedings held be-
fore the emperor’s law court.35 The need to secure rights with diplomas and to defend
them in legal cases thus played a major role in ensuring subjects’ interest in the crown.
The workings of these political and governmental processes are clearly observable in
our two case studies, to which we will now turn.

II. The Federsee Dispute, 1446–1474

Having discussed some of the fundamentals of what newer scholarship has revealed
about the relationship between Friedrich III’s imperial government and his subjects, let
us now see how these interactions played out in practice. Our first case study will exem-
plify how deeply the business and jurisprudence of the imperial court could reach into

30
Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 130–1.
31
Mitsch, Das Kommissionswesen, pp. 742–5.
32
Heinig, Kaiser Friedrich III. (1440–1493): Hof, Regierung und Politik, vol. 1, pp. 469–71.
33
E. Isenmann, ‘Reichsfinanzen und Reichssteuern im 15. Jahrhundert’, Zeitschrift für historische Forschung, 7, 1
(1980), pp. 1–76, here pp. 47–55, 61, 65–6; R. Scharf, ‘Fiktive Geschenke: Praktiken von erung und Bestechung
am Hof Kaiser Friedrichs III. im Spiegel vornehmlich Nürnberger Quellen’, in Fuchs, Heinig and Schwarz, König,
Fürsten und Reich, pp. 21–58.
34
Krieger, König, p. 34.
35
Koller, ‘Probleme’, p. 106.
 The Imperial Court and the Localities 7

local society. The subject of this section is the protracted dispute and litigation which
arose between 1447 and 1474 over fishing rights in the Federsee, a lake in south Swabia,
and the jurisdiction of the imperial Landgericht (provincial law court) of the burgraviate
of Nuremberg. This dispute provides an illustrative example of a confrontation that
not only involved the patrimonial politics of a major prince and cooperation between
multiple communities, but in which institutions, officeholders and commissioners of
the Reich’s government were also called upon to intervene at all stages of the disagree-
ment. The impact that the shifting balance of court advantage could have on common
people’s ability to achieve their goals also comes into view clearly in this case study.

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This dispute pitted the small imperial township of Buchau and the villages of
Alleshausen, Oggelshausen, Tiefenbach and Seekirch against the Hohenzollern
Margrave Albrecht Achilles. Friedrich III had granted exclusive fishing rights in the
Federsee to the Hohenzollern prince as an imperial fief in 1446.36 The margrave
had become the emperor’s councillor two years prior and was a crucial supporter of
the Habsburg monarch in his conflict with the Swiss Confederacy and in supporting
Pope Eugenius IV in the schism with the Council of Basel.37 In 1447 violations of
the margrave’s rights by inhabitants of the lakeside town and villages prompted the
Hohenzollern prince to prosecute them before the Landgericht of the burgraviate of
Nuremberg.38 As burgrave of Nuremberg, Albrecht Achilles held the Gerichtsherrschaft
(jurisdictional lordship) of the Landgericht, allowing him to punish any community or
corporate group within the Empire with the imperial ban.39 The Swabian communi-
ties refused to appear before the Landgericht, claiming exemption from its jurisdiction,
which they believed was restricted to Franconia.40 This local contestation over fishing
rights thus posed a fundamental question about the extent of the Landgericht’s jurisdic-
tion. A matter of this magnitude could only be decided in a trial before the emperor’s
Kammergericht, which began in 1455.41
The case reveals the variety and durability of links tying the defendants to each
other and to wider networks of imperial administration and political affinity across
Upper Germany. While not itself a defendant, the imperial city of Biberach acted
as a central node within the web of connections that were activated by this dispute.

36
Regesten Kaiser Friedrichs III. (1440–1493): nach Archiven und Bibliotheken geordnet, H. 32: Die Urkunden und
Briefe aus dem Staatsarchiv Bamberg und den Archiven und Bibliotheken des Regierungsbezirks Oberfranken
sowie aus dem Bestand Rep. 106a (Fehdeakten) des Staatsarchivs Nürnberg, ed. E.-M. Eibl (Vienna, 2018) (hence-
forth RI XIII H. 32), no. 35.
37
Regesten der Markgrafen von Baden und Hachberg 1050–1515, vol. 3: 1431(1420)–1453, ed. H. Witte
(Innsbruck, 1907), nos. 6645, 6664; Deutsche Reichstagsakten: Ältere Reihe, vol. 17: Deutsche Reichstagsakten
unter Kaiser Friedrich III.: Dritte Abteilung 1442–1445, ed. W. Kaemmerer (Stuttgart, Göttingen, 1963), nos.
230c, 244a.
38
RI XIII H. 32, no. 69.
39
K. Freiherr von Andrian-Werburg, ‘Markgraf Albrecht Achilles von Brandenburg-Ansbach und das Kaiserliche
Landgericht Burggraftums Nürnberg’, in Jahrbuch für fränkische Landesforschung, 60 (2000), pp. 56–66;
H. Baumbach, ‘Was war ein Landgerichtssprengel? Zum Verhältnis von räumlicher Zuständigkeit und
Gerichtsnutzung an der Wende vom Mittelalter zur Neuzeit’, in A. Amend-Traut, J. Bongartz, A. Denzler, E.
Franke and S. A. Stodolkowitz (eds), Unter der Linde und vor dem Kaiser: neue Perspektiven auf Gerichtsvielfalt
und Gerichtslandschaften im Heiligen Römischen Reich (Vienna, 2020), pp. 127–44, here pp. 138, 140–1.
40
RI XIII H. 32, no. 69.
41
Ibid., no. 69.
8 Richard C. Schlag

The four villages were part of the lordship of Warthausen, which Biberach held in
pledge from the Reichslandvogtei (imperial bailiwick) of Upper Swabia.42 Pledges were
widely used financial and administrative instruments in late medieval Germany by
which a debtor granted temporary control over a lordship or other possession to a
creditor in exchange for the cancellation of his or her debts.43 Buchau, too, main-
tained a formal association with Biberach, as it had signed a Burgrecht (citizenship
alliance) treaty with the larger city.44 Biberach’s leadership proved highly committed
to assisting their dependent communities. In fact, a remarkable level of coordination
and cooperation between Biberach, Buchau, Alleshausen, Oggelshausen, Tiefenbach

