Civitas

Civitas (plural: Civitates ), literally " citizenship " is the Latin word for a semi-autonomous administrative unit of the middle level. The civitates were always from an urban center, together with the surrounding area and were mostly named after its main town or the associated strain.

Civitas can also mean general " civil rights "; most important was the civitas Romana, so the Roman citizenship, which was eventually awarded 212 AD by Emperor Caracalla by the Constitutio Antoniniana all free imperial residents.

Characteristics and forms

Typical of Civitas main towns are representative public buildings such as forum, basilica ( administrative building in the forum ), theaters, temples, baths, aqueducts and rest stations ( mansiones ). The civitas decreed usually a city council ( curia ) and own officials ( especially the duumvirs who acted in many places as "mayor" ), who were responsible for the local management and contact person of the Roman central authority. In the border regions were in such places at least in their time of origin often important military units, such as cavalry regiments ( Alen ) stationed. Some Civitas main places such as the Roman Rottweil ( Arae Flaviae ) were, at the same time municipia, some were even colonies, whereby the difference between these two forms, at least in the imperial period can not be determined exactly. In particular, in the western part of the empire, the Romans founded many targeted urban settlements because their rule was based on urban structures (in the east they resorted to this end most of the existing poleis back that were similarly organized ).

The civitates were divided into three main subgroups, even here the exact characteristics are not always clear and probably are due to the respective initial phase of the relationship to Rome. One difference:

• Civitas stipendiary ( taxable municipality )
• Civitas foederata ( allied community)
• Civitas libera ( free municipality )

Late Roman period

Since 212 AD, almost all Roman towns had at least the rank of municipium; from the perspective of late Roman authors such as Augustine, there were now basically only a single civitas, namely Rome. In fact, the term civitas remained as a synonym for the city or municipality consistently, especially as people quite beside the Roman civil law and the occupied their home community.

From the 4th century the emperor most cities deprived of their fiscal autonomy, in order to control the tax revenue better. In the following two centuries, gradually changed the character of the civitates who lost their old autonomy; so deprived Emperor Constantius II most cities the management about their surroundings. In late antiquity, the Civitas main places were also often bishoprics, as the ecclesiastical hierarchy is often closely modeled in the West after the end of the persecution of Christians in the early 4th century to government structures. Partly as have the boundaries of the dioceses of the storms of the great migration period of time preserved the ancient Civitas limits. One example is in Germany the relatively small (and ultimately resolved in the early 19th century) Diocese of Worms (Latin Borbetomagus ), whose territory apparently quite accurately that of the old Worms civitas corresponded. Even in the 6th century, there were in Gaul, Hispania and Italy numerous civitates, although the character and function obviously had often changed.

Known civitates in the province of Germania superior

• Ladenburg (Latin Lopodunum ) = Civitas Ulpia Sueborum Nicretum (after the Neckarsueben );
• Wimpfen = Civitas Alisinensium;
• Cannstatt = Civitas Aurelia G ... (theory of C. Sebastian Sommer ) (?);
• Rottenburg (Latin Sumelocenna ) = Civitas Sumelocennensis;
• Rottweil (Latin Arae Flaviae )
• Baden -Baden (Latin Aquae ) = Civitas Aquensis;
• Worms (Latin Borbetomagus ) = Civitas Vangionum (after the Vangiones );
• Speyer (Latin Noviomagus ) = Civitas Nemetum (after the Nemetern );
• Wiesbaden ( Aquae Latin Mattiacorum ) = Civitas Mattiacorum (after the Mattiaci );
• Frankfurt am Main - Heddernheim (Latin Nida) = Civitas Taunensium;
• Dieburg (Latin Med ... ( rest of the name unknown) ) = Civitas Auderiensium

Basically, it can be assumed that there were still more civitates. To which the civitas capital of the province of Mainz (Latin Mogontiacum ) belonged is unknown. It may be speculated that the settling in the environment Aresaces ( a part of the tribe Treverians ) a self- managed civitas or the area around Mainz was directed more militaristic or directly by the governor. As the areas in the northernmost part of Germania superior - the area around Confluentes ( Koblenz ) - were divided, is also unknown.

CS Summer also considered the Swiss Schleitheim ( Iuliomagus ) at Schaffhausen at the Windisch AG ( Vindonissa ) coming south-north road as the center of Civitas. The main argument for this is the geographical location, unique finds missing there so far, but quite a large Roman bath proves the importance of the settlement, which was at least a vicus ( small town or village bearing ).

After the discovery of a representative office building in Heidenheim an der Brenz ( Civitas Aquileia ) in the late 1990s is discussed whether this city also had the rank of civitas. To this is added:

An administrative center at this point would have been so far logical and sensible.

Even the Roman Pforzheim (Latin Portus ) may have been a temporary civitas capital. Here representative buildings were built in the 3rd century, and there is no other Civitas capital in the vicinity.

Probably existed in present-day Baden- Württemberg some more civitates, especially in the Upper Rhine region and in Upper Swabia, whose Roman past is explored worse than the closer to the limit -lying areas further north. If there are no further civitates should have existed, would have to be assumed for the known civitates very wide and low harmonic limits.

Civitates the Western Slavs

The concept of civitas was also used by the German medieval ethnography to describe settlement units of the Slavs (eg Bavarian Geographer ). It is often unclear to which meaning of the medieval writers used the term. In the scientific discussion, several interpretations exist:

- A Siedlungsgefilde in which a gentil socially organized group of Slavic settlers has settled

- A frühfeudal organized Siedlungsgefilde with a political and military center in the form of a main castle

- An early urban settlement, often mounted in a non- priority agricultural population lives

- Border Counties Slavic tribal regions that surround the central Gefildelandschaft and primarily fulfill military tasks

- Central castle, possibly with associated Vorburgsiedlung

Even for the non-Slavic cities use the writers of the Middle Ages the term civitas. The terminology changes over the centuries, depending on the region and the local Stadtwerdungsprozessen ( " from the castle to the city" ).