Cologne City Hall and 1096 were followed by the formation of a "commune" and first municipal structures as a basis for urban autonomy. In order to consolidate their economic and political rights, Cologne burghers established fraternities and trade guilds (most notably the "Richerzeche"). In the 1106 war of succession between Emperor Henry V and his father Emperor Henry IV, they took deliberate opposition to the archbishop, after which they gained benefit in regards to the city's territorial expansion over the following years. As – at the time – one of Europe's busiests trading ports and largest city in Germany, the population of Cologne
History of the Jews in Cologne rented land. The first burials took place in 1699. When in 1798 the Jews were again permitted to settle within the old city walls of Cologne, the cemetery was also used by this community until 1918. Until the French annexion of Cologne in 1794, following the French Revolution, no Jew was permitted to settle in Cologne. The Napoleonic Code included equality before the law, rights of individual freedom and the separation of church and state. The Government Commissioner Rudler, in his proclamation of June 21, 1798 to the inhabitants of the conquered territory announced: A few months earlier, Joseph Isaac