Institut für Stadtgeschichte 
Karmeliterkloster, Frankfurt am Main

In 1635 Frankfurt came under fire from both imperial and Swedish troops. At the same time - between 1634 and 1636 - a number of epidemics broke out. In 1636 alone about 7,000 people died of the plague in the city. Most of the victims were soldiers billeted here as well as refugees from the surrounding area. The population shrank from over 20,000 at the beginning of the war to about 17,000 in 1655. However, by 1700, Frankfurt had about 32,000 inhabitants again.

The intellectual life of the time was significantly influenced by the humanist education of the upper classes and a generally profound level of piety. Printing and the book trade, which were based in Frankfurt, contributed to the increase in middle-class urban culture. Although, both culturally and religiously, Frankfurt was lagging behind places such as Strasburg, Augsburg, Nuremberg and Marburg, it nevertheless registered and responded to new intellectual developments. The beginnings of pietism are associated with Philipp Jakob Spener, from Alsace, who chaired the city's Predigerministerium (Lutheran pastors' assembly) from 1666 to 1668. In letterpress and fine art printing Matthäus Merian made a name for himself: he had moved to Frankfurt from Basle in 1624 and received Frankfurt citizen's rights in 1626. In 1712 the city of Frankfurt employed Philipp Telemann as its music director and kapellmeister of the Barfüsserkirche (Barefoot Monks' Church) and, later, as kapellmeister at the Katharinenkirche (St. Catharine's Church), constructed as a prestige building by the Lutheran citizens of Frankfurt.

In the early 18th century a new conflict began to emerge between the city council and sections of Frankfurt's citizens. It eventually turned into a constitutional dispute - called "Frankfurt vs. Frankfurt" - and was taken right before the emperor, from 1708 to 1732. As before, the disagreement was about greater involvement of craftsmen and small merchants in the city's administration - people who were largely excluded from political responsibility. The protest was directed against the council's mismanagement, the city's enormous debts, preferential economic treatment of Jews, the arbitrary raising of taxes and charges and general disregard of the citizens' treaty of 1613. A committee, set up by Charles VI, reached conclusions that were devastating for the council. Numerous imperial decrees and resolutions vindicated the citizens of Frankfurt in their requests and led to administrative reforms. The council had several monitoring committees assigned to it, with particular responsibility for supervising its financial policies. However, the reforms did not change the basic power structure in Frankfurt. All the important political decisions were still taken by the council which continued to be dominated by a small number of noble families.

In 1676 Don Domenico de Brentano di Tremezzo became a citizen of Frankfurt and founded a trading company. In 1724 Prince Anselm Franz von Thurn und Taxis moved the head office of the postal service from Brussels to Frankfurt, into Grosse Eschenheimer Strasse, where he built a baroque palace. In 1744 Meyer Amschel Rothschild was born in a house called Zur Hinterpfann in Judengasse (Jews' Lane). In 1748 Johann Philipp Bethmann and his brother Simon Moritz Bethmann founded the trading partnership Gebrüder Bethmann (Bethmann Bros.), which soon grew into an important bank.

But while banks and trading companies could spring up in the city, the council took rather a negative view of the establishment of factories and large-scale business enterprises. In 1771 the two snuff manufacturers Bolongaro and Crevenna therefore preferred to accept an offer from the Archbishop of Mainz to settle down in Höchst, where, in 1772/74, they built Bolongaro Palace, a baroque three-wing stately home with a garden terrace facing the river Main.

The disasters of the 18th century included fires and epidemics. In 1711 nearly all the houses in Judengasse (Jews' Lane) were destroyed in a fire, followed by another 110 houses in 1721. In 1719, about 400 houses burnt down at the big "Christian Fire" in the area between Fahrgasse and Töngesgasse. In 1709 and 1713 Frankfurt was overtaken by the plague, and in 1728/33 and 1781/82 numerous people died in influenza epidemics. Another hard test of endurance was the Seven Years' War (1756-1763) and the resulting French occupation of the city.

After the fires hundreds of new houses were built in Frankfurt. They reflected not only a greater awareness of fire hazards, but also the latest changes in fashion. By the end of the century numerous reconstruction projects had transformed the face of the city, though without changing it out of all recognition. The city owed the French occupants the introduction of house numbers, street lighting and the improvement of the road surface.

This was also the time when the Imperial Counsellor Johann Caspar Goethe had his house rebuilt at Grosser Hirschgraben. On August 28, 1749, at 12 noon, a son, Wolfgang, was born to him and His wife Catharina Elisabeth, née Textor. Years later, in Dichtung und Wahrheit (Poetry and Truth) Wolfgang was to describe his childhood in Frankfurt and his experience with the French occupation. When a woman called Susanne Margarethe Brand was executed with a sword on Rossmarkt (Horse Market) for murdering a child, she later became the model for the character of Gretchen in Goethe's Faust.

From the mid-18th century a growing sense of middle-class identity gave rise to a marked system of patronage. In 1763 the physician Johann Christian Senckenberg left his entire estate as an endowment for scientific-medical institutes and a citizens' hospital. The innovations of this period also included several pioneering inventions. In 1781, after a burnt-down church had been rebuilt in Bornheim, a lightning conductor, invented by Franklin, was installed on the church for the first time. In 1785, the French aeronautics pioneer Jean-Pierre Blanchard made a successful ascent in a balloon on Bornheimer Heide (Bornheim Heath).

The big social events of the century included the five imperial/royal elections of 1711, 1742, 1745, 1764 and 1790, and the subsequent coronations. In 1742, following the confusion of the War of the Austrian Succession, Frankfurt became the imperial residence and de-facto capital under the Wittelsbach Emperor Charles VII.

In July 1792 Francis II was elected and crowned in Frankfurt as the last Holy Roman-German Emperor, before the city was occupied by the French revolutionary troops from October to December. Further French occupations followed in 1796, 1800 and 1806.

The establishment of the Rhine Confederation under Napoleon's protectorate in 1806 marked the end of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, and Francis II renounced his emperor's crown. Frankfurt therefore lost its status as an imperial city and as a city for imperial elections and coronations. A few years earlier, in the Final Recess of the Imperial Deputation (1803), the city had been given control of its monastic establishments with all their estates. The city's fortifications, which had become useless and partly fallen into disrepair, were demolished and replaced by walls.

At the end of its time as an imperial city Frankfurt had a population of 35,000, of whom about a quarter had citizens' rights and thus (at least theoretically) access to municipal offices. The remaining inhabitants had no full citizen's rights or political powers. The same was true for a number of surrounding villages, with a population of about 6,000. Neither did Frankfurt's Jews - some 3,000 in all - have any citizens' status, but continued to be officially confined to their ghetto.

© Helmut Nordmeyer, Translation: Hugh Beyer