ABSTRACT
As historians have found for early modern Europe generally, relations between Leipzig's elites and the court were often symbiotic. This chapter discusses the consistories, their councilors or assessors, ecclesiastical law, and Thomasius's challenge to the system. The Dresden court selected the jurist assessors, but had to choose from a list of several candidates nominated by the consistories. Leipzig councilors visited the court, often for extended stays, to represent the city and fulfil their duties as Saxon councilors. From the start, the Electors' relationship to religion, personified in their relationship to the highest Saxon cleric, the Senior Court Chaplain, contained tensions that were not present between the Leipzig city council and clergy. Dresden was a two-day trip by coach from Leipzig. It lay on the Elbe River in the south-eastern corner of Saxony, not far from Bohemia and the Erzgebirge or Ore Mountains.
