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54-512: Crailsheim is famed for withstanding a siege by forces of three imperial cities - Schwäbisch Hall , Dinkelsbühl , and Rothenburg ob der Tauber - lasting from 1379 until 1380, a feat which it celebrates annually. Crailsheim became a possession of the Burgrave of Nuremberg following the siege. In 1791 it became part of the Prussian administrative region, before returning to Bavaria in 1806 and becoming

108-657: A coalition of Germanic people led by Ariovistus . The first written records of the town date from the twelfth century. It was part of the southern Alsatian county of Sundgau in the Holy Roman Empire . From 1354 to 1515, Mulhouse was part of the Zehnstädtebund , an association of ten Free Imperial Cities in Alsace. The city joined the Swiss Confederation as an associate in 1515 and was therefore not annexed by France in

162-495: A considerable time, even though no formal right to independence existed. These cities were typically located in small territories where the ruler was weak. They were the exception among the multitude of territorial towns and cities. Cities of both latter categories normally had representation in territorial diets , but not in the Imperial Diet. Free imperial cities were not officially admitted as individual Imperial Estates to

216-590: A few cases, such as in Cologne, the former ecclesiastical lord continued to claim the right to exercise some residual feudal privileges over the Free City, a claim that gave rise to constant litigation almost until the end of the Empire. Over time, the difference between Imperial Cities and Free Cities became increasingly blurred, so that they became collectively known as "Free Imperial Cities", or "Free and Imperial Cities", and by

270-454: A part of Württemberg in 1810. Crailsheim's railroad and airfield were heavily defended by the Waffen-SS during World War II. Following an American assault in mid-April 1945, the town was occupied briefly by US forces before being lost to a German counter-offensive. Intense US bombing and artillery shelling destroyed much of the city, with subsequent fires consuming its historic inner city. Only

324-425: A say in the government of the city, were the citizens or burghers, the smaller, privileged section of the city's permanent population whose number varied according to the rule of citizenship of each city. There were exceptions, such as Nuremberg , where the patriciate ruled alone. To the common town dweller – whether he lived in a prestigious Free Imperial City like Frankfurt, Augsburg or Nuremberg, or in

378-438: A small market town such as there were hundreds throughout Germany – attaining burgher status ( Bürgerrecht ) could be his greatest aim in life. The burgher status was usually an inherited privilege renewed pro-forma in each generation of the family concerned but it could also be purchased. At times, the sale of burgher status could be a significant item of town income as fiscal records show. The Bürgerrecht

432-594: A state after the war due to its special position in divided post-war Germany. Regensburg was, apart from hosting the Imperial Diet , a most peculiar city: an officially Lutheran city that was the seat of the Catholic prince-bishopric of Regensburg, its prince-bishop and cathedral chapter. The Imperial City also housed three Imperial abbeys: St. Emmeram , Niedermünster and Obermünster . They were five immediate entities fully independent of each other existing in

486-625: Is also a train service to Frankfurt am Main in Germany, and a Eurocity service that connects Brussels , Luxembourg , Strasbourg and Basel calls at Mulhouse. Regional services connect Mulhouse to Colmar , Strasbourg, Basel, Belfort , Kruth and Freiburg im Breisgau . Transport within Mulhouse is provided by Soléa and comprises a network of buses together with the city's tram network , which opened on 13 May 2006. The tramway now consists of three tram lines and one tram-train line. Motorway A36

540-427: Is now Switzerland with cities like Bern, Zürich and Luzern, but also cities like Ulm, Nuremberg and Hamburg in what is now Germany possessed substantial hinterlands or fiefs that comprised dozens of villages and thousands of subject peasants who did not enjoy the same rights as the urban population. At the opposite end, the authority of Cologne, Aachen, Worms, Goslar, Wetzlar, Augsburg and Regensburg barely extended beyond

594-634: Is served by the Upper Jagst Railway . Crailsheim is twinned with: The Crailsheim Merlins are the city's basketball team. Founded in 1986, they originally played in lower leagues. In 1995 they moved into a new sports hall, improved, and were promoted in 2001 to the 2. Bundesliga , the second division of German basketball. In 2015 they were first promoted to the Bundesliga but relegated after two seasons. They achieved promotion again in 2018. www.crailsheim-merlins.de Free imperial city In

