Introduction

The pattern of town–country relations in the German-speaking lands from the Alps to the North Sea from the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries displayed a greater variety than in any other part of Europe. It ranged from fully-fledged city-states in the Swiss Confederation, sovereign principalities in their own right, to spheres of regional economic influence in the southern Low Countries, where the leading cities dominated the economy of their hinterlands without achieving exclusive jurisdiction. Across this spectrum the cities of Germany were located at intermediate points. Some, such as Nuremberg, attempted to acquire land which would directly serve their commercial interests as a source of labour or raw materials; others, such as Augsburg or Cologne, came to dominate the economies of their hinterlands in the organisation of production and distribution without ever amassing a landed territory of any size. Nuremberg was a city-state in all but name; Augsburg and Cologne echoed the regional economic sway exercised by the Flemish cities.

In either dimension, cities were concerned to extend their centrality – whether jurisdictional, political, economic, or social – over their surrounding countryside, in other words to establish a hierarchy of influence or dependence. But it should not be forgotten that relations between town and country were shaped by co-operation between cities as well as by competition. This, too, was a particular feature of the German-speaking lands, reflected in both political and commercial alliances.