Urban Societies in East-Central Europe, 1500-1700 (Historical Urban Studies)

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Urban Societies in East-Central Europe, 1500–1700

Jaroslav Miller

ASHGATE e-BOOK

URBAN SOCIETIES IN EAST-CENTRAL EUROPE, 1500–1700

Historical Urban Studies Series Series editors: Jean-Luc Pinol and Richard Rodger Titles in the series include: Marriage, Manners and Mobility in Early Modern Venice Alexander Cowan Who Ran the Cities? City Elites and Urban Power Structures in Europe and North America, 1750–1940 Edited by Ralf Roth and Robert Beachy Heads of the Local State Mayors, Provosts and Burgomasters since 1800 Edited by John Garrard The Making of an Indian Metropolis Colonial Governance and Public Culture in Bombay, 1890–1920 Prashant Kidambi Corruption in Urban Politics and Society, Britain 1780–1950 Edited by James Moore and John Smith Testimonies of the City Identity, Community and Change in a Contemporary Urban World Edited by Richard Rodger and Joanna Herbert Public Health and Municipal Policy Making Britain and Sweden, 1900–1940 Marjaana Niemi Medicine, Charity and Mutual Aid The Consumption of Health and Welfare in Britain, c.1550–1950 Edited by Anne Borsay and Peter Shapely The City and the Senses Urban Culture Since 1500 Edited by Alexander Cowan and Jill Steward Paris-Edinburgh Cultural Connections in the Belle Epoque Siân Reynolds

Urban Societies in East-Central Europe, 1500–1700

JAROSLAV MILLER Palacký University Olomouc, Czech Republic

© Jaroslav Miller 2008 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. Jaroslav Miller has asserted his moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work. Published by Ashgate Publishing Limited Gower House Croft Road Aldershot Hampshire GU11 3HR England

Ashgate Publishing Company Suite 420 101 Cherry Street Burlington, VT 05401-4405 USA

Ashgate website: http://www.ashgate.com British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Miller, Jaroslav Urban societies in East Central Europe, 1500–1700. – (Historical urban studies) 1. Cities and towns – Europe, Eastern – History – 16th century 2. Cities and towns – Europe, Eastern – History – 17th century 3. Sociology, Urban – Europe, Eastern – History – 16th century 4. Sociology, Urban – Europe, Eastern – History – 17th century I. Title 307.7’6’0947’09031 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Miller, Jaroslav. Urban societies in East-Central Europe : 1500–1700 / by Jaroslav Miller. p. cm. – (Historical urban studies series) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-7546-5739-2 (hardbk : alk. paper) 1. Urbanization–Europe, Central–History. 2. Sociology, Urban–Europe, Central–History. 3. Cities and towns, Medieval–Europe, Central. I. Title. HT384.C465M55 2007 307.760943–dc22 2007023183 ISBN: 978-0-7546-5739-2

Printed and bound in Great Britain by MPG Books Ltd, Bodmin, Cornwall.

To István György Tóth and Pavlína Miller, as ever

Contents List of Maps and Tables List of Appendices Historical Map of Early Modern East-Central Europe Map of East-Central Europe by 1600 Gazetteer General Editors’ Preface Acknowledgements

ix xi xiii xv xvii xxi xxiii

1

Introduction: The Closed Society and its Enemies

1

2

Urbanization Trends and the Urban Landscape

7

3

Urban Immigration

33

4

Integrity of Urban Society Challenged I: Unassimilated Groups in Cities

57

5

Integrity of Urban Society Challenged II: Urban Conflicts and City Autonomy in the Context of Reformation

121

Building a Leviathan: The Early Modern City and Early Modern State

155

7

Urban Economy: Its Basic Parameters

197

8

Conclusion

237

6

Bibliography Appendices Index

243 279 285

List of Maps and Tables Maps 1

2

Historical Map of Early Modern East-Central Europe: Michele Tramezini, ‘Nova Germaniae descriptio’, Rome 1533, in Peter H. Meurer (ed.), Mappae Germaniae, Bad Neustadt 1984, Tafel 6 Map of East-Central Europe by 1600

xiii xv

Tables 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 5.1 5.2 7.1 7.2 7.3

Regional Differences in Levels of Urbanization by 1600 The Lands of the Bohemian Crown: Population Size of Selected Cities, 1500–1650 Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth: Population Size of Selected Cities, 1500–1670 Royal Hungary: Population Size of Selected Cities, 1500–1650 Number of Cities with at least 10,000 Inhabitants by Country, 1500–1650 An Estimate of the Urbanization Rate in East-Central Europe, 1650–1670 New Burghers in East-Central European Cities Numbers of New Burghers in Buda and Pest, 1686/1687–1730 Regional, Countrywide and Foreign Immigration, Selected Large Cities Geographical Structure of Foreign Immigration to Selected Cities Geographical Background of Students Enrolled at Collegia Nordica in Olomouc and Braniewo Estimated Proportion of Jews in the Total Population of Selected Polish Cities and Prague Jews in Ruthenian Cities and Towns, 1500–1648 Approximate Number of Noble Real Estates in Selected Polish and Hungarian Cities Conflicts between Councils and Citizenry in the First Half of the 16th Century, Selected Cities Municipal Administration in Kutná Hora, 1525 Ownership of Urban Centres in Poland, 1500–1600 Number of Guilds in Selected Private Towns, Bohemia Feudal Domains of Selected East-Central European Cities as Compared to Rural Hinterlands of Selected German Cities

