The Austrian state is a fairly recent invention, as is citizenship. For more than 1000 years, Innsbruck was a land of the Heiligen Römischen Reiches. Innsbruckers were subjects of the emperor. And subjects of the Tyrolean sovereign. And their landlord. If they had citizenship, they were also Innsbruckers. And very probably also Christians. What they were not, at least not until 1806, was Austrian. But what was this Holy Roman Empire? And who was the emperor? And was he really more powerful than the king?

The empire was a union of individual countries, characterised by conflicts and squabbles over power, both between the princes of the empire and between the princes and the emperor. It had no capital. The centre of the empire was where the emperor was, who kept changing his residences. Emperor Maximilian I made Innsbruck one of his residence cities, which was like a turbo for the development of the city. Until the 19th century, nationality and perceived affiliation played less of a role in nationality than they do today. Christianity was the bond that held many things together. Institutions such as the Imperial Chamber Court or the Imperial Diet were only introduced in the late Middle Ages and early modern period to facilitate administration and settle disputes between the individual sovereigns. The Goldene Bullewhich, among other things, regulated the election of the emperor, was a very simple form of an early constitution. Three ecclesiastical and four secular electors elected their head. The princes had a seat and a vote in the Imperial Diet and the emperor was dependent on them. In order to assert himself, he needed strong domestic power. The Habsburgs could fall back on Tyrol, among other things. Tyrol was also one of the bone of contention between the Habsburgs and the dukes of Bavaria, although both were loyal to the Holy Roman Empire belonged to. Innsbruck was occupied by the Bavarians several times.

The hierarchy within the feudal feudal system was strictly organised from emperor to peasant. Emperors and kings received power and legitimisation directly from God. The feudal system was ordained by God. Peasants worked in the fields to feed the clergy, who prayed for the salvation of souls, and the aristocracy, who fought for the defenceless and protected the clergy. It was a three-way relationship in which one side was prayer for salvation, one side protection and the third obedience, loyalty and labour.

This loyalty may seem strange to us modern citizens, as the obligations of taxes, compliance with laws, elections or military service are more abstract and much less personal these days. Until the 20th century, however, the feudal system was based precisely on this. Loyalty was not based on a birthright like citizenship is today. The "Austrian" military man Prince Eugene may have been of French descent, but he still fought in the army of Leopold I, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. Heiligen Römischen Reiches against France. He was a subject of the Archduke of Austria with residences in Vienna and Hungary. While you had to be born in the USA to become president, the ruler was not bound to an innate nationality. Emperor Charles V was born in what is now Ghent in Belgium, grew up at the Burgundian court, became King of Spain before inheriting the Archduchy of Austria and later being elected Emperor. Germanicus being German did not mean being German, it mostly referred to the everyday language a person used.

When Charlemagne was crowned Roman-German Emperor in Rome in 800, he took over the legacy of the Roman emperors with divine legitimisation through the anointing of the Pope and at the same time as the Pope's secular patron. In return, the emperor was the Holy Father's protective power on earth. The Heilige Römische Reich under the mantle of the emperor only ceased to exist in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars. From this time onwards, Central Europe slowly began to transform itself into a collection of nation states modelled on France and England.

The idea of the Roman Empire went back to an adventurous, very old idea that ancient Rome had to continue to exist. The Roman-German emperors saw themselves as the direct successors of the Roman emperors of antiquity. For devout Christians, according to the Lehre der Vier Weltreiche of enormous importance that the empire continued to exist. The basis of the Lehre der Vier Weltreiche was the Book of Daniel in the Old Testament. According to this story, the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar dreamed of four successive world empires. According to the prophet, the world would end with the end of the fourth empire. The Christian church father Jerome interpreted these four empires around 400 AD as the succession of Babylon, Persia, Greece and the Roman Empire. In the belief of the Middle Ages, the end of Roman rule also meant the end of the world and therefore Rome could not come to an end. About this so-called Translatio ImperiiThe transfer of the legal claim of the Imperium Romanum of antiquity to the Roman-German emperors after Charlemagne formally preserved the permanence of Rome and allowed the earth to continue to exist.

