ON "STADTLUFT MACHT FREI"

Abstract

This paper aims at the interpretation of the meaning of "free" in the principle "the city air makes a man free" from the historical viewpoint.
The lines of study concerning the meaning of freedom prevailing from Carolingian age to the 12 th and 13 th centuries steadily pursued by K. Weller, Theodor Mayer, K. S. Bader, and H. Mitteis show that the freedom in those days was no less than relative freedom prevalent both among the cities and the villages. The city air should be understood as being conditioned by "Gebietsherrschaft" and the phrase "to make free" means to be obedient to the public rights of town-lords (including kings and territorial lords). Consequently the fundamental meaning of this principle is to confirm lawfully that when the.iinfree people emancipated themselves they were exempted from the personal subjective relationships to their (previous) territorial lords. The foundation of its law should not be looked for in such isolated factors as Gewere, Asyl and Schwurgenossenschaft, but should be looked for in the process of social change. Especially from the standpoint of the history of legislation, the developmental process of immunity can be referred to as a means to account for this kind of phenomenon.
The relative freedom which the municipal lord conferred on a city when the city was set up had already existed before communal freedom developed.