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and Seekirch can be observed in the sources. They jointly employed a lawyer, who
repeatedly emphasized their shared rights and privileges during the hearings before
the Kammergericht. The lawyer asserted that Biberach had been granted an exemption
from the jurisdiction of external courts by Emperor Karl IV (r. 1346–1378) which
had been confirmed by Friedrich III and his predecessors, and that this privilege
should also apply to Buchau and the villages, as they were under Biberach’s direct
protection.45
The Federsee communities also benefitted from the support of Biberach’s partners
among the Swabian imperial cities. Financial assistance to cover the significant costs of
adequate legal representation for a trial before the Kammergericht was provided by Ulm
and its allies.46 Their jointly appointed lawyer displayed a consistently high level of skill,
experience and familiarity with the intricacies of legal argument and procedure, which
the Swabian peasants may not have been able to muster had it not been for the support
of their urban partners.47 The case against Albrecht Achilles was also backed by dukes
Albrecht of Bavaria-Munich and Ludwig of Bavaria-Landshut, who had partnered
with the imperial cities to counteract Hohenzollern ambitions in Upper Germany
and sent their own lawyers to the emperor’s court to oppose the claims made by the
margrave.48 Through their shared interest with the cities, the peasants of Alleshausen,
Oggelshausen, Tiefenbach and Seekirch gained access to networks, resources and a de-
gree of political freedom of action and ability to participate in elite politics that would
normally have been inaccessible to them.
42
E. Gönner and M. Miller, ‘Die Landvogtei Schwaben’, in F. Metz (ed.), Vorderösterreich: eine geschichtliche
Landeskunde (2nd edn, Freiburg im Breisgau, 1967), pp. 683–728, here p. 696.
43
Zmora, ‘Princely State-Making and the “Crisis of the Aristocracy”’, pp. 41–3.
44
RI XIII H. 32, no. 74. On this type of association see Hardy, Associative Political Culture, pp. 108–10.
45
RI XIII H. 32, nos. 74, 102.
46
Mitsch, Das Kommissionswesen, pp. 528–9, particularly n. 1157.
47
On peasant communities’ unfamiliarity with and hostility towards rulers’ law courts and Roman law, see P.-J.
Schuler, ‘Recht und Billigkeit als politische Forderung der Reformschriften des 15. Jahrhunderts’, in Heinig, Kaiser
Friedrich III. (1440–1493) in seiner Zeit, pp. 301–15, here pp. 312–15; P. Blickle, Kommunalismus: Skizzen einer
gesellschaftlichen Organisationsform, 2 vols, vol. 1: Oberdeutschland (Munich, 2000), pp. 131–2; P. Blickle,
Unruhen in der ständischen Gesellschaft 1300–1800 (Munich, 2012), pp. 60–1. On the dissemination of Roman
law at the Kammergericht, see Heinig, Kaiser Friedrich III. (1440–1493): Hof, Regierung und Politik, vol. 1, p. 672;
Andrian-Werburg, ‘Markgraf Albrecht Achilles’, p. 57.
48
Regesten Kaiser Friedrichs III. (1440–1493): nach Archiven und Bibliotheken geordnet, H. 19: Die Urkunden
und Briefe aus Archiven und Bibliotheken der Stadt Nürnberg, part 2: 1450–1455, ed. D. Rübsamen (Vienna,
2004) (henceforth RI XIII H. 19), no. 574; RI XIII H. 32, nos. 84, 102. On the imperial cities’ relationship to the
dukes of Bavaria, see H. Angermeier, Die Reichsreform 1410–1555: die Staatsproblematik Deutschlands zwischen
Mittelalter und Gegenwart (Munich, 1984), pp. 128–9.
 The Imperial Court and the Localities 9

Nonetheless, the legal challenge faced by Buchau and the villages was substan-
tial. Albrecht Achilles held two key advantages. First, the privileges and jurisdic-
tion of the imperial Landgericht of the burgraviate of Nuremberg, including the
right to punish any community within the Empire with the imperial ban, had only
recently been confirmed, by an imperial diploma of 4 September 1454.49 This
ratification allowed the margrave’s lawyers to argue that the Landgericht operated as
a direct extension of the emperor’s authority.50 It is evident from the current his-
toriographical consensus and Friedrich III’s diplomas that the Habsburg monarch
consistently prioritized the preservation and invigoration of imperial rights and

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privileges.51 Secondly, Albrecht Achilles’s personal influence within Friedrich III’s
affinity had reached its peak at the time of the trial. His position had recently been
bolstered by his appointment as the emperor’s Hofmeister.52 As Christine Reinle has
highlighted, leading court officers such as Albrecht Achilles were able and even
expected to exert their authority over the Kammergericht and its proceedings.53 In
spite of the efforts of their partners and lawyer, the Kammergericht ultimately ruled
against the Federsee communities.54
Despite their legal defeat, Buchau and the villages were able to achieve a notable suc-
cess in the aftermath of the trial. Having lost the court case, they were obliged to com-
pensate Albrecht Achilles for any legal costs and damages he had incurred. These were
set at 1,800 florins by the Kammergericht in 1458.55 Reichserbmarschall (hereditary imperial
deputy marshal) Heinrich von Pappenheim was subsequently dispatched to Swabia
with an imperial mandate to collect the money owed to the margrave.56 In response,
the Swabian communities activated their connections to local imperial officeholders.
Representatives of Buchau appealed to the arbitration of the Upper Swabian
Reichslandvogt (imperial bailiff) Jakob Truchsess von Waldburg, from whom Biberach
held the lordship of Warthausen and the four villages in pledge.57 The Reichslandvogt did
indeed propose a settlement on behalf of Buchau and the villagers, who agreed to rec-
ognize Albrecht Achilles’s exclusive rights and to fish only with his express permission.58
Due to this willingness to show proper obedience towards the margrave and his rights,
it was suggested that the communities not be held liable for their earlier trespasses and
be relieved of the obligation to pay damages.59 Although Albrecht Achilles refused this
settlement, the backing of the Swabian Reichslandvogt seems to have discouraged direct
action against the Federsee communities. Waldburg was probably motivated to inter-
vene on the communities’ behalf not only by his ties to Biberach and the lordship of
Warthausen, but also because his position as Reichslandvogt was presently contested by