Today, Innsbruck's city centre is characterised by buildings and monuments that commemorate the Habsburg family. For many centuries, the Habsburgs were a European ruling dynasty whose sphere of influence included a wide variety of territories. At the zenith of their power, they were the rulers of a "Reich, in dem die Sonne nie untergeht". Through wars and skilful marriage and power politics, they sat at the levers of power between South America and the Ukraine in various eras. Innsbruck was repeatedly the centre of power for this dynasty. The relationship was particularly intense between the 15th and 17th centuries. Due to its strategically favourable location between the Italian cities and German centres such as Augsburg and Regensburg, Innsbruck was given a special place in the empire at the latest after its elevation to the status of a royal seat under Emperor Maximilian. Some of the Habsburg rulers had no special relationship with Tyrol, nor did they have any particular affection for this German land. Ferdinand I (1503 - 1564) was educated at the Spanish court. Maximilian's grandson Charles V had grown up in Burgundy. When he set foot on Spanish soil for the first time at the age of 17 to take over his mother Joan's inheritance of the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon, he did not speak a word of Spanish. When he was elected German Emperor in 1519, he did not speak a word of German.

Tyrol was a province and, as a conservative region, usually favoured by the ruling family. Its inaccessible location made it the perfect refuge in troubled and crisis-ridden times. Charles V (1500 - 1558) fled during a conflict with the Protestant Schmalkaldischen Bund to Innsbruck for some time. Ferdinand I (1793 - 1875) allowed his family to stay in Innsbruck, far away from the Ottoman threat in eastern Austria. Shortly before his coronation in the turbulent summer of the 1848 revolution, Franz Josef I enjoyed the seclusion of Innsbruck together with his brother Maximilian, who was later shot by insurgent nationalists as Emperor of Mexico. A plaque at the Alpengasthof Heiligwasser above Igls reminds us that the monarch spent the night here as part of his ascent of the Patscherkofel.

Not all Habsburgs were always happy to be in Innsbruck. Married princes and princesses such as Maximilian's second wife Bianca Maria Sforza or Ferdinand II's second wife Anna Caterina Gonzaga were stranded in the harsh, German-speaking mountains after their wedding without being asked. If you also imagine what a move and marriage from Italy to Tyrol to a foreign man meant for a teenager, you can imagine how difficult life was for the princesses. Until the 20th century, children of the aristocracy were primarily brought up to be politically married. There was no opposition to this. One might imagine courtly life to be ostentatious, but privacy was not provided for in all this luxury.

When Sigismund Franz von Habsburg (1630 - 1665) died childless as the last prince of the province, the title of royal seat was also history and Tyrol was ruled by a governor. Tyrolean mining had lost its importance. Shortly afterwards, the Habsburgs lost their possessions in Western Europe along with Spain and Burgundy, moving Innsbruck from the centre to the periphery of the empire. In the Austro-Hungarian monarchy of the 19th century, Innsbruck was the western outpost of a huge empire that stretched as far as today's Ukraine. Franz Josef I (1830 - 1916) ruled over a multi-ethnic empire between 1848 and 1916. However, his neo-absolutist concept of rule was out of date. Although Austria had had a parliament and a constitution since 1867, the emperor regarded this government as "his". Ministers were responsible to the emperor, who was above the government. The ailing empire collapsed in the second half of the 19th century. On 28 October 1918, the Republic of Czechoslovakia was proclaimed, and on 29 October, Croats, Slovenes and Serbs left the monarchy. The last Emperor Charles abdicated on 11 November. On 12 November, "Deutschösterreich zur demokratischen Republik, in der alle Gewalt vom Volke ausgeht“. The chapter of the Habsburgs was over.

