Peacemaking and Urban Autonomy in the Cities of the High Middle Ages. On the Significance of Ritual Submissions Before the Episcopal Lords

Abstract

This article deals with the function and significance of ritual submission as a means of settling conflicts between citizens and their episcopal lords in the Roman-German empire before 1300. On the basis of the Cologne submissions of 1074 and 1258 as well as the ritual of self-humiliation of the Paderborn townspeople in 1222, it is exemplified that the increasing autonomy of the cities are reflected even in the submissions which at first glance symbolize the strong subordination of the civic community. The first example, the famous submission of the citizens of Cologne in 1074, showing a strong debt to the forms of the ecclesiastical penance stands for the assertion of the princely lord to punish his citizens hardly even after the submission. This was due to the fact that there were no intermediaries who could have committed the bishop to a lenient behavior. In this respect, the engagement of mediators in the other two conflicts reveals the growing prestige of the urban upper classes, which were now recognized as negotiating partners, to whom the peacemakers entered into a bond. While in Paderborn only the bishop’s claims were included in the expiatory record, two documents treating both parties in balance were set up at the end of the Cologne conflict of 1258, and an arbitration court was established to deal with the complaints of both sides. Thus, in the conflict-resolution process the city was put on the same level as the bishop. This example, too, clearly shows how the importance of ritual submission as a means of resolving such conflicts diminished, as, in the 13^th century, the clarifying and arranging of the legal rights of the princely lord and of the civic community came to the fore against the punishment of disobedience. As a result, the arbitration became the focus of conflict resolution. Nevertheless, with the growing autonomy of the cities, the ritual submission didn’t disappear. It remained a useful instrument to indicate an offence, to forgive it, to restore excommunicated sinners to the Church, to restore the honor of the princely-lord or to re-establish the bonds of domination.