49
RI XIII H. 19, no. 482.
50
RI XIII H. 32, no. 74, particularly nn. 8–9, no. 102.
51
Reinle, ‘Zur Gerichtspraxis’, pp. 317–53; Heinig, ‘Monarchismus’, pp. 151–80.
52
Heinig, Kaiser Friedrich III. (1440–1493): Hof, Regierung und Politik, vol. 1, pp. 59–61; Krieger, König, p. 45.
53
Reinle, ‘Zur Gerichtspraxis’, pp. 339–44.
54
RI XIII H. 32, nos. 102–3.
55
Ibid., no. 146.
56
Ibid., no. 147.
57
Ibid., no. 147.
58
Ibid., no. 147.
59
Ibid., no. 147.
10 Richard C. Schlag

the emperor’s brother, Archduke Albrecht VI of Austria.60 Being asked to intervene as

arbitrator by subjects of the Reichslandvogtei bolstered and legitimized Waldburg’s claim
to imperial office in this contentious situation.
While Albrecht Achilles was thus unable to enforce his claims on the ground,
margravial lawyers continued to press for the payment of damages before the
Kammergericht.61 Friedrich III and his ministers undertook a final attempt to resolve the
matter in 1474, citing both parties to an arbitrational meeting.62 A few weeks later
Buchau and its associates achieved a decisive breakthrough by gaining the support of
a key figure within the emperor’s household. Count Haug of Werdenberg had become

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one of Friedrich III’s most important and cherished advisors by the 1470s.63 His rise to
prominence reflected the shifting balance of power and allocation of offices at court.
While Albrecht Achilles remained a crucial partner of the crown, the period of his per-
sonal presence and dominant position within the emperor’s household had come to an
end.64 As we have seen above, many functions of Albrecht Achilles’s office of Hofmeister,
which he now held in name only, were taken over by Werdenberg’s dignities of oberster
Truchsess and Stäbelmeister during the margrave’s absence from the emperor’s court.
On 2 May 1474 Werdenberg appealed to the imperial chancery on Buchau’s behalf
and obtained a renewed confirmation of the town’s privileges, including exemption
from the jurisdiction of external courts.65 This renewed confirmation of Buchau’s priv-
ileges appears to have counteracted any further demands by Albrecht Achilles, who
complained of his failure to collect any of the money owed to him in 1475, after which
the dispute disappears from the sources.66 Werdenberg’s support for Buchau and the
villages reflects his affiliation with Albrecht Achilles’s Bavarian rivals and may have been
linked to his anti-Hohenzollern efforts at the imperial court.67 The count’s decisive sup-
port for the Federsee communities was presumably also motivated by his family’s ties
to Buchau. Buchau was the seat of an imperial abbey which Sigrid Hirbodian has
described as the almost exclusive domain of canonesses drawn from neighbouring fam-
ilies of the Swabian higher nobility, including the counts of Werdenberg and their re-
latives and affiliates.68 The abbey was headed by Count Haug’s sisters Margaretha and
Anna from 1449 to 1497.69
60
Regesta chronologico-diplomatica Friderici III. Romanorum Imperatoris (Regis IV.): Auszug aus den im k. k.
geheimen Haus-, Hof- und Staats-Archive zu Wien sich befindenden Reichsregistraturbüchern vom Jahre 1440–
1493. Nebst Auszügen aus Original-Urkunden, Manuscripten und Büchern, ed. J. Chmel, 2 vols (Vienna, 1859)
(henceforth RCDFIII), nos. 2505, 2941; Gönner and Miller, ‘Die Landvogtei’, p. 684; Heinig, Kaiser Friedrich III.
(1440–1493): Hof, Regierung und Politik, vol. 1, pp. 368–9; Regesten Kaiser Friedrichs III. (1440–1493): nach
Archiven und Bibliotheken geordnet, H. 13: Die Urkunden und Briefe des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs in Wien,
Abt. Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv: Allgemeine Urkundenreihe, Familienurkunden und Abschriftensammlungen
(1447–1457), ed. P. Herold and K. Holzner-Tobisch (Vienna, 2001), nos. 1, 246, 249–50.
61
RI XIII H. 32, nos. 148–9, 265.
62
Ibid., no. 919.
63
Heinig, Kaiser Friedrich III. (1440–1493): Hof, Regierung und Politik, vol. 1, pp. 337–41.
64
Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 61, 63, 402.
65
RI XIII H. 32, no. 919.
66
Ibid., no. 919.
67
Heinig, Kaiser Friedrich III. (1440–1493): Hof, Regierung und Politik, vol. 1, pp. 338, 401, n. 1209.
68
S. Hirbodian, ‘Geistliche Fürstinnen im Südwesten des Reiches zwischen Familienbindung und Reichsbezug’, in
Kühnle and Auge, König, Reich und Fürsten, pp. 369–86, here pp. 375–6.
69
Ibid., p. 376.
 The Imperial Court and the Localities 11

III. Cologne and the Imperial Court, 1457–1475

We have just seen that the institutions and servants of the imperial court and govern-
ment were of interest to the Reich’s subjects in quotidian disputes. We now turn to a
remarkable example of how sustained contact and cooperation between the emperor’s
court and one of the Empire’s foremost urban centres could not just affect the local
balance of power, but also effect wider changes and revisions of political affiliation and
imperial policy. This is powerfully demonstrated by the partnership that developed be-
tween the city of Cologne, one of the largest, wealthiest and most populous cities of