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648-720: Is the largest city in Haut-Rhin and second largest in Alsace after Strasbourg . Mulhouse is known for its museums, especially the Cité de l'Automobile (also known as the Musée national de l'automobile , 'National Museum of the Automobile') and the Cité du Train (also known as Musée Français du Chemin de Fer , 'French Museum of the Railway'), respectively the largest automobile and railway museums in

702-519: Is the main axis connecting the city with the west of the country, to cities such as Dijon , Paris and Lyon . The A35 is the main north–south axis, connecting cities such as Strasbourg and Basel . Mulhouse is one of the nation's hubs for women's volleyball. ASPTT Mulhouse won multiple titles at the National level . The team plays its home games at the Palais des Sports. Additionally, FC Mulhouse Basket

756-559: The Austro-Prussian War of 1866. The three other Free Cities became constituent states of the new German Empire in 1871 and consequently were no longer fully sovereign as they lost control over defence, foreign affairs and a few other fields. They retained that status in the Weimar Republic and into Nazi Germany , although under Hitler it became purely notional. Due to Hitler's distaste for Lübeck and its liberal tradition,

810-473: The EuroAirport international airport with these two cities. Medieval Mulhouse consists essentially of a lower and an upper town. Mulhouse's climate is temperate oceanic ( Köppen : Cfb), but its location further away from the ocean gives the city colder winters with some snow, and often hot and humid summers, in comparison with the rest of France. The population data in the table and graph below refer to

864-420: The Holy Roman Empire , the collective term free and imperial cities (German: Freie und Reichsstädte ), briefly worded free imperial city ( Freie Reichsstadt , Latin : urbs imperialis libera ), was used from the 15th century to denote a self-ruling city that had a certain amount of autonomy and was represented in the Imperial Diet . An imperial city held the status of imperial immediacy , and

918-557: The Imperial Diet until 1489, and even then their votes were usually considered only advisory ( votum consultativum ) compared to the benches of the electors and princes. The cities divided themselves into two groups, or benches, in the Imperial Diet, the Rhenish and the Swabian benches. These same cities were among the 85 free imperial cities listed on the Reichsmatrikel of 1521,

972-620: The Levant . The town's history also explains why its centre is relatively small. Two rivers run through Mulhouse, the Doller and the Ill , both tributaries of the Rhine . Mulhouse is approximately 100 kilometres (62 miles) from Strasbourg and Zürich ; it is 350 km (217 mi) from Milan and about 340 km (211 mi) from Frankfurt . It is close to Basel, Switzerland and Freiburg , Germany. It shares

1026-739: The Peace of Westphalia in 1648 like the rest of the Sundgau. An enclave in Alsace, it was a free and independent Calvinist republic, known as Stadtrepublik Mülhausen , associated with the Swiss Confederation until, after a vote by its citizens on 4 January 1798, it became a part of France in the Treaty of Mulhouse signed on 28 January 1798, during the Directory period of the French Revolution . Starting in

1080-659: The Perpetual Imperial Diet was located, were represented by various Regensburg lawyers and officials who often represented several cities simultaneously. Instead, many cities found it more profitable to maintain agents at the Aulic Council in Vienna, where the risk of an adverse judgment posed a greater risk to city treasuries and independence. The territory of most Free Imperial Cities was generally quite small but there were exceptions. The largest territories formed in what

1134-558: The 39 communes which make up the communauté d'agglomération of Mulhouse Alsace Agglomération (m2A, population 280,000 in 2020). Mulhouse commune is a subprefecture , the administrative centre of the Arrondissement of Mulhouse . It is one of the most populated sub-prefectures in France . In 58 BC a battle took place west of Mulhouse and opposed the Roman army of Julius Caesar by

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1188-499: The 50 free imperial cities that took part in the Imperial Diet of 1792. They are listed according to their voting order on the Rhenish and Swabian benches. By the time of the Peace of Westphalia, the cities constituted a formal third "college" and their full vote ( votum decisivum ) was confirmed, although they failed to secure parity of representation with the two other colleges. To avoid

