tors will be assessed as contributory to the manner by which Munich developed. These will include: geographical considerations, administrative and political reasons, education and religious reasons, the strategic
1 See Paul M. Hohenberg and Lynn Hollen Lees, The Making of Urban Europe, 1000 1950, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985); and Mack Walker, German Home Towns: Community, State, and General Estate, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1971.
importance of Munich in the historical mode, and some miscellaneous considerations regarding Munich's development. Finally, the paper will conclude with an assessment of the most important factors for Munich's development, and some thoughts on its contemporary prospects.
Munich was founded in 1157, when Henry the Lion, then the duke of Bavaria, granted certain rights (coinage, customs privileges, etc.) to what had already become a market center established by monks as early as A.D. 750. Although Munich began to grow as a commercial and cultural center during the twelfth century, its real rise to prominence came in the thirteenth century. During this period, the Wittelsbach family, rulers of Bavaria from 1180 to 1918, made Munich their capital city. Because of this decision, a political and social one at best, the city began to experience an influx of material and human resources from all over the region.2
In the year 1327, there was a disastrous fire that almost devastated the city. However, the Holy Roman Emperor Louis IV oversaw the rebuilding of much of the city, for even at that time, the area was the German stronghold of Catholicism and some of the Papacy's most ardent support
2 Roger Hewes Wells, German Cities A Study of Contemporary Municipal Politics and Administration, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1932), 9 11, 56 7.
came from the areas around Munich, and was centered in the city itself.3
By 1806, Munich had become the political ca...