Beginning in the late Middle Ages, many individual sites attracted an accumulation of various central administrative and representative functions. Such a seat of power could be a fortified castle or a palace (Castle). Since it frequently was located within or very near a city or town, the town itself was also called a Residenz or (more precisely) a Residenzstadt. Ideally, the Middle Ages were typified by itinerant rule and the early modern period by residential rule. The medieval terms for the ideal centers of sovereignty (Latin caput, “capital,” and sedes, “seat”) have noth…