1242-584: The Diet could vote a second and a third simplum , in which case each member's contribution was doubled or tripled. At the time, the free imperial cities were considered wealthy and the monetary contribution of Nuremberg, Ulm and Cologne for instance were as high as that of the Electors ( Mainz , Trier , Cologne , Palatinate , Saxony , Brandenburg ) and the Dukes of Württemberg and of Lorraine . The following list contains

1296-573: The Empire was slower than that of the secular and ecclesiastical princes. In the course of the 13th and 14th centuries, some cities were promoted by the emperor to the status of Imperial Cities ( Reichsstädte ; Urbes imperiales ), essentially for fiscal reasons. Those cities, which had been founded by the German kings and emperors in the 10th through 13th centuries and had initially been administered by royal/imperial stewards ( Vögte ), gradually gained independence as their city magistrates assumed

1350-707: The Holy Roman Empire was dissolved in 1806. By 1811, all of the Imperial Cities had lost their independence – Augsburg and Nuremberg had been annexed by Bavaria , Frankfurt had become the center of the Grand Duchy of Frankfurt , a Napoleonic puppet state , and the three Hanseatic cities had been directly annexed by France as part of its effort to enforce the Continental Blockade against Britain. Hamburg and Lübeck with surrounding territories formed

1404-601: The Johanneskirche (St. John's Church) escaped unharmed. Crailsheim became the postwar home to the U.S. Army's McKee Barracks until the facility closed in January 1994. Major employers in the Crailsheim area include: The following boroughs comprise the Crailsheim municipality: Altenmünster, Erkenbrechtshausen, Tiefenbach, Onolzheim , Roßfeld , Jagstheim , Westgartshausen , Goldbach , Triensbach and Beuerlbach . Crailsheim

1458-575: The Reformation, and of the sixty Free Imperial Cities that remained at the Peace of Westphalia , all but the ten Alsatian cities which were annexed by France during the late 17th century continued to exist until the mediatization of 1803. The Empire had approximately 4000 towns and cities, although fewer than 400 of these had more than a thousand inhabitants around the year 1600. During the Late Middle Ages, fewer than 200 of these places ever enjoyed

1512-633: The areas west of the Rhine were annexed to France by the revolutionary armies, suppressing the independence of Imperial Cities as diverse as Cologne, Aachen, Speyer and Worms. Then, the Napoleonic Wars led to the reorganization of the Empire in 1803 (see German Mediatisation ), where all of the free cities but six – Hamburg , Bremen , Lübeck , Frankfurt, Augsburg , and Nuremberg  – lost their independence and were absorbed into neighboring territories. Under pressure from Napoleon,

1566-420: The case of Hamburg in 1708, the situation was considered sufficiently serious to warrant the dispatch of an Imperial commissioner with troops to restore order and negotiate a compromise and a new city constitution between the warring parties. The number of Imperial Cities shrank over time until the Peace of Westphalia. There were more in areas that were very fragmented politically, such as Swabia and Franconia in

1620-510: The city again on 19 August, before retreating again on 28 August having suffered heavy casualties. Alsatians who celebrated the appearance of the French army were left to face German reprisals, with several citizens sentenced to death. After World War I ended in 1918, French troops entered Alsace, and Germany ceded the region to France under the Treaty of Versailles . After the Battle of France in 1940, it

1674-442: The city walls. The constitution of Free and Imperial Cities was republican in form, but in all but the smallest cities, the city government was oligarchic in nature with a governing town council composed of an elite, hereditary patrician class, the so-called town council families ( Ratsverwandte ). They were the most economically significant burgher families who had asserted themselves politically over time. Below them, with

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1728-563: The city was temporary, such as wintering noblemen, foreign merchants, princely officials, and so on. Urban conflicts in Free Imperial Cities, which sometimes amounted to class warfare, were not uncommon in the Early Modern Age, particularly in the 17th century (Lübeck, 1598–1669; Schwäbisch Hall, 1601–1604; Frankfurt, 1612–1614; Wezlar, 1612–1615; Erfurt, 1648–1664; Cologne, 1680–1685; Hamburg 1678–1693, 1702–1708). Sometimes, as in

