ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the imperial city of Nuremberg. It discusses the question of when and how Nuremberg could become a central royal location and climb from there to its status as 'royal city'. Nuremberg was one of the towns whose history stretched back before the Staufen era to the period around the year 1000. The settlement appears for the first time in writing as Nuorenberc, in a document of the Salian emperor Henry III in 1050. The political and legal emancipation of urban communities from royal town lordship, that is, the gradual replacement of royal representatives such as advocates and sheriffs by the citizenry and council, is a process usually dated from the end of Staufen rule in the middle of the thirteenth century. This was also the case in Nuremberg. The fall of Staufen dynasty and the years of the Interregnum presented 'direct royal' towns like Nuremberg with more difficulties than the general problem of keeping the peace.
