Patriciate (Nuremberg)

The Patriciate of the Imperial City of Nuremberg, the families entitled to the Inner Council, represented the actual center of power in Nuremberg until the French occupation in 1806.

The three-pass coat of arms of the Nuremberg city arms, around 1700: double-headed imperial eagle and both Nuremberg city arms, *large coat of arms* with king-head eagle, transformed into a virgin eagle from the middle of the 15th century, and *small coat of arms* with a split shield, in front in gold the half black imperial eagle and in the back with the Field divided diagonally by red and silver five times.

Patricians had also emerged in other German imperial cities as well as in upper Italian cities since the 11th century from former local nobility or local ministeriality. They called themselves " Geschlechter", only later the term patricius appears in Latin documents. From about the middle of the 14th century, economic activities, long-distance trade, mining enterprises and financial transactions of the Nuremberg patricians caused the city and country nobility to increasingly distance themselves from each other. Nevertheless, the Nuremberg dynasties remained capable of holding feuds and bore knightly coats of arms.

From 1256 until the French occupation and subsequent annexation by the Kingdom of Bavaria on September 15, 1806, Nuremberg was governed by the Council, although until 1427 many powers in the city and surrounding area were still held by the Burgraves of Nuremberg, who were appointed from 1105. After the purchase of the burgrave's office in 1427, the council held sole rule in the city and the immediate surrounding area.

The Council was divided into the Inner Council and the Great Council. The Inner Council represented the actual center of power and the holder of sovereignty. In addition to only eight representatives of the trades, only the "councilable" families were represented in it, thus forming the patriciate of the city. The imperial city of Nuremberg itself - like other free and imperial cities or the Italian city-states - referred to itself as a "republic" (res publica). In addition to the reference to the Roman model, the term here also signifies the contrast to the otherwise customary monarchical forms of government. "Republic" must not be equated with "democracy," however. As a bourgeois republic with an aristocratic constitutional order (also referred to by historians as an "aristocratic republic"), however, Nuremberg did not possess feudal rule based on the feudal system, despite such state organization, but formed an early modern civil society .