Despite all the national, economic and democratic problems that existed in the multi-ethnic states that were subject to the Habsburgs in various compositions and forms, the subsequent nation states were sometimes much less successful in reconciling the interests of minorities and cultural differences within their territories. Since the eastward enlargement of the EU, the Habsburg monarchy has been seen by some well-meaning historians as a pre-modern predecessor of the European Union. Together with the Catholic Church, the Habsburgs shaped the public sphere through architecture, art and culture. Goldenes DachlThe Hofburg, the Triumphal Gate, Ambras Castle, the Leopold Fountain and many other buildings still remind us of the presence of the most important ruling dynasty in European history in Innsbruck.

After hundreds of years, Innsbruck had developed from a Roman castle into a town. This legal recognition by the sovereign was accompanied by rights and duties: market rights, building rights, customs rights and its own jurisdiction were transferred to the city. The town also monitored compliance with religious order. "Heretics" and dissenters were not reprimanded by the church but by the city government and, in some cases, even sent to prison. The citizens of the city were no longer directly subject to the sovereign, but to the city's jurisdiction, at least within the city walls. The popular saying "Stadtluft macht frei" was due to the fact that after one year in the city, one was free of all obligations to one's former landlord. In return, the citizens had to take the oath of citizenship. This oath included the payment of taxes and the military defence of the town. From 1511, the city council was, according to the Landlibell Emperor Maximilian was also obliged to provide a contingent of conscripts for the defence of the country. In addition to this, there were volunteers who Freifähnlein For example, during the Turkish siege of Vienna in 1529, Innsbruckers were among the city's defenders.

Innsbruck had a completely different social composition to the neighbouring villages. Craftsmen, merchants, civil servants and court servants characterised everyday life. Unlike farmers, craftsmen belonged to the mobile classes in the Middle Ages and early modern times. After their apprenticeship, they went to the Walzbefore taking the master craftsman's examination and either returning home or settling in another city. Craftsmen not only transferred knowledge, they also spread cultural, social and political ideas across Europe. The craft guilds sometimes exercised their own jurisdiction alongside the municipal jurisdiction among their members. They were social structures within the city structure that had a great influence on politics. Wages, prices and social life were regulated by the guilds under the supervision of the sovereign. One could speak of an early social partnership, as the guilds also provided social security for their members in the event of illness or occupational disability. Individual trades such as locksmiths, tanners, platers, carpenters, bakers, butchers and blacksmiths each had their own guild, headed by a master craftsman.

In the 15th century, space became tight in the rapidly growing city of Innsbruck under Maximilian I. Only free subjects born in wedlock were able to obtain city rights. Not everyone was allowed to move into the city. To become a citizen of the city, you had to either own a house or have skills in a trade in which the city's guilds were interested. The dispute over who is a "real" Innsbrucker and who is not continues to this day. The fact that migration and exchange with others have always guaranteed prosperity and made Innsbruck the liveable city it is today is often forgotten.

From the 14th century, Innsbruck demonstrably had a city council and a mayor who was elected annually by the citizens. These were not secret but public elections, which were held every year around Christmas time. In the Innsbrucker Geschichtsalmanach von 1948 findet man Aufzeichnungen über die Wahl des Jahres 1598.

The Feast of St. Erhard, i.e., January 8th, played a significant role in the lives of the citizens of Innsbruck each year. On this day, they gathered to elect the city officials, namely the mayor, city judge, public orator, and the twelve-member council. A detailed account of the election process between 1598 and 1607 is provided by a protocol preserved in the city archive: "... The ringing of the great bell summoned the council and the citizenry to the town hall, and once the honorable council and the entire community were assembled at the town hall, the honorable council first convened in the council chamber and heard the farewell of the outgoing mayor of the previous year, Augustin Tauscher."

The mayor represented the city vis-à-vis the other estates and the sovereign, who exercised overlordship over the city to a greater or lesser extent depending on the era. Each city councillor had their own clearly assigned tasks to fulfil, such as the supervision of market law, the care of the hospital and poor relief or the customs regulations, which were particularly important for Innsbruck. In all these political processes, one should always remember that Innsbruck had around 5,000 inhabitants in the 16th century, only a small proportion of whom had citizenship. The dispossessed, travellers, unemployed, servants, diplomats, employees, women and students were not entitled to vote. Voting was a privilege of the male upper class.