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late medieval Germany, and Friedrich III’s regime between 1457 and 1475.70
This period of interaction can be roughly divided into three phases, each of which
revolved around a key Cologne objective. At the end of each of these phases the rela-
tionship between the crown and the Upper Rhenish metropolis would emerge stronger
than before, culminating in the irreversible affirmation of their relationship in 1475.
During the first phase, from 1457 to about 1464 and then with less urgency until 1473,
the Cologners, like the inhabitants of the Federsee communities, sought closer ties
to Friedrich III’s affinity in order to fend off prosecution by Albrecht Achilles at the
Landgericht of the burgraviate of Nuremberg. Following the 1463 election of Ruprecht
of the Palatinate as archbishop-elector of Cologne, a conflict arose between the city and
the archbishop over control of the city’s law courts. This became the second key issue
that brought the city into closer contact with the emperor’s court. The third phase, from
1473 to 1475, was dominated by the events of the Cologne episcopal feud in which
the city of Cologne supported the Cologne cathedral chapter in deposing Archbishop
Ruprecht, leading to the intervention of Duke Charles the Bold of Burgundy (r. 1467–
1477) and an imperial war against the Burgundian duke. Only the latter two of these
phases have received scholarly attention, as they appear to map onto established notions
of archetypical dualistic opposition between the authority of the archbishop as terri-
torial lord (Landesherr) and his subjects’ desire for autonomy.71 These events have been
interpreted as the outcome of a deliberate strategy pursued by the city government to
complete Cologne’s ‘final emancipation’ from the archbishop’s authority.72 However,
we shall see that the primary-source record reveals a very different story.
As the first phase of interaction between the city and the imperial govern-
ment remains mostly unexamined, it seems appropriate to cover it in some de-
tail. Albrecht Achilles’s prosecution of Cologne was enabled by an imperial
diploma of May 1456.73 This document restated the 1454 confirmation of the
Landgericht’s privileges that we encountered previously and specifically overruled

70
On the late medieval city of Cologne see W. Herborn and C. Dietmar, Köln im Spätmittelalter 1288–1512/13
(Cologne, 2019), particularly pp. 205–8.
71
W. Janssen, ‘Der Verzicht des Erzbischofs Ruprecht von der Pfalz auf das Erzbistum Köln um die Jahreswende
1478/79’, in H. Vollrath and S. Weinfurter (eds), Köln: Stadt und Bistum in Kirche und Reich des Mittelalters.
Festschrift für Odilo Engels zum 65. Geburtstag (Cologne, 1993), pp. 659–700, here pp. 671, 682–5; Heinig,
Kaiser Friedrich III. (1440–1493): Hof, Regierung und Politik, vol. 2, pp. 1255–69.
72
Heinig, Kaiser Friedrich III. (1440–1493): Hof, Regierung und Politik, vol. 2, pp. 1255–9, quote on p. 1259.
73
Regesten Kaiser Friedrichs III. (1440–1493): nach Archiven und Bibliotheken geordnet, H. 7: Die Urkunden und
Briefe aus den Archiven und Bibliotheken des Regierungsbezirks Köln, ed. T. R. Kraus (Vienna, 1990) (henceforth
RI XIII H. 7), no. 144.
12 Richard C. Schlag

a 1433 decree by Emperor Sigismund of Luxembourg (r. 1410–1437) which had

ordered the Landgericht to end proceedings against Cologne.74 The 1456 decree al-
lowed Albrecht Achilles to resume litigation against Cologne before the Landgericht
because of the city’s uninterrupted business with Liège and other cities in the
Low Countries which Sigismund had placed under the imperial ban by request of
Albrecht Achilles’s father, Prince-Elector Friedrich I of Brandenburg.75 Despite
having personally placed the cities of the Low Countries under the imperial ban,
Sigismund had been convinced by Cologne’s leaders to make a special exception
for their city because its privileges included an exemption from the jurisdiction of

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law courts outside of the city.76
Albrecht Achilles’s litigation was the deciding factor in the city authorities’ deci-
sion to cement their standing at Friedrich III’s court and to intensify what had previ-
ously been only sparse ties to the crown. Unlike the Federsee communities, Cologne
was remote from the Empire’s Upper German core lands, which were historically
more integrated into imperial networks and institutions such as the Reichslandvogteien.
However, the margrave’s prosecution posed a uniquely grave threat to the city’s inter-
ests. Cologne’s leadership feared that the city would be placed under the imperial ban
by the Landgericht.77 The imperial ban would have harmed both the economic pros-
perity and the legal security of the citizenry, as it made it illegal for the city to operate
law courts and would have allowed the margrave and his associates to rob Cologners
without fear of prosecution.78 The Cologners also faced an exceptionally daunting op-
ponent in Albrecht Achilles, who, as we have seen, occupied a preeminent place within
the emperor’s household at this time. It was thus well understood that a favourable
outcome would be impossible without the city gaining a comparable level of influence
at the imperial court through the careful acquisition and management of favour and
connections.
Like Buchau and the villages, Cologne initially appealed to illustrious princes and
communities for support, in this instance to Emperor Friedrich III’s brother-in-law
Margrave Karl I of Baden, Karl’s brother Archbishop-Elector Johann II of Trier
and the imperial city of Nuremberg.79 However, unlike the Federsee communities,
Cologne’s leaders soon found a well-connected and distinguished advocate within
the emperor’s personal retinue, the jurist Arnold vom Loe. Vom Loe was a chief
procurator of the Kammergericht, an accomplished councillor of the emperor and, at
the time, his only leading courtier hailing from the lower Rhine.80 The city first ac-
credited him as its procurator against Albrecht Achilles in March 1457.81 It was from

74
Regesta Imperii XI: die Urkunden Kaiser Sigmunds (1410–1437), ed. J. F. Böhmer and W. Altmann, 2 vols
(Innsbruck, 1896–1900) (henceforth RI XI), vol. 2, no. 9826; RI XIII H. 7, no. 144.
75
H. Diemar, ‘Köln und das Reich, II. Theil, 1452–1474’, Mitteilungen aus dem Stadtarchiv von Köln begründet von
Konstantin Höhlbaum, fortgesetzt von Joseph Hansen, 9 (1894), pp. 213–357, here pp. 242–3, 247; RI XI, vol. 1,
no. 5454; RI XI, vol. 2, no. 6118.
76
RI XI, vol. 2, no. 9826.
77
Diemar, ‘Köln und das Reich’, pp. 242–3.
78
Andrian-Werburg, ‘Markgraf Albrecht Achilles’, p. 64.
79
Diemar, ‘Köln und das Reich’, pp. 239–42.
80
On Arnold vom Loe see Heinig, Kaiser Friedrich III. (1440–1493): Hof, Regierung und Politik, vol. 1, pp. 523–6.
81
Diemar, ‘Köln und das Reich’, pp. 239–40.
 The Imperial Court and the Localities 13

vom Loe that municipal authorities learnt the details of the case.82 He also advised
on how best to proceed: by appealing the case to the emperor’s Kammergericht and
winning over patrons at court to ensure a favourable verdict and the confirmation
of Cologne’s exemption from the Landgericht’s jurisdiction.83 These efforts would also
require presenting substantial Ehrungen to the emperor, the imperial chancery and
leading court officials.84
The long-term nature of this commitment was already clear by May 1458, when
vom Loe purchased a new house in the vicinity of the emperor’s residence in order
to better accommodate Cologne’s messengers and representatives.85 He soon entered

