Hamburg

HAMBURG

HAMBURG. Located along the Elbe River in northern Germany, Hamburg developed into one of the largest cities of the Holy Roman Empire. Between the latter half of the fifteenth century and the era of the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648), it grew from about 10,000 to 50,000 inhabitants. In the early eighteenth century that number had risen to 75,000. By 1787 it reached 100,000, and in the era of French expansion, 130,000. The growth was not steady; for example, the plague years 1712 and 1713 cost many thousands of lives.

The city was a largely independent republic governed by a council of citizens, predominantly merchants and lawyers by profession. Since 1483 the right of political participation had been granted to eligible property-owning male inhabitants who swore an oath of citizenship. The year 1528 marked the successful and peaceful establishment of Lutheranism as the city's official religion, after which only Lutherans enjoyed full political privileges. The reformer Johann Bugenhagen (1485–1558) composed a church ordinance for Hamburg, which was adopted in 1529. That year the city also underwent a major constitutional reform. Thereafter, the government was composed of a council (Rat or Senat) of twenty-four members and a college (Kollegium) of 144 citizens' representatives, who came in equal numbers from the four parish districts of St. Jacobi, St. Nikolai, St. Petri, and St. Katarinen. With the addition in 1685 of a fifth district, St. Michaelis, the citizens' college grew to 180 members.

Constitutional tensions grew throughout the seventeenth century because some factions of the citizenry felt the council wielded power autocratically. A major crisis came in 1699 when the traditional constitutional order was suspended under pressure from the guilds. The period of political experimentation ended in 1708 when imperial troops arrived to reestablish the old order. The result was the constitutional recess of 1712, in which council and citizens' college were declared equal partners in Hamburg's governance. This arrangement lasted until 1806.

Since the late fifteenth century the Danish monarchy had had hopes of forcing Hamburg to submit to its authority, and Danish forces even laid siege to the city unsuccessfully in 1686. The 1626 completion of the city's modern fortress walls proved an advantage against Danish challenges, as well as against the conflicts of the Thirty Years' War, during which Hamburg remained neutral and unscathed. Although Hamburg was ostensibly in the imperial orbit for most of the early modern era, it was not until 1768, when Denmark recognized the city's independence, that it officially joined the ranks of the imperial free cities. Throughout its history Hamburg has been a major commercial port. Until the Hansa dissolved in the seventeenth century, Hamburg was one of the long-standing members of the loose economic and political alliance. In 1558 it opened its stock exchange, the first in a German territory, and in 1619 its first merchant bank was founded. The city's merchants shipped goods all across Europe, and by the end of the eighteenth century destinations included ports worldwide. Other major economic activities included whaling, insurance, sugar refining, textile production, and tobacco preparation.

By the seventeenth century confessional outsiders made up a significant minority of the city's population, and non-Lutherans contributed in important ways to the city's economy. For political and economic reasons the council allowed members of the best established of non-Lutheran communities (Calvinists, Catholics, Jews, and Mennonites) to settle in Hamburg. Nonetheless, because of pressure from Lutheran clergymen, religious minority communities were denied the privilege of practicing religious rites publicly in the city; non-Lutheran religious services were usually held in nearby Altona. This restriction on public worship was removed in 1785 for Calvinists and Catholics only. Non-Lutheran Christians could become citizens, albeit with limited rights of political participation. Probably the city's best-known non-Lutheran resident was the Jewish diarist Glueckel von Hameln (1646–1724).

Among the city's cultural leaders were Gerhard Schott (1641–1702), founder of the first public opera in the German territories; the organ builder Arp Schnitger (1648–1719); and the composers Georg Philipp Telemann (1681–1767) and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714–1788). Founded in 1765, the Hamburger Gesellschaft zur Beförderung der Künste und nützlichen Gewerbe (Hamburg society for the encouragement of the arts and useful crafts; also known as the Patriotische Gesellschaft or Patriotic Society) stands out among many institutions of Enlightenment-era public life. Its founding members included the mathematics professor Johann Georg Büsch (1728–1800), the philosopher Hermann Samuel Reimarus (1694–1768), and the architect Ernst Georg Sonnin (1713–1794). The literary masters Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729–1781) and Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock (1724–1803) both spent time in Hamburg. Philipp Otto Runge (1777–1810) is one of Hamburg's best-known painters.

See also Free and Imperial Cities ; Hansa ; Holy Roman Empire ; Lutheranism .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Jochmann, Werner, and Hans-Dieter Loose, eds. Hamburg: Geschichte der Stadt und ihrer Bewohner. 2 vols. Hamburg, 1982.

Kopitzsch, Franklin. Grundzüge einer Sozialgeschichte der Aufklärung in Hamburg und Altona. Hamburg, 1982. Reprint, 1990.

Kopitzsch, Franklin, and Daniel Tilgner, eds. Hamburg- Lexikon. Hamburg, 1998. Reprint, 2000.

Lindemann, Mary. Patriots and Paupers: Hamburg, 1712– 1830. New York, 1990.

Whaley, Joachim. Religious Toleration and Social Change in Hamburg, 1529–1819. Cambridge, U.K., 1985. Reprint, 2002.

Zeitschrift des Vereins für Hamburgische Geschichte. 1841–.

Michael D. Driedger