If you venture to south-west Bavaria, Germany, you may chance upon a bustling college town named Augsburg. A college town is a city dominated by generally young students and those in academia, including professors. Little known fact, college town over here is one of the oldest cities Germany spanning back almost a thousand years.
On this day March 9th, in 1276, Augsburg was turned into an Imperial Free City. This meant that it was formally ruled solely by the Emperor. Much of Germany was controlled by numerous Princes, known as vassals. For many centuries that is how Germany conducted, and it wasn’t until Martin Luther came about in the mid-16th century that Germany was unified.
Being an Imperial Free City basically altered the way one would pay his taxes. Besides that there isn’t much of an indication of what changed. Augsburg would then have a thriving trade economy because of its location between France, Italy, and Eastern Europe. Augsburg is also where the Fugger banking empire was based. The Fugger family was incredibly affluent and dealt with all the Church’s money, lending, dispensations etc. because the Church was banned from doing so.