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Cologne’s permanent service, with an annual stipend of twenty guilders.86 Thereafter,
the exchange of letters between the city council and vom Loe containing detailed
accounts of developments at court and in the Austrian hereditary lands and plans for
coordinated action between city officials and their advocate at court became a staple of
the city’s correspondence.87
From the outset, vom Loe was very successful in facilitating his employers’ con-
tacts to the leading men at court. His correspondence with the city council shows that
he appealed to many of Friedrich III’s most esteemed officials and servants on the
city’s behalf. Among them were the Fiskalprokurator Hartung Molitoris von Kappel,
the cameral judge Margrave Wilhelm of Baden-Hachberg and the Cologne cath-
edral canon Georg Hessler, an assessor at the Kammergericht, all of whom vom Loe
worked with regularly at the cameral court.88 Cologne’s amicable relationship with
the staff of the Kammergericht is also evidenced by the fact that the city council’s clerk
and chief delegate Johann Vrunt personally served as an assessor at two sessions of the
cameral court in July 1459.89 Vom Loe further expedited contacts with the chancery
personnel, including the imperial chancellor Ulrich Weltzli and Austrian chancellor
Bishop Ulrich Sonnenberger of Gurk, and even to members of the emperor’s inner
circle such as Ulrich Riederer and the Kammermeister (master of the emperor’s chamber
and treasury) Johann Ungnad.90

82
Ibid., pp. 242–3.
83
Ibid., pp. 242–3.
84
Ibid., pp. 243–5.
85
Ibid., p. 245.
86
Ibid., pp. 245, 249–51.
87
Ibid., pp. 243–5, 248, 251, 261–7, 279, 298, 307–9.
88
Ibid., pp. 243, 247–8, 261–2. On Kappel see Kaiser Friedrich III. (1440–1493): Hof, Regierung und Politik, vol.
1, pp. 111–18. On Hachberg see Heinig, Kaiser Friedrich III. (1440–1493): Hof, Regierung und Politik, vol. 1, pp.
324–8. On Hessler see Heinig, Kaiser Friedrich III. (1440–1493): Hof, Regierung und Politik, vol. 1, pp. 709–20.
89
Regesten Kaiser Friedrichs III. (1440–1493): nach Archiven und Bibliotheken geordnet, H. 15: Die Urkunden
und Briefe aus den Beständen ‘Reichsstadt‘ und ‘Hochstift‘ Regensburg des Bayerischen Hauptstaatsarchivs
in München sowie aus den Regensburger Archiven und Bibliotheken, eds F. Fuchs and K.-F. Krieger (Vienna,
2002), no. 144; Regesten Kaiser Friedrichs III. (1440–1493): nach Archiven und Bibliotheken geordnet, H. 28: Die
Urkunden und Briefe aus Archiven und Bibliotheken der Stadt Nürnberg, part 3: 1456–1463, ed. D. Rübsamen
(Vienna, 2013), no. 183.
90
Diemar, ‘Köln und das Reich’, pp. 243, 264–7, 271, 275, 278. On Weltzli see Heinig, Kaiser Friedrich III. (1440–
1493): Hof, Regierung und Politik, vol. 1, pp. 646–52. On Sonnenberger see Heinig, Kaiser Friedrich III. (1440–
1493): Hof, Regierung und Politik, vol. 1, pp. 584–92. On Riederer see Heinig, Kaiser Friedrich III. (1440–1493):
Hof, Regierung und Politik, vol. 1, pp. 688–96. On Ungnad see Heinig, Kaiser Friedrich III. (1440–1493): Hof,
Regierung und Politik, vol. 1, pp. 89–92.
14 Richard C. Schlag

Despite Albrecht Achilles’s efforts, vom Loe and the city’s advocates at court suc-
ceeded in repeatedly delaying and obstructing the court session against Cologne.91 The
relative ease with which the Cologners had been able to fend off the margrave’s initial
prosecution and vom Loe’s assurances that a permanent settlement would soon be
achieved through the formal confirmation of the city’s exemption from the Landgericht’s
jurisdiction appear to have convinced Cologne’s leadership that the emperor’s court was
the most promising arena in which to achieve their aims.92 Municipal authorities con-
sequently became increasingly unwilling to allow any other party to settle the dispute.
In December 1458 the city council declined an initiative by its delegate Vrunt to appeal

