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.

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.