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57-705: Gerhard Lang (* October 21, 1924, in Ravensburg ; † June 19, 2016, in Biberach an der Riß) was a German botanist with a research focus on vegetation ecology, geobotany, and vegetation history of the Quaternary . During his high school years in Ravensburg, Lang was one of the students of Karl Bertsch . He started his studies on botany and zoology with minors in chemistry and physics at the University of Freiburg in 1946 and changed to

114-495: 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

171-590: 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

228-425: 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

285-438: 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

342-594: 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

399-507: A swap of estates between Bavaria and Württemberg it was incorporated in the Kingdom of Württemberg in 1810. Since Ravensburg was impoverished and depopulated after the Thirty Years' War , only a few new buildings were raised during the 18th and the early 19th century. The benefit of this economic stagnation was the conservation of a widely intact medieval city with nearly all towers and gates of

456-550: A wholly owned subsidiary of Griesson–de Beukelaer . Other large industrial companies include: The local newspaper is the Schwäbische Zeitung . The radio companies Radio 7 and Südwestrundfunk run broadcasting studios at Ravensburg. In Horgenzell near Ravensburg, the Ravensburg-Horgenzell transmitter transmitted Deutschlandfunk on the medium wave frequency 756 kHz. The city's most popular festival

513-427: 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

570-592: Is still very much intact, including three city gates and over 10 towers of the medieval fortification. Ravensburg was first mentioned in writing in 1088. It was founded by the Welfs , a Frankish dynasty in Swabia who became later Dukes of Bavaria and Saxony and who made the castle of Ravensburg their ancestral seat. By a contract of inheritance, in 1191 the Hohenstaufen Frederick Barbarossa acquired

627-573: Is the annual " Rutenfest ", which takes place mid year. The city's association football club FV Ravensburg , formed in 1893, has played in the Oberliga Baden-Württemberg on three occasions from 1978 to 1983, from 1998 to 2000 and again since 2003. From 2006 to 2010, Ravensburg hosted the Air Canada Cup or MLP Nations Cup , an international women's ice hockey tournament. Ravensburg is twinned with: Imperial Free City In

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684-619: The Immerwährende Reichstag passed the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss , a bill which included the secularisation and mediatisation of many German states — the first meaning the confiscation of the estates belonging to the church, the second the incorporation of the imperial estates and Imperial Free Cities into larger regional states. As a result, Ravensburg first became a Bavarian exclave within Württemberg . After

741-491: The A7 and A8 (approach at Ulm ) and the A96 (approach at Lindau or Wangen im Allgäu ). In 1847, the railway station of Ravensbug was put in operation, part of the so-called "Swabian Railroad" from Stuttgart to Friedrichshafen , the oldest railroad of Württemberg and well known in all of Germany by the folk-style song Auf de Schwäb’sche Eisenbahne  [ de ] . In 1888,

798-559: 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,

855-479: 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

912-557: 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,

969-659: 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

1026-487: The Ravensburg–Weingarten–Baienfurt tram line was open. Mechanical engineering has traditionally been the main type of industry in the region. Based on the demand of the paper and textile industries (now widely reduced) and a long tradition of flour, paper and other mills, many engineering factories arose at the end of the 19th century. Today the primary engineering firms in Ravensburg are the left-overs of

1083-688: The University of Göttingen where he received the PhD degree in Biology in 1952 for his study on the late-glacial history of the vegetation and flora of southwestern Germany, supervised by Franz Firbas . Between 1952 and 1975 Lang worked at the Landessammlungen für Naturkunde (today: Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde) in Karlsruhe as curator and as deputy director of the museum. In 1962 Lang became lecturer in Geobotany at

1140-499: 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

1197-570: The Catholic and Protestant confession. The city council was one half each Protestant and Catholic. For some time there was even a Catholic and a Protestant mayor at the same time, and both confessions celebrated the village fair, the "Rutenfest", apart from each other. This system was approved at the end of the Thirty Years' War in the Peace of Westphalia (1648) which named four "Paritetic Imperial Cities" ( German : Paritätische Reichsstädte ): Augsburg , Biberach , Dinkelsbühl and Ravensburg. In 1803

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1254-584: 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

1311-573: 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

1368-707: 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

1425-575: 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

1482-683: The University of Karlsruhe and in 1966 he submitted his habilitation thesis on the macrophyte vegetation of Lake Constance. Karlsruhe University appointed him professor at the Botanical Institute in 1972. In 1975 he was appointed full professor and director of the Systematisch-Geobotanisches Institut and Bern Botanical Garden, University of Bern , Switzerland , succeeding Max Welten. In 1989, after Lang’s retirement and becoming professor emeritus he moved back to southern Germany,

1539-633: 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,

1596-420: 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

1653-442: 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

1710-563: 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

1767-498: 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

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1824-507: 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