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to his old friend Enea Silvio Piccolomini, now Pope Pius II (r. 1458–1464), as the odds
of success were deemed to be more favourable under the auspices of the emperor.93
Similarly, when Friedrich III attempted to delegate the case to the arbitration of the
prince-bishop of Eichstätt via an imperial commission in 1463, Cologne’s leadership
and vom Loe promptly appealed back to the jurisdiction of the Kammergericht.94 In light
of the appreciable distance between the lower Rhenish metropolis and the Habsburg
ruler’s Styrian residences and the logistical difficulties and costs that it generated, the
Cologners’ commitment to this course of action is all the more remarkable. It testifies
to the magnetism of the emperor’s court as the paramount site of decision-making and
arbiter of political fortune within the Reich.
Cologne’s dealings at court were not limited to the sole issue of Albrecht Achilles’s
litigation. Rather, the city council appeared eager to make the most of its newly es-
tablished court connections, and of the money it had spent on them. The substantial
level of access, connections and standing enjoyed by vom Loe and Cologne’s other
advocates allowed them to advance Cologne’s interests in a host of political, legal and
economic matters. In July 1459 the city was granted a favourable imperial diploma in
a legal dispute with a certain Johann Rosenkranz, who had appealed a verdict reached
against him by the high court of Cologne to law courts in Brabant. Rosenkranz was
ordered to resume proceedings either at the Cologne high court or the emperor’s law
court, as Cologne was exempt from the jurisdiction of Brabantian law courts.95 This
case shows how quickly Cologne’s station at court had improved. Eight years earlier, an
imperial decree had sided with Rosenkranz, confirmed the probity of his appeal against
the Cologne high court and even questioned the legality of the high court’s proceed-
ings against him.96 Vom Loe subsequently expedited additional mandates addressed
to Rosenkranz and his benefactor Duke Philip the Good of Burgundy (r. 1419–1467)
and negotiated personally with ducal representatives at the imperial court on Cologne’s
behalf.97 The jurist also obtained letters addressed to King Charles VII of France (r.
1422–1461), whose captain Colin de Casanova had robbed merchants from Cologne.98
The efficacy of these mandates is suggested by the city council entering into talks over

91
Diemar, ‘Köln und das Reich’, pp. 265–7, 271, 275, 278.
92
Ibid., pp. 243–4.
93
Ibid., pp. 249–50.
94
Ibid., pp. 280–2.
95
Ibid., pp. 252–3; RI XIII H. 7, no. 159.
96
RI XIII H. 7, no. 94.
97
Diemar, ‘Köln und das Reich’, pp. 260, 262–4; RI XIII H. 7, no. 221.
98
Diemar, ‘Köln und das Reich’, pp. 262–6; RI XIII H. 7, no. 191.
 The Imperial Court and the Localities 15

compensation with French and Burgundian representatives in April 1461.99 Another

favour was granted in 1459, when Friedrich III confirmed the right of Cologne’s mer-
chants to trade in Austria, even as all other merchants hailing from outside the Austrian
lands were temporarily expelled.100
This routinization and regularization of interpersonal contacts, patronage ties and
mutual trust appears to have more fundamentally transformed the relationship be-
tween the lower Rhenish metropolis and the court. As the above examples show, the
Cologners increasingly looked to the court as the arena in which to manage their rela-
tionships and dealings with politicians and powers both within and outside the Empire.

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This consolidation of contacts also swayed the perception that Friedrich III and his
councillors had of Cologne. The fact that the city was increasingly seen as a reliable
partner and agent of the crown is suggested by its being entrusted with important
business, such as secret consultations with the estates of Frisia in 1460.101 Cologne’s
relationship to Friedrich III’s court was of a different quality than that of the Federsee
communities, whose appeals to the imperial government were motivated by the sin-
gular aim of resisting Albrecht Achilles’s claims. The leaders of Cologne, by contrast,
soon found themselves drawn into and invested in the political designs of the emperor
and his ministers. Cologne’s relationship to the crown increasingly developed a dy-
namic of its own that would grow well beyond Albrecht Achilles’s litigation.
Matters would come to a head during the conflict over Cologne’s law courts. This dis-
agreement initially overlapped with and then increasingly supplanted the jurisdictional
dispute with Albrecht Achilles. By 1464 the Cologners had fended off any immediate
threat posed by the margrave. The Landgericht of the burgraviate of Nuremberg was in
recess from 1460 until after the margrave’s death, in 1486.102 While the Hohenzollern
prince continued to press his claims before the Kammergericht, as we have seen, his ability
to influence the affairs of the imperial government was significantly diminished during
the 1460s. The appointment in 1464 of Ulrich von Nußdorf, prince-bishop of Passau,
a partner of Albrecht Achilles’s Bavarian rivals and major benefactor of Cologne, as
imperial chancellor and cameral judge further diminished the margrave’s chances of a
favourable verdict.103
The contest over Cologne’s courts arose as a result of Friedrich III’s refusal to en-
feoff Ruprecht of the Palatinate following his 1463 election as archbishop of Cologne.
Ruprecht was a younger brother of Elector Palatine Friedrich I ‘the Victorious’, one
of the emperor’s chief rivals.104 Friedrich III’s decision barred the newly elected
Archbishop Ruprecht from exercising the rights and jurisdictions of his archdiocese,
including operating the law courts within the city of Cologne.105 In 1467 the emperor

99
Diemar, ‘Köln und das Reich’, p. 267.
100
Ibid., pp. 252–4.
101
Ibid., pp. 261, 264; RI XIII H. 7, nos. 179–81.
102
Andrian-Werburg, ‘Markgraf Albrecht Achilles’, pp. 62–3; Baumbach, ‘Was war ein Landgerichtssprengel?’, p.
138.
103
On Nußdorf see Heinig, Kaiser Friedrich III. (1440–1493): Hof, Regierung und Politik, vol. 1, pp. 653–8.
104
J. Schwarz, ‘Pfalzgraf Friedrich der Siegreiche, der Regensburger Christentag 1471 und die Konzepte der
Konfrontation, der Kooperation und der Kompensation’, in Auge, Werlich and Zeilinger, Fürsten an der
Zeitenwende, pp. 263–90, here pp. 263–6.
105
RI XIII H. 7, no. 231.
16 Richard C. Schlag

authorized the city council of Cologne to operate the city’s district courts and high
court in the archbishop’s stead.106 With the permission of municipal authorities, the
Schöffen (jurors) of the courts were allowed to elect one of their number as Greve (judge),
as well as to choose new men to fill their ranks when necessary.107 If Greve and Schöffen
refused to obey the city government, it was free to dismiss them and to appoint new
judicial officers.108
Contrary to the dualistic notions of some historians, taking direct control of the
law courts was not the outcome that Cologne’s leaders had hoped for. Rather, the
city council had urged Friedrich III to allow Archbishop Ruprecht to operate