1782-558: The commune of Mulhouse proper, in its geography at the given years. The commune of Mulhouse absorbed the former commune of Dornach in 1914 and Bourtzwiller in 1947. As early as the mid-19th century, Mulhouse was known as "the industrial capital of Alsace", the "city with a hundred chimneys" ( cité aux cent cheminées ) and "the French Manchester". Between 1909 and 1914 there was an aircraft manufacturer, Aviatik , in Mulhouse. The École nationale supérieure de chimie de Mulhouse ,

1836-561: The company became Société Alsacienne de Constructions Mécaniques . After the Prussian victory in the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871), Mulhouse was annexed to the German Empire as part of the territory of Alsace-Lorraine (1871–1918). The city was briefly occupied by French troops on 8 August 1914 at the start of World War I , but they were forced to withdraw two days later in the Battle of Mulhouse . French forces then reoccupied

1890-498: The course of the Middle Ages, cities gained, and sometimes – if rarely – lost, their freedom through the vicissitudes of power politics. Some favored cities gained charters by gift. Others purchased one from a prince in need of funds. Some won it by force of arms during the troubled 13th and 14th centuries and others lost their privileges during the same period by the same way. Some cities became free through

1944-507: The diminutive Free Imperial City of Isny was the equal of the Margraviate of Brandenburg . Having probably learned from experience that there was not much to gain from active, and costly, participation in the Imperial Diet's proceedings due to the lack of empathy of the princes, the cities made little use of their representation in that body. By about 1700, almost all the cities with the exception of Nuremberg, Ulm and Regensburg, where by then

1998-415: The duties of administration and justice; some prominent examples are Colmar , Haguenau , and Mulhouse in Alsace or Memmingen and Ravensburg in upper Swabia . The Free Cities ( Freie Städte ; Urbes liberae ) were those, such as Basel , Augsburg , Cologne or Strasbourg , that were initially subjected to a prince-bishop and, likewise, progressively gained independence from that lord. In

2052-569: The département of Bouches-de-l'Elbe , and Bremen the Bouches-du-Weser . When the German Confederation was established by the Congress of Vienna in 1815, Hamburg, Lübeck, Bremen, and Frankfurt were once again made Free Cities, this time enjoying total sovereignty as all the members of the loose Confederation. Frankfurt was annexed by Prussia in consequence of the part it took in

2106-557: The first school of Chemistry in France, is located in the city. Mulhouse is served by EuroAirport Basel-Mulhouse-Freiburg , located 25 km (16 mi) south of the town. Gare de Mulhouse is well connected with the rest of France by train, including major destinations such as Paris, Dijon , Besançon , Belfort , Strasbourg , Lyon , Marseille , Montpellier and Lille . Some trains operate to destinations in Switzerland , in particular proximity Basel , Bern and Zürich . There

2160-503: The imperial civil and military tax-schedule used for more than a century to assess the contributions of all the Imperial Estates in case of a war formally declared by the Imperial Diet. The military and monetary contribution of each city is indicated in parentheses. For instance Cologne (30-322-600) means that Cologne had to provide 30 horsemen, 322 footsoldiers and 600 gulden. These numbers are equivalent to one simplum . If need be,

2214-552: The late 15th century, many cities included both "Free" and "Imperial" in their name. Like the other Imperial Estates, they could wage war, make peace, and control their own trade, and they permitted little interference from outside. In the later Middle Ages, a number of Free Cities formed City Leagues ( Städtebünde ), such as the Hanseatic League or the Alsatian Décapole , to promote and defend their interests. In

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2268-516: The middle of the eighteenth century, the Koechlin family pioneered cotton cloth manufacturing; Mulhouse became one of France's leading textile centers in the nineteenth century. André Koechlin (1789–1875) built machinery and started making railroad equipment in 1842. The firm in 1839 already employed 1,800 people. It was one of the six large French locomotive constructors until the merger with Elsässische Maschinenbau-Gesellschaft Grafenstaden in 1872, when

2322-530: The need was devised to compensate Prussia for territorial losses under the Greater Hamburg Act , and Lübeck was annexed to Prussia in 1937. In the Federal Republic of Germany which was established after the war, Bremen and Hamburg, but not Lübeck, became constituent states , a status which they retain to the present day. Berlin , which had never been a Free City in its history, received the status of

