Conflicts over common land and territorial rule in the Franconian-Swabian territorium inclausum

The struggle for sovereignty in the Dinkelsbühl region in the community of Aufkirchen-Gerolfingen

Abstract

The article explores the conflicts within the complex entanglement of commons’ regulation and territorial rule around Hesselberg mountain in south Germany during the early modern period. It focuses on the typical problem of sovereignty (‘Landeshoheit’) in the territorium inclausum of Swabia and Franconia – in this case between the margraves of Brandenburg- Ansbach, the princes of Oettingen, the free imperial city Dinkelsbühl, the dukes of
Württemberg, the Teutonic Order and other, smaller dominions. On a local level, it investigates the development of the communal district Aufkirchen-Gerolfingen, its regulations of common lands and the latters’ segregation by a contract of 1779 between Brandenburg-Ansbach and Oettingen. In particular, the paper examines the changing administration of rural commons (pasture, woodland, ponds) under the impact of growing state interference. The article reveals that Brandenburg-Ansbach and Oettingen managed to disable other rulers and to assert their exclusive sovereignty in the eighteenth century, especially after their contract about jurisdiction and sovereignty in 1746. Furthermore, they succeeded in dismantling the autonomy of both the communes Aufkirchen and Gerolfingen in the use of common land.