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the law courts when it first appealed to the crown in this matter. The city councillors
emphasized that their main concern was not usurping control of the law courts but
guaranteeing legal security and quick, effective justice for the citizenry.109 They com-
plained that ‘as the new bishop does not yet possess the regalia, the high court refuses
to judge blood and inheritance cases; through this many people are damaged and
the poor prisoners stay in the stocks and prisons and spoil’.110 After their requests
were repeatedly refused, city officials expressed their surprise and exasperation at
the emperor’s staunch refusal to enfeoff the archbishop.111 Cologne’s leadership ini-
tially maintained cordial relations with Archbishop Ruprecht. In January 1465 they
showed their willingness to cooperate with the archbishop in legal matters by asking
the emperor to submit the case of Gete Ketzgin, widow of a Cologne citizen, to
the archbishop’s jurisdiction.112 The city council also trusted Archbishop Ruprecht
and his brother, the Elector Palatine, to aid its representatives when they were ran-
somed while traveling through Bavaria in April 1465.113 Wolfgang Herborn and Carl
Dietmar have also suggested that the reform and professionalization of the Cologne
high court initiated by Ruprecht’s predecessor as archbishop, Dietrich II of Moers-
Saarwerden, from 1448 onwards depoliticized the court and made control over it a
less contentious issue.114
It was the ongoing legal insecurity resulting from Friedrich III’s refusal to grant
Archbishop Ruprecht the regalia that finally motivated the city leadership to pursue
efforts to begin operating the law courts without the archbishop’s involvement.115
Archbishop Ruprecht refused to accept these violations of his authority and responded
with the imposition of ecclesiastical sanctions against the Cologners and an appeal to
the papal curia.116 Cologne’s leadership was forced to respond and once more sought
and found support at the imperial court. A letter of 1469 from the imperial chancery
and addressed to Pope Paul II (r. 1464–1471) confirmed the probity of the city’s new

106
Ibid., no. 257.
107
Ibid., no. 257.
108
Ibid., no. 257.
109
Diemar, ‘Köln und das Reich’, pp. 281–2.
110
Ibid., p. 282.
111
Ibid., pp. 286, 293–4.
112
Ibid., p. 288.
113
Ibid., p. 290.
114
Herborn and Dietmar, Köln im Spätmittelalter, pp. 174–5.
115
Diemar, ‘Köln und das Reich’, pp. 286, 290–1, 293–6, 298–9.
116
Ibid., pp. 314–18; RI XIII H. 7, no. 258.
 The Imperial Court and the Localities 17

legal privileges and asked the pope to annul Archbishop Ruprecht’s sanctions.117 The
emperor also expanded the scope of his earlier decree by amending the appeals pro-
cess against verdicts reached by the Cologne law courts.118 While the archbishop was
without enfeoffment or otherwise indisposed, appeals were to be addressed directly
to the emperor’s Kammergericht in the first instance, bypassing the archbishop’s juris-
diction.119 It was only at this time that more concerted efforts in open opposition to
Archbishop Ruprecht became a staple of municipal correspondence.120 For instance,
Cologne’s leadership intensified its contacts with opponents of the archbishop such as
Count Philipp II of Virneburg, the custodian and treasurer of the Cologne cathedral

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chapter Stephan of Palatinate-Zweibrücken, and his brother Count Palatine Ludwig I
of Zweibrücken-Veldenz.121
This episode provides an impressive demonstration of the crown’s ability to shape
and influence local disputes and to counteract its opponents. Friedrich III was able to
draw the Cologners into a major conflict at the imperial level in which they had pre-
viously had little stake. In order to guarantee the legal security of the citizenry and
to maintain their good standing at the imperial court, Cologne’s leaders had been
forced to take a side in Friedrich III’s rivalry with the Elector Palatine and to oppose
an archbishop with whom they had previously enjoyed an amicable relationship. That
open conflict with the archbishop was seen as the preferable option testifies to the trust
that the authorities in Cologne placed in the emperor and his government and the
strength of the relationship that had developed between the metropolis and the im-
perial monarchy.
The confrontation with Archbishop Ruprecht subsequently became the city council’s
primary concern in its dealings with the court. It replaced the dispute with Albrecht
Achilles, which, as we have seen, had lost most of its urgency by this time. That ori-
ginal case was likely concluded in 1473, when the emperor finally lifted the imperial
bans placed on the cities of the Low Countries, enfeoffed the prince-bishop of Liège
and confirmed all privileges and jurisdictions of his diocese.122 As Albrecht Achilles’s
prosecution of Cologne had been based on its continuing trade with Liège and other
cities under imperial ban, the ban’s annulment indirectly ended the dispute without the
litigation before the Kammergericht being formally decided. The case makes its last ap-
pearance in Albrecht Achilles’s correspondence in February 1473.123
The third stage of Cologne’s interactions with the imperial government of Friedrich
III revolved around the Cologne episcopal feud and imperial war against Burgundy.
This episode was to be the final test of the strength of the city’s ties to the crown.

117
RI XIII H. 7, no. 258.
118
Ibid., no. 311.
119
Ibid., no. 311.
120
Diemar, ‘Köln und das Reich’, pp. 314–18.
121
Ibid., pp. 338–9, 342, 346–7.
122
RCDFIII, no. 6810; Regesten Kaiser Friedrichs III. (1440–1493): nach Archiven und Bibliotheken geordnet, H.
27: Die Urkunden und Briefe des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs in Wien, Abt. Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv:
Allgemeine Urkundenreihe, Familienurkunden und Abschriftensammlungen (1470–1475), ed. S. Dünnebeil and
D. Luger (Vienna, 2012), nos. 215–16.
123
Politische Correspondenz des Kurfürsten Albrecht Achilles, ed. F. Priebatsch, 3 vols (Leipzig, 1894–1898), vol. 1,
no. 535.
18 Richard C. Schlag

In March 1473 hostilities erupted between Archbishop Ruprecht and his enemies in
the Cologne cathedral chapter.124 Due to their unresolved differences with Archbishop
Ruprecht, the Cologners decided to support his opponents and signed an alliance
with the cathedral chapter on 5 June 1473.125 The conflict broadened into a war of
European dimensions when the embattled archbishop allied with Charles the Bold of
Burgundy in 1474.126 In response, the cathedral chapter, the city of Cologne and their
allies called upon Friedrich III for support, who marshalled a substantial imperial army
for a campaign against the Burgundians. The city of Cologne played a key role in this
military confrontation, providing more than 2,700 troops and hundreds of thousands