2376-560: The possibility that they would have the casting vote in case of a tie between the Electors and the Princes, it was decided that these should decide first and consult the cities afterward. Despite this somewhat unequal status of the cities in the functioning of the Imperial Diet, their full admittance to that federal institution was crucial in clarifying their hitherto uncertain status and in legitimizing their permanent existence as full-fledged Imperial Estates. Constitutionally, if in no other way,

2430-604: The same small city. Mulhouse Mulhouse ( pronounced [myluz] ; Alsatian : Mìlhüsa [mɪlˈhyːsa] ; German: Mülhausen [myːlˈhaʊzn̩] , meaning " mill house") is a French city of the European Collectivity of Alsace ( Haut-Rhin department, in the Grand Est region of France). It is near the France–Switzerland border and France–Germany border . It

2484-705: The southwest, than in the North and the East where the larger and more powerful territories, such as Brandenburg and Saxony, were located, which were more prone to absorb smaller, weaker states. In the 16th and 17th century, a number of Imperial Cities were separated from the Empire due to external territorial change. Henry II of France seized the Imperial Cities connected to the Three Bishoprics of Metz , Verdun and Toul . Louis XIV seized many cities based on claims produced by his Chambers of Reunion . That way, Strasbourg and

2538-580: The status of Free Imperial Cities, and some of those did so only for a few decades. The Imperial military tax register ( Reichsmatrikel ) of 1521 listed eighty-five such cities, and this figure had fallen to 65 by the time of the Peace of Augsburg in 1555. From the Peace of Westphalia of 1648 to 1803, their number oscillated at around 50. Unlike the Free Imperial Cities, the second category of towns and cities, now called "territorial cities", were subject to an ecclesiastical or lay lord, and while many of them enjoyed self-government to varying degrees, this

2592-596: The ten cities of the Décapole were annexed. When the Old Swiss Confederacy gained its formal independence from the Empire in 1648, it had been de facto independent since 1499, the independence of the Imperial Cities of Basel , Bern , Lucerne , St. Gallen , Schaffhausen , Solothurn , and Zürich was formally recognized. With the rise of Revolutionary France in Europe, this trend accelerated enormously. After 1795,

2646-628: The void created by the extinction of dominant families, like the Swabian Hohenstaufen . Some voluntarily placed themselves under the protection of a territorial ruler and therefore lost their independence. A few, like Protestant Donauwörth , which in 1607 was annexed to the Catholic Duchy of Bavaria , were stripped by the Emperor of their status as a Free City – for genuine or trumped-up reasons. This rarely happened after

2700-612: The world. An industrial town nicknamed "the French Manchester ", Mulhouse is also the main seat of the Upper Alsace University , where the secretariat of the European Physical Society is found. Mulhouse is a commune with a population of 108,312 in 2019. This commune is part of an urban unit also named Mulhouse with 247,065 inhabitants in 2018. Additionally Mulhouse commune is the principal commune of

2754-451: Was a precarious privilege which might be curtailed or abolished according to the will of the lord. Reflecting the complex constitutional set-up of the Holy Roman Empire, a third category, composed of semi-autonomous cities that belonged to neither of those two types, is distinguished by some historians. These were cities whose size and economic strength was sufficient to sustain a substantial independence from surrounding territorial lords for

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2808-429: Was local and not transferable to another city. The burghers were usually the lowest social group to have political power and privilege within the Holy Roman Empire. Below them was the disenfranchised urban population, maybe half of the total in many cities, the so-called "residents" ( Beisassen ) or "guests": smaller artisans, craftsmen, street venders, day laborers, servants and the poor, and those whose residence in

2862-507: Was occupied by German forces until its return to French control at the end of World War II in May 1945. The town's development was stimulated first by the expansion of the textile industry and tanning , and subsequently by chemical and Engineering industries from the mid 18th century. Mulhouse was for a long time called the French Manchester . Consequently, the town has enduring links with Louisiana , from which it imported cotton, and also with

2916-412: Was subordinate only to the Holy Roman Emperor , as opposed to a territorial city or town ( Landstadt ), which was subordinate to a territorial prince  – be it an ecclesiastical lord ( prince-bishop , prince-abbot ), or a secular prince ( duke ( Herzog ), margrave , count ( Graf ), etc.). The evolution of some German cities into self-ruling constitutional entities of

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