The negotiated Reformation: Swabian Imperial cities and urban reform (1530–1546)

Traditionally, historians have viewed the urban Reformation as either reform from above or reform from below where the local city council or the common folk acted as the driving force behind religious change. These one-sided approaches fail to account for the influence of intercity consultation on the course of religious reform in southern Germany\u27s Imperial cities. Intercity communication was particularly significant for the Reformation in Donauwörth and Kaufbeuren, two small Imperial cities that depended on their neighbor Augsburg for guidance in religious and political affairs. In Kaufbeuren, a city influenced by radical spiritualist ideas, four neighboring cities imposed the Augsburg Confession on the local council against its wishes. In subsequent negotiations, Kaufbeuren sought to maintain its autonomy in religious affairs while acknowledging the guiding influence of its neighbors Augsburg and Memmingen. The city\u27s religious practice was reorganized according to the Augsburg Confession, and Kaufbeuren relied on its fellow Imperial cities to supply preachers to staff its pulpits. Donauwörth was able to choose its confessional affiliation, but its introduction of evangelical reform became possible only after Wolfgang Musculus, one of Augsburg\u27s leading preachers, was loaned by Augsburg to Donauwörth. While the city initially opted for Lutheran reform modeled on Nuremberg, mounting pressure applied by Augsburg and other powers like the emperor and the Schmalkaldic League forced Donauwörth to adjust the nature of its reformation and to rethink its political and religious allegiances. In the end, both Donauwörth and Kaufbeuren declared their neutrality in 1546 during the Schmalkaldic War. This decision undermined Augsburg\u27s attempts to use religious reform as a way to incorporate both cities into an expanded religio-political sphere of influence. Ultimately, the Reformation in Kaufbeuren and Donauwörth occurred through a process of intercity negotiation that transforms our understanding of religious reform. The experience of these two cities reveals the need for a new category of urban reform that reflects the importance of regional patterns of influence and intercity consultation to the process of reformation, a model I term the Negotiated Reformation