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of guilders in loans and financial contributions to support the imperial war effort.127
The war ended in an imperial victory. Charles the Bold was forced to withdraw from
the archdiocese of Cologne in the summer of 1475, and Ruprecht of the Palatinate was
captured and forced to resign a few years later. During and after the campaign Friedrich
III conferred the status of an imperial city, as well as a host of other privileges, upon
the city of Cologne.128 From 1475 onwards, Cologne was fully integrated into the im-
perial government, as an important political, administrative and financial centre and
prestigious residence of Friedrich III and his son and successor Maximilian I (r. 1493–
1519).129 Interpersonal ties between the crown and the metropolis also proliferated and
several Cologners reached prestigious positions at the courts of both monarchs.130

IV. Conclusion

This article set out to argue that there are greater grounds for exploring the relationship
between the late medieval imperial monarchy and its non-princely subjects in the local-
ities than previously assumed. The period of the Reich’s history under examination has
conventionally been seen as precipitating the definitive consolidation of the territorial
principalities and imperial estates as the chief actors and defining feature of imperial
politics. For the subjects of this article, however, it was institutions of the imperial gov-
ernment—the imperial Landgericht of the burgraves of Nuremberg; the Kammergericht,
court and council of Emperor Friedrich III; and, for the inhabitants of the Federsee
communities, the Reichslandvogtei of Swabia—that took centre stage in their political con-
cerns, activities and imagination. While the communities discussed in these case studies
did seek and find the support of major princes, it was the advocacy of accomplished
advisors and officers of the emperor’s court that allowed these communities to achieve
their goals. The evidence examined here points towards the vitality of the contact and
interaction between the emperor’s court and his subjects, whose political fortunes could

124
Urkundenbuch für die Geschichte des Niederrheins oder des Erzstifts Köln, der Fürstentümer Jülich und Berg,
Geldern, Moers, Kleve und Mark, und der Reichsstifte Elten, Essen und Werden, eds W.-R. Schleidgen and T. J.
Lacomblet, 4 vols (Essen, 1840–1858), vol. 4, no. 363.
125
Ibid., no. 366.
126
Ibid., no. 375.
127
Herborn and Dietmar, Köln im Spätmittelalter, pp. 183–5.
128
RI XIII H. 7, nos. 392–3, 395–9, 479, 513–14; Herborn and Dietmar, Köln im Spätmittelalter, p. 185.
129
RI XIII H. 7, nos. 389, 394, 400, 558, 568–70, 609–10, 699, 701, 768; Herborn and Dietmar, Köln im
Spätmittelalter, pp. 213–20; Heinig, Kaiser Friedrich III. (1440–1493): Hof, Regierung und Politik, vol. 2, p. 1286.
130
Heinig, Kaiser Friedrich III. (1440–1493): Hof, Regierung und Politik, vol. 1, pp. 440–2; vol. 2, pp. 1270, 1286.
 The Imperial Court and the Localities 19

be significantly altered by the fluctuating balance of power and advantage at court.

These conclusions also cast doubt on the notion that it was only the institutionalization
of the imperial diet at the end of the fifteenth century that provided the Reich’s subjects
with a viable arena to resolve disagreements and to realize their interests.
A shared feature of the two disputes discussed in this article is the role of Margrave
Albrecht Achilles of Brandenburg as plaintiff. The margrave’s role is particularly note-
worthy as it shows the extent to which one of the most prolific princes of the late medi-
eval Reich relied on the imperial government rather than the resources and power of
his own patrimonial territories to enforce his interests. The difficulties and setbacks that

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a prince of his calibre could face in trying to impose his claims against even the small
communities of the Federsee and the extent to which he was forced to rely on his ability
to direct the offices, decrees and institutions of the crown challenge the notion that
the Empire was transformed into an agglomeration of consolidated and autonomous
princely states during Friedrich III’s reign. The Federsee dispute also suggests that even
the Empire’s more humble subjects were willing and able to engage with the legal and
documentary culture and law courts of the emperor’s government. Both case studies
demonstrate the ability of the Reich’s subjects to navigate and take advantage of the
factions, office structure and political rivalries at the heart of the imperial regime.
Ultimately, the evidence examined in this article suggests that the study of the
Empire’s political, governmental and constitutional history should not be confined to
the domain of princely high politics and the development of the imperial diet, but
would benefit from taking a wider range of actors and interactions into account. This
article thus invites historians to reconsider the relationship between the imperial mon-
archy and its subjects as well as the practices and institutions mediating this relation-
ship. A new understanding of this relationship also calls into question the role ascribed
by Peter Moraw to institutions such as the imperial diet as alternative forms of govern-
ment which, according to him, developed as an inevitable consequence of the chronic
inability of the emperor and his ministers to govern effectively and to adequately ad-
dress mounting challenges.

Abstract

The centrality of the territorial principalities and imperial diet is a defining feature of the historiography of
the late medieval Holy Roman Empire. This tendency risks restricting discussions of the Reich’s political life
to the arena of high politics and obscuring important links and relationships between the imperial mon-
archy and its non-princely subjects. This article sets out to examine interactions between the late medieval
imperial government and its subjects in the localities. The analysis focuses on the court and government
of Emperor Friedrich III of Habsburg (r. 1440–1493), whose ‘peripheral kingship’ has been interpreted
by historians as the moment of the crown’s definitive alienation from the Empire’s core lands. The article
presents two case studies of protracted legal disputes in which communities of different size, importance
and location came into the orbit of the emperor’s court seeking to protect their rights and interests. These
case studies provide illustrative examples of how routine matters and local conflicts could be inextricably
bound up in the structures of the emperor’s government. This evidence suggests that a complete account
of the political and governmental history of the late medieval Holy Roman Empire needs to incorporate
both new insights about the effectiveness of the imperial monarchy and the complex, multi-layered and
interdependent nature of local politics.

Jesus College, University of Oxford, UK

richard.schlag@jesus.ox.ac.uk