The Origins of the Thirty Years War and the Revolt in Bohemia, 1618

An Inevitable War? 41

genuine issues for its own purposes, but while this undoubtedly made
Reichstag meetings difficult it neither halted them nor, apart from in
1608, prevented them from granting taxes for defence against the Turks.
As Schulze concludes, the continuing disputes ‘should not give the false
impression that the Protestant efforts for an equal organisation of the
Imperial constitution led to a breakdown of all institutions’.^28

The free Imperial cities

As noted above, suspension of the Hofrat action against the Protes-
tant council in Aachen had formed a part of the activists’ demands
at the Reichstag of 1613, but after the failure of the negotiations the
case continued, leading to an Imperial ban on the city in 1614, which
was enforced shortly thereafter by Spanish troops. While this certainly
reflected continuing inter-confessional tension, it also needs to be put
into a wider context.
Urban disturbances were a long-standing feature of the German politi-
cal landscape, as was the involvement of the Kammergericht, the Hofrat,
the emperor, and from time to time troops, in settling them. Friedrichs,
a leading researcher in this field, sums it up:

German cities and towns experienced a turbulent political life in the

two and a half centuries between the Reformation and the French

Revolution. Many German towns of course escaped all political

turmoil. But dozens of communities, including most of the largest

cities in the Holy Roman Empire, were racked by episodes of bitter

conflict, leading in some cases to the overthrow of existing regimes

and the seizure of power, at least temporarily, by revolutionary

opponents.^29

Schilling confirms this, particularly for the period between 1590 and the
Thirty Years War:

German urban society was afflicted by serious internal tension. This

was between the town councils and the oligarchies that dominated

them, and the ordinary citizens who demanded their traditional

privileges and greater participation in town government.....Conse-

quently during the 1590s and the following decades in many towns

the burghers rose up against the town councils. These politically and

socially motivated uprisings...were usually led by well-to-do mem-

bers of the upper class who had been excluded from power by the old

oligarchies.^30