Free Imperial City of Leutkirch

Origins

Leutkirch grew up as the market centre of the Nibelgau in upper Swabia. In 1293 it received the town law of Lindau from King Adolf of Nassau, and it came to rank as a free imperial city answerable only to the emperor, although the imperial bailiwick over the surrounding countryside was often pledged to neighbouring lords.

Rule and society

A small council-governed town, Leutkirch lived from weaving linen and from the market of the surrounding farms. It adopted the Reformation in the 1540s, and its Protestant burghers coexisted uneasily with Catholic neighbours such as the local abbeys and the County of Waldburg. It sat in the Swabian Circle and on the Swabian bench of cities at the Imperial Diet.

Decline and legacy

The town suffered repeatedly in the Thirty Years' War. In 1802, as the mediatisation of the imperial cities began, Bavaria occupied it, and in 1810 it passed to the Kingdom of Württemberg. Today it is Leutkirch im Allgäu in Baden-Württemberg.