Trier

Trier lies on the Moselle, founded by the Romans as Augusta Treverorum and a late-antique imperial residence, with the Porta Nigra, the basilica and the baths still standing among medieval churches. In 1337 it was the seat of Archbishop Baldwin of Luxembourg, one of the most powerful prelates of the Empire and an elector. The burghers had won a charter of freedom from Emperor Otto IV in 1212, but in 1309 they again had to accept the archbishop's jurisdiction, and Emperor Charles IV confirmed that in 1364. Through the fourteenth century the city struggled for self-government and a council constitution, and in the fifteenth the council issued coinage ordinances and took over the lower jurisdiction.

In 1473 Emperor Frederick III and Charles the Bold of Burgundy met in Trier to negotiate the marriage of their children Mary of Burgundy and Maximilian of Austria, and the same year a university was founded here. In 1512 the Reichstag at Trier finalized the division of the Empire into circles. The knight Franz von Sickingen besieged the city for several days in September 1522 and bombarded it from a hill that came to be called the Franzensknüppchen, but its walls were too strong and he withdrew.

In 1559 Caspar Olevian, a pupil of Calvin, tried to bring the Reformation to Trier, but the elector John von der Leyen had him arrested, expelled converts, and brought the Jesuits in 1560. The burghers' centuries-long struggle against the archbishops to become a free imperial city ended under Jakob III of Eltz, who blockaded Trier in the Bean War of 1568 and in 1580 obtained a decree from Rudolf II putting the city under his sovereignty. Hundreds of people were executed in the witch trials between 1580 and 1596. The electors later moved their residence to Koblenz, and French troops made the city seat of the department of the Saar in 1798.