From the 14th century onwards, the taxes paid by the citizens no longer had to be passed on to the sovereign. There was a fixed levy from the city to the sovereign. The city government itself could determine which group within the city had to pay which tax. The city was allowed to manage the difference between income and expenditure as it saw fit. In addition to defence, expenditure included the care of the poor. Citizens in need could go to the "Boiling kitchen" meals, if they had the civil right.

In addition to taxes, customs duties were an important source of income for Innsbruck. Customs duties were levied at the city gate at the Inn bridge. There were two types of customs duty. The small duty was based on the number of draught animals in the wagon, the large duty on the type and quantity of goods. The customs revenue was shared between Innsbruck and Hall. Hall had the task of maintaining the Inn bridge.

Contrary to popular belief, the Middle Ages were not a lawless time of arbitrariness. In Innsbruck, as well as in the province of Tyrol, there was a code that regulated right and wrong as well as the rights and duties of citizens very precisely. These regulations changed according to the customs of the time. The medieval court days were organised at the "Dingstätte" is held outdoors. The tradition of the Thing goes back to the old Germanic Thingwhere all free men gathered to dispense justice. The city council appointed a judge who was responsible for all offences that were not subject to the blood court. Punishments ranged from fines to pillorying and imprisonment.

The penal system also included less humane methods than are common today, but torture was not used indiscriminately and arbitrarily. However, torture was also regulated as part of the procedure in particularly serious cases. Until the 17th century, suspects and criminals in Innsbruck were Kräuterturm at the south-east corner of the city wall, on today's Herzog-Otto-Ufer. There was no police force, but the town magistrate employed servants and town watchmen were posted at the town gates to keep the peace. It was a civic duty to help catch criminals. Vigilante justice was forbidden.

The regional court still had to rule on serious offences. Crimes such as theft, murder and arson were subject to this blood law. In the case of Innsbruck, the provincial court was on the Sonnenburgwhich was located south above Innsbruck. From 1817 - 1887 the Leuthaus the seat of the court judge at Wilten Abbey.

From the late 15th century, Innsbruck's executioner was centralised and responsible for several courts and was based in Hall. The execution centres were located in several places over the years. For a long time, there was a gallows on a hill in today's Dreiheiligen district, right next to the main road. The Köpflplatz was located until 1731 at today's corner of Fallbachgasse / Weiherburggasse in Anpruggen. It was not uncommon for the condemned man to give his executioner a kind of tip so that he would endeavour to aim as accurately as possible in order to make the execution as painless as possible. Delinquents who were particularly harmful to the authorities and public order, such as the "heretic" Jakob Hutter or the captured leaders of the peasant uprisings of 1525 and 1526, were executed before the executioner. Goldenen Dachl executed in a manner suitable for the public. "Embarrassing" punishments such as quartering or wheeling, from the Latin word poena were not the order of the day, but could be ordered in special cases. Executions were a public demonstration of the authorities' power. It was seen as a way of cleansing society of criminals. The bodies of the executed were often left hanging as a deterrent and buried outside the consecrated area of the cemeteries.

With the centralisation of law under Maria Theresa and Joseph II in the 18th century and the General Civil Code in the 19th century under Franz I, the law passed from cities and sovereigns to the monarch and their administrative bodies at various levels. Torture was abolished. The Enlightenment had fundamentally changed the concept of law, punishment and rehabilitation. The collection of taxes was also centralised, which resulted in a great loss of importance for the local nobility and an increase in the status of the civil service. With the increasing centralisation under Maria Theresa and Joseph II, taxes and customs duties were also gradually centralised and collected by the Imperial Court Chamber. As a result, Innsbruck, like many municipalities at the time, lost a large amount of revenue, which was only partially offset by equalisation.