Pax urbana as a foundation for communal living in the towns
The urban peace in late medieval German towns depended on the universitas civium (community), which was in legal terms a coniuratio communis or coniuratio pax.7 Every citizen had to become a member of the universitas by a promissory oath, sworn on the gospel or a reliquary.
Every member obliged himself to abide by the self-given standards and rules. With his oath, he agreed to accept due punishment in case he broke any rules. Furthermore, he had to assist the town’s authorities to uphold the law and help to catch trespassers.8 As a member of a confederation (�Eid- oder Schwurgemeinschaft’), the citizen had to pay taxes, perform guard duty by day and by night and defend the walls and gates of the town when the authorities told him to.9 But the citizen also had some important advantages. He was a free person, he had the chance to choose a profession and he was allowed to bequest his property to whomsoever he wished. The citizen had the right to elect members of the city council and had – at least hypothetically – passive suffrage; he could be elected. Furthermore, he had the privilege to seek justice at the city court and in most cases nobody could take legal action against him outside the urban jurisdiction.10Since the thirteenth century most German towns had developed a political and juridical administration – consisting of councils, courts, legal professionals and some kind of police force – which had the duty to secure the peace and the unity within the town for all citizens and other dwellers (servants, maidservants, journeymen and so on), who also had to swear an oath (�Beisassenheid’) but who did not enjoy the same rights as free citizens.11 In principle, every inhabitant of the town could enjoy the urban peace as well as protection against injustice of any kind.
But the guarantee of justice by the city council did imply that vigilantism or violent revenge for an alleged or factual injustice was forbidden.The town council also organised the defence of the town’s freedom against external enemies. The paramount objective of urban councils and courts was to keep the peace within the city walls because legal peace was crucial to securing and promoting trade and craft. Without urban peace, it was challenging or even impossible for tradesmen to conduct their business successfully. But not just the urban economy was affected by the disturbance of the peace. The unity of the citizens and inhabitants as well as harmony (unio) and the common good (bonum commune) were at stake too. The inscription at the outer Holstentor in Lübeck (erected in the sixteenth century) summed this idea up nicely: Concordia domi et foris pax sane res est omnium pulcherrima.12
Let us now take a closer look at the different legal areas of the pax urbana which touched on matters from mundane daily communal living to more intense political crises. It was the main function of the urban peace to regulate the mutual prosperity of all urban dwellers. In the municipal laws, peace (friden) designated the manner in which citizens and inhabitants should interact. In the later middle ages, the form that the peace took depended on the legal system of each individual town. In the legal culture of especially German towns peace and law were identical.13 Town laws, for example, specified where inhabitants could legally dump their manure or where they could keep their pigs and poultry. Problems often arose when dwellers tried to unload their excrement near the wells because this could contaminate the water. Perpetrators in these cases had to face a peace fine (�Friedensstrafe’) because they had disturbed the urban peace by ignoring the rule concerning hygiene in the town. Another important issue was the mundane behaviour of inhabitants on streets and squares, in churches and taverns.
One could become a breaker of the peace by shouting and/or swearing in public or by walking home from a tavern without holding a light.14 Whereas the offences mentioned earlier were in most cases only punished with fines, those with a specific level of interpersonal violence, like verbal disputes (sometimes along with a fistfight) or the drawing of knives, were punished with shameful penalties like standing at the pillory – penalties that were meant to taint the honour of peace breakers.15 Major offences like burglary, thievery and the infliction of serious or deadly injuries were punished with corporal punishments.16Personal honour was political capital for men with ambitions. It was essential for members of the political elite to legitimise their social position and their role as political officers like councillor, mayor, city treasurer and the like. The towns were governed by members of the urban elite (the urban nobility, very wealthy tradesmen, people with independent means and, in the fifteenth century, guild masters as well) who acted as members of the council. On the one hand, these members of the elite tried to distance themselves from the main body of citizens; on the other hand, they tried to maintain a hierarchy of prestige and honour among themselves. Although these men were legally equal to other citizens, their social status and prestige were different. This fact led to tensions between families and individuals of the urban elite. The urban peace was at risk if a member of the council, for example the mayor, acted in a way that created the impression that he wanted to overcome the council, was pursuing his individual benefit instead of the common good and tried to erect an autocracy. Bertram Wulflam, mayor in the Hanseatic town of Stralsund in the second half of the fourteenth century, was such a man.17 His opponents criticised him because he refused to draw up accounts and he stored tax revenues in his house. Thus, his fellow councillors had no way to check how he used the town’s money.
