The term ’citizen’ was introduced in Germany when the bourgeoisie began to establish itself in contrast to the royals, the clergy, the unfree people in the countryside and the proletariat in the cities in the 12th century. Individual freedom was the remarkable sign of the bourgeoisie and this was in contrast to serfdom and the dependence of the royal heirs. The term did not count for women. They were not allowed to hold or to obtain such a title. Generally the bourgeoisie consisted of free tradesmen who were organized in guilds and who were members of guilds. The precondition for the admission into the bourgeoisie and to be a citizen was the ownership of property. Because of this it was no wonder that the number of citizens was relatively small in comparison to the number of inhabitants who had almost no rights.
In 976 Otto II. talked in his diploma about so called possessores civitatis in Passau, he probably meant free traders. However the lord of the Manor of the majority of the inhabitants was the bishop, they were dependent on him, on the abbey Niedernburg and later on St. Nikola as well.
An important step to the establishment of the bourgeoisie was bishop Konrad’s decision in a document (Urkunde) on the 26th January 1164 to grant to the citizen the right to hold a fourteen days lasting market every year traditionally between Jacobi (25.7) to Inventio s. Stephanie (3.8.).This was a decisive privilege and marked the origin of the ‘Passauer Dult’.
Citizens (cives) have first been mentioned in the sources since the sixties of the 12th century. Important sources are Albo’s documents from 1167 and 1173 AC and one document of Manegolds from 1207. The citizens achieved more and more rights and freedom during the following years and when the town wall was built in 1209 the citizens belonged already to the ruling classes of the city. It was not seldom that citizens became creditors of the bishop which enabled them to gain influence and to take over key positions in the administration of the city. Bishop Gebhard gave further rights to the bourgeoisie through the ‘Stadtrecht’ (city right) in 1225.
In 1298 a bloody uprising took place. The citizens demanded their own town council with their own mayor. They chose their own seal, used the house of the citizen Christian as town hall and had a bell there to call the council. King Albrecht judged and the measures had to be taken back. The demand to have a town council should come true 69 years later after another rising.
composed by: Gerhard Geiger
translation by: Moritz Klötzner
(18.8.2004/19.8.2005)