This source documents a resolution passed by the Hamburg city council and city assembly that largely granted Hamburg’s Jews legal and economic equality with the city’s other residents. At a meeting of both the city council and assembly held on February 21, 1849, the council asked the Erbgesessene Bürgerschaft – i. e. residents who had a voice in these matters – to approve a “Provisional Decree”  Provisorische Verordnung ordering the implementation of article 16 of the Basic Rights of the German People [Grundrechte des deutschen Volkes]. The city assembly granted the council’s request and approved the decree. Originally published on February 23, 1849 on the council’s orders, the decree was later included in the twenty-first volume of the “Sammlung der Verordnungen der freien Hanse-Stadt Hamburg” [“Collected Decrees of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg”] (pp. 27-30) published in 1851 by Johann Martin Lappenberg. The decree comprises six articles and stipulates that Jews could now acquire citizenship rights in the city  Bürgerrecht [citizenship right in the city]: The right of self-government; the precondition for acquiring civil rights was inherited real property, the swearing of a citizen’s oath, and the one-time payment of “Bürgergeld” [citizenship fee]; members of the nobility were excluded from this; until 1814 citizenship was granted exclusively to members of the Lutheran church [see: Helmut Stubbe-da Luz, “Bürgerrecht,” in: Franklin Kopitzsch / Daniel Tilger (eds.), Hamburg Lexikon, Hamburg 1998, p. 92.] and the state  Landbürgerrrecht [citizenship right in the state]: civil rights held by the residents of the territory of Hamburg; this excluded business activity in the city as well as political participation. [See: Sebastian Husen, “Landgebiet,” in: Franklin Kopitzsch /and Daniel Tilgner, (eds.), Hamburg Lexikon, (Hamburg, 1998), p. 296.] as well as the rights of a protected citizen  Schutzbürger [protected citizen]: status permitting employment and marriage, but not granting political rights if citizenship could not be acquired for financial reasons. [See: Helmut Stubbe-da Luz, “Schutzverwandte,” in: Franklin Kopitzsch /and Daniel Tilgner (, eds.), Hamburg Lexikon, (Hamburg, 1998), p. 429.]; that they were equal to Christian brokers at auctions; that they could practice as notaries without any of the previous restrictions; and that the trade authorities could now admit Jews as apprentices and journeymen.