Urban histories have emphasized the rise of civic autonomy and proto-democracy. Based on chronicle and archival sources, this volume focuses on German bishops, former lords of the city and fierce opponents of civic freedom. The author investigates how bishops contested exclusion from political, economic, and religious dimensions of civic life (Episcopus exclusus), which culminated in the Protestant Reformation.
Four chapters are devoted to episcopal expulsion throughout Germany and the cities of Constance and Augsburg in particular. A remarkable section explores the puzzle of the bishop's civic survival in the later Middle Ages, made possible through episcopal ritual.
The emphasis on city, bishop, and ritual will be of special interest to urban historians as well as to scholars of medieval religion, the reformation, church history, church/state relations, and social history.