1881-464: 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

1938-569: 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

1995-553: The former Escher-Wyss AG (a subsidiary of the Swiss Sulzer AG ) which are now subsidiaries of the Austrian "Andritz Hydro". Ravensburger AG , whose headquarters are located in the city, is a company internationally known for board games, jigsaw puzzles and children's books. The pastry factory de:Tekrum (Theodor Krumm GmbH & Co. KG) is another company with an internationally known brand name. Since January 2005 it has been

2052-543: The historic fortification. During World War II Ravensburg was strategically of no relevance. Ravensburg did not harbor any noteworthy arms industry (unlike nearby Friedrichshafen with its large aircraft industry), but was home to a major aid supplies center belonging to the Swiss Red Cross . The historic city centre was not damaged by air raids. By 1945, the city came into the French occupation zone and thus came in 1947 to

2109-503: 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,

2166-552: 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

2223-572: The liquidation of the Great Ravensburg Trading Society in 1530, Ravensburg stagnated economically. The Thirty Years' War caused a grave decline of the population. Swedish troops destroyed the old castle, now named "Veitsburg" after the St. Veit chapel at the castle grounds. Following the Reformation a "paritetic" government emerged, meaning an equal distribution of public offices between

2280-530: 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

2337-460: The newly founded state of Württemberg-Hohenzollern , which in 1952 merged to the state of Baden-Württemberg. In the 1970s, Ravensburg increased in population and territory by the incorporation of smaller communities like Eschach, Schmalegg and Taldorf. Ravensburg University of Cooperative Education was established in the city in 1978. In the 1980s, the Old Town was renovated and all transit traffic

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2394-637: The ownership of Ravensburg from Welf VI , Duke of Spoleto and uncle of both Frederick Barbarossa and Henry the Lion . With the death of Conradin 1268 in Naples the Hohenstaufen line became extinct. Their former estates became imperial property of the Holy Roman Empire . Like many other cities in Swabia , at the end of the 13th century Ravensburg became an Imperial Free City in 1276. The "Great Ravensburg Trading Society" ( Große Ravensburger Handelsgesellschaft )

2451-408: The past, as well as the development of multi-proxy approaches in palaeoecology. He introduced new equipment and methodologies, especially with regard to subaquatic coring from a raft that allowed sediment sampling from the centre of lakes, which provided new insights into local and regional reconstructions of past environmental conditions. Consequently, his research on vegetation ecology and history made

2508-560: 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,

2565-610: The region where he grew up. Lang travelled widely as part of his research and botanical activities, including visits to the French Massif Central in 1956; Botany School Cambridge, UK in 1959; the Australian Alps and Australian National University, Canberra in 1965; Siberia in 1971; Armenia in 1975; western Canada and western USA in 1978; tropical and central Australia in 1981; and Argentina in 1983. During his time in Karlsruhe, Lang’s research focus lay on vegetation mapping at

2622-677: The scale of 1:25,000 based on classical plant sociological relevés of the Upper Rhine Plain , the Black Forest, and the Lake Constance region as well as the study of lake and mire deposits with regard to the vegetation history of south-western Germany. During his time in Bern his research centred on the Alpine region with special reference to the study of dynamic vegetation processes and climate change in

2679-548: The shores of Lake Constance ) share the functionality of a Oberzentrum (that is, the highest-ranked centre in the system of spatial planning and development in Baden-Württemberg). Ravensburg is located at a crossing of the federal roads (national highways) B30 , B31 and B32 . A by-pass highway around Ravensburg and Weingarten was completed recently. The regional airport is situated at Friedrichshafen, about 15 km south of Ravensburg. The nearest national motor-ways are

2736-705: 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

2793-580: 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

2850-596: 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,

2907-451: The transition to modern multi-proxy palaeoecology. After his retirement, Lang published a major text on European Quaternary vegetation history. Ravensburg Ravensburg was first mentioned in 1088. In the Middle Ages, it was an Imperial Free City and an important trading centre. The "Great Ravensburg Trading Society" ( Große Ravensburger Handelsgesellschaft ) owned shops and trading companies all over Europe. The historic city centre

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2964-628: 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

3021-451: 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

3078-490: Was banned from the city centre. Ravensburg is a thriving shopping city in the wealthy region of Upper Swabia. Unemployment is relatively low. The nearest large cities are Munich , Stuttgart and Zürich , approximately a two-hour drive away each. Ulm , Konstanz and Bregenz are each less than a one-hour drive away. Ravensburg is part of an urban agglomeration that also comprises Weingarten (Württemberg) and several suburbs. Ravensburg, Weingarten, and Friedrichshafen (on

3135-492: Was founded at Ravensburg and Konstanz around 1380 by the merchant families of Humpis (from Ravensburg), Mötteli (from Buchhorn, modern-day Friedrichshafen ) and Muntprat (from Constance). At first, the society mostly dealt in the production of linen and fustian . With the opening of one of the first paper mills north of the Alps in 1402 in Ravensburg, paper became another commodity. The Ravensburg stores also sold oriental spices, Mediterranean wines and Bohemian ores. After

3192-429: 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

3249-412: 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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