He was also accused of consulting his wife more than the members of the council. In 1391 an opposition led by Karsten Sarnow finally forced him to give public account for the budget. He refused to do this, and instead took his family and fled to Lübeck.In 1487 an uprising against the government in Braunschweig was sustained in particular by well-off craftsmen and social climbers. This uprising occurred because the council was under the influence of an increasingly small group of patrician families.18 These families were accused of using their influence to promote relatives and kin into offices, thus preventing suitable candidates from other patrician families being elected. Office holders – the customs clerk and the law clerk – were accused of misusing their position and influence in order to pursue their personal interests and of damaging the common good. Apart from that, members of the lower ranks joined the insurgents, because they wanted the council to take care of the common people by lowering the beer price and by building a storehouse or granary. So while the elite was struggling over the occupation of town and council offices, ordinary people demanded measures against the consequences of bad harvests and price increases. In both cases, but for different reasons, the insurgents claimed that the council had broken the urban peace and that the insurgents themselves had taken measures to restore it. In all cases similar to those mentioned here, there was an option to restore the urban peace if the troublemaker left the town either voluntary or involuntary because he wanted to avoid a court suit or had been sentenced to exile.19
Discontent with the handling of the towns’ finances by the council or with specific members of the council stirred up the tensions between the citizens and often led to violent protest. In the eyes of ordinary citizens, such mishandling was a breach of the urban peace, because they as taxpayers had to compensate for the loss.
Along with material reasons for upheaval in a city, the mentality of the citizens has to be considered. Most of them respected the councillors as long as they fulfilled their duties properly and in line with the fundamental understanding that they were in office for the common good of the town and its inhabitants and not for their private interests. In case the patricians in the council seemed to ignore the requirements of good government, they were accused of showing arrogance (ubirmute). Citizens in Lübeck protested against councillors in 1408 because they saw themselves governed by the council in the same way peasants were ruled by the lord of a manor. Other complaints were related to the financial management of the council, because only a few aldermen were running this important aspect of the government. The citizens regarded this as a breach of the urban peace as well as a breach of the aldermen’s oaths of office.20The conflicts among guilds and crafts were another perennial challenge to the peace. Such disputes often occurred because the council was seen to favour a particular craft guild. This led to mutual complaints about the unfair business practices of the opponent. In Braunschweig in the 1480s the blacksmiths complained about the hucksters who, like the blacksmiths, sold knives and nails. The hucksters, who had shops in the town, were, in turn, dissatisfied because peddlers were allowed to sell spices and other goods three times a week in the open air.21 The craft guilds’ members demanded of the council to act in their benefit and were displeased when the council refused to do so. As a consequence, there was a permanent tension in the town and it only needed a spark to provoke a conflict or even an uprising. For the ordinary craft and guild members the urban peace was the basis for their business activities. They saw this peace disrupted in every case in which their business was restricted by the aldermen’s economic policy to their disadvantage.
The urban peace (friden) as the foundation for communal living in the towns fulfilled various functions. It was a means to secure the inviolability of life and limb, the protection of one’s property and the preservation of the value of material goods. Furthermore, it helped the citizens and inhabitants to settle disputes and live together. However, councils and protesters alike used the norms and regulations in the municipal laws concerning the urban peace to legitimise their political goals. As we have seen, the practice to keep the peace and the best way to uphold it or to restore it after it had been disrupted was highly controversial for council and citizens, craftsmen and guilds. Nevertheless, the parties on either side of the conflict tried to find ways to solve their issues and to re-establish urban peace – and to restore peace meant to follow the regulations of the urban law. The drawing up of so-called letters or charters of peace (�Friedbriefe’) is evidence for the efforts of all those involved in making the city space a peaceful place to live in.22 The Friedbriefe were the product of negotiations between parties, who had for example fought over political participation and the constitution of a town (the right to vote) or over business concerns (the right to sell specific items) with each other. With the signing of charters, the parties bound themselves to an agreement, which sought to restore the peace in the town.