Alte Hofhaltung and Neue Residenz
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Transcript
The courtyard of the Alte Hofhaltung and the adjacent Neue Residenz show successive forms of episcopal government.
Bamberg’s bishops were not only spiritual leaders. Within the Holy Roman Empire they also became territorial princes, governing lands, collecting revenue and maintaining courts.
The New Residence’s Baroque wings advertise that princely status with the usual architectural subtlety of absolute power: very little.
Yet authority was fragmented. Cathedral chapter, bishop, emperor and town institutions could possess different rights. This is why “Germany” before the nineteenth century cannot simply be projected backwards as one unified state.
Bamberg belonged to the empire, but everyday government was local, layered and negotiated.
The palace garden is pleasant. Administrative jurisdiction probably was not.