Dinkelsbühl

Dinkelsbühl lies on the Wörnitz at the southern edge of the Franconian Heights. Its walls and towers enclose a town fortified by Emperor Henry V, later home to the Gothic church of St George. In 1305 it received municipal rights modelled on those of Ulm, and in 1351 it became a free imperial city. Its own lawbook, published in 1536 and revised in 1738, gathered a wide range of public and private law.

The Reformation divided the community, and by about 1534 most inhabitants had become Protestant. After the Peace of Westphalia, Dinkelsbühl was one of four imperial cities with a government shared between Catholics and Protestants. Civic offices were divided equally between the confessions, a settlement that endured until the city passed to Bavaria in 1802.