Editing History of Cologne (section)

=== Oligarchic cronies in the council ===
[[File:Festakt 500 Jahre Kölner Transfixbrief-8656.jpg|thumb|New rules of conduct: Transfixbrief (1513) amends the city constitution.]]

After the [[Cologne Diocesan Feud]] in 1475, Cologne was elevated as a [[Free Imperial City]], but left with significant financial burdens that brought the city to the brink of insolvency. The debtors were predominantly the wealthy merchants of Cologne, who had been forced to subscribe to compulsory bonds for financing purposes. The council, dominated by these circles, tried to maintain the city's solvency by raising indirect taxes &ndash; especially on food and wine &ndash; in order to assure the debt service.<ref>Wolfgang Herborn, Carl Dietmar: Köln im Spätmittelalter 1288-1512/13, Cologne 2019, pp. 184, 191</ref>

In fact, during the heyday of the imperial city, Cologne Council was dominated by a small group of influential and very wealthy families who regarded themselves as Cologne patriciate; through a circle of council friends, they ensured that only initiated people moved up. This created an oligarchic rule in which corruption and favoritism increasingly spread, which became known proverbially as ''Kölscher Klüngel'' (Cologne cronyism). A center was formed by a lobby of councilmen who called themselves ''krensgin'' (chaplet) and who apparently made most of the important decisions, even without consulting the other members of the 49-member city council.<ref>Wolfgang Herborn, Carl Dietmar: Köln im Spätmittelalter 1288-1512/13, Cologne 2019, pp. 195ff</ref> The non-transparent financial practices and the high taxation sometimes perceived as arbitrary led to an ongoing dispute within the city's leadership circles, which, after an attempted overthrow averted in 1482, was only resolved in 1513 by an amendment of the city constitution known as ''Transfixbrief'' (Transfix letter).<ref>Wolfgang Herborn, Carl Dietmar: Köln im Spätmittelalter 1288-1512/13, Cologne 2019, pp. 192ff</ref>

In 1481, councilor Werner von Lyskirchen, who was descended from one of Cologne's old patrician families, used the latent discontent in cooperative circles (Gaffeln) and guilds to attempt a coup. The action, which went down in the chronicles as the ''Große Schickung'' (big dispatch) was quickly stifled by rival families and partisans, and Werner was eventually beheaded. The oligarchic structures that dominated the city remained.<ref>Wolfgang Herborn, Carl Dietmar: Köln im Spätmittelalter 1288-1512/13, Cologne 2019, pp. 187-191</ref> In the course of a dispute in 1512, the small circles in the council were tempted to bend the law and commit fraud in order to defend their privileges, at least from the point of view of rival citizens. A riot broke out in January 1513; the burghers organized in cooperative circles (Gaffeln) seized power and deprived the council of its authority. Ten former councilmen were convicted of misconduct and executed; the representatives of the Gaffeln reformed taxation and held a new election.<ref>Gerald Chaix: Köln in der Zeit von Reformation und Katholischer Reform, Cologne 2022, p. 81ff</ref> New rules of conduct, intended to contain the re-emergence of oligarchic structures, were codified by December 1513 in an amendment letter (Transfixbrief), which supplemented the city constitution (Verbundbrief) in force since 1396. Among other things, the new regulations extended the rights of burghers, especially the inviolability of person and home.<ref>Deeters, Helmrath (ed.): ''Quellen zur Geschichte der Stadt Köln.'' Volume II, p. 1 ff. and p. 238 ff.</ref>