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300 GERMANY. [Kempten.
nlnety-fix florins to feventy-eight ; but in 1728 railed again to one hundred.
Its contribution to the chamber of" PVetzIar is lixty rixdollars, feventy-feven
kruitzers and a half. To the prcfetturate it pays annually as an honorary
prefent 10/^. of pfennings. Ravetislnirg is a very ancient court-town belonging
to the tribunal held on the Leutkircher heath and the Purs. The
caftle, which flood on a hill near the town, and which in the year 1647,
was burnt by the Sivedes, the government in the Upper and Loiver-Swabia
affumed to themfelves.
The lordfliip of Schmaleck, which was difpofed of to the town by the
Counts of Verden and Hei/igenbcrg, together with its dependencies of
Aibertjchii^endi, 'Diinkertjchiveiler, and i^fZ/fwrz///', fland under the high jurifd;d:ion
of the prefedurate, fubjedl to whofe high and low jurifdidion
are many other lands. From the charter of the Emperor Frederick III.
which bears date in the year 1478, it appears that the fuperintendency of
the whole foreft of Altov}\ together with the power of holding an annual
forefl-court was conferred by the Empire as a fief on the town.
K E M P r E N.
The free Imperial town of Kempten in Latin Campidona, lies in the
Algau on the river Her which flows betwixt the town and the fuburbs,
and {lands as is fuppofed on the fite of the ancient Cainpodtinum or Cainpidunum.
But although there was a Ro?)mn üation here, Ptolemy notwithflanding
places Campoduman betwixt the rivers Ifer and 'Jun, whence it may
widi greater
probability be looked for in the didridl of Munich the capital
of Bavaria. Both the burghers and magiftracy here profefs Lutheranijm,
and in the town is a handfome parifli church and a grammar-fchool. Its
arms arc the Imperial eagle /'.jr/)'/'«-^^/^', Or ^nd fakle. This town aflerts
that it is of greater antiquity than the Imperial abbey which {lands near it j
and the latter again maintains that the town owes its walls and its very appearance
of a town to the abbots, and was for a long time fubjedl to them, not the
leaft fliadow of their independency appearing before the thirteenth century;
The town again allows that the abbots found means to obtain feveral privileges
and regalia in it, but deny that they had ever any fuch thing as a
complete fovereignty over it, having from time immemorial always been an
independent Imperial town : However that be. King Rudolph I. in an inflrument
of 1289 fliles himfelf their legitimus advocatus, and enjoined that
the burghers fhould not in anywife be, by the abbot, molefled, mortgaged
or aggrieved on account of the abbey ; which inftrument was further renewed
and confirmed to it in the year 1304 by the Emperors Albert I. and
in 1354 by Charles IV. which lafl named Emperor in the years 1348,
*355> ^'^^ 136^» again ratified their immediate dependence on the Empire,