22 25 26 28 29 31 42 45 48 50 64 92 96 111 123 134 203 206 216

List of Appendices A B C D E F

New burghers in Prague, Danzig and Cracow New burghers in Bohemian and Moravian towns (1) New burghers in Bohemian and Moravian towns (2) New burghers in Hungarian towns New burghers in Upper Lusatian towns New burghers in Polish towns

279 280 281 282 283 284

Historical Map of Early Modern East-Central Europe

Map of East-Central Europe by 1600

Gazetteer Hungary Hungarian

Czech/Slovak

Bakabánya Bártfa Bazin Bélabánya Besztercebánya Eperjes Esztergom Galánta Galgóc Kassa Késmárk Kismarton Körmöcbánya Korpona Lőcse Modor Nagyszombat Pozsony Selmecbánya Sopron Stompfa Szakolca Szeben Szekesféhérvár Szentgyörgy Szenc Szered Trencsén Újbánya

Pukanec Bardejov Pezinok Banská Belá Banská Bystrica Prešov Ostrihom Galanta Hlohovec Košice Kežmarok Eisenstadt Kremnica Krupina Levoča Modrá Trnava Bratislava Banská Štiavnica Šoproň Stupava Skalica Sabinov Stoličný Bělehrad Svätý Jur Senec Sereď Trenčín Nová Baňa

German

Other

Bartfeld Bösing Neusohl Preschau Gran Galanta Freistadt Kaschau Käsmark Kremnitz Karpfen Letschau Modern Tyrnau Pressburg Schemnitz Ödenburg Skalitz Zeben Sankt Georgen Wartberg

Strigonium Cassovia

Tyrnavia Posonium

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URBAN SOCIETIES IN EAST-CENTRAL EUROPE, 1500–1700

The Bohemian Lands Czech

German

Polish

Bělá Bolesławiec Brno Broumov Břeh Česká Lípa České Budějovice Hlohov Hradec Králové Cheb Jelenia Góra Jihlava Jáchymov Javor Kladsko Krnov Kutná Hora Lehnice Liberec Litoměřice Lwówek Mikulov Nysa Olomouc Opava Opole Plzeň Prostějov Rakovník Śróda Śląska Svídnice Strzegom Šprotava Vodňany Vratislav Zaháň Zielona Góra Złotoryja Znojmo Źory

Zülz Bunzlau Brünn Braunau Brieg Böhmische Leipa Budweis Glogau Königsgratz Eger Hirschberg Iglau Joachimsthal Jauer Glatz Jägerndorf Kuttenberg Liegnitz Reichenberg Leitmeritz Löwenberg Nikolsburg Neisse Olmütz Troppau Oppeln Pilsen Proßnitz Rakonitz Neumarkt Schweidnitz Striegau Sprottau Wodnan Breslau Sagan Grünberg Goldberg Znaim Sohrau

Biała Bolesławiec Brzeg Głogów Jelenia Góra Jawor Kłodzko Legnica Lwówek Śląski Nysa Opole

Śróda Śląska Świdnica Strzegom Szprotawa Wrocław Źagań Zielona Góra Złotoryja Źory

Other

GAZETTEER

Poland–Lithuania Polish

German

Braniewo Bydgoszcz Chełmno Chojnice Elbląg Gdańsk Gniezno Grudziądz Królewiec Kraków Leszno Lwów Malbork Międzychód Olsztyn Poznań Toruń Tczew Wilno Wschowa

Braunsberg Bromberg Kulm Konitz Elbing Danzig Gnesen Graudenz Königsberg Krakau Lissa Lemberg Marienburg Birnbaum Allenstein Posen Thorn Dirschau Wilna Fraustadt

Other

Culm Gedanium

Cracovia Leopolis

Vilnius

xix

Historical Urban Studies General Editors’ Preface Density and proximity are two of the defining characteristics of the urban dimension. It is these that identify a place as uniquely urban, though the threshold for such pressure points varies from place to place. What is considered an important cluster in one context – may not be considered as urban elsewhere. A third defining characteristic is functionality – the commercial or strategic position of a town or city which conveys an advantage over other places. Over time, these functional advantages may diminish, or the balance of advantage may change within a hierarchy of towns. To understand how the relative importance of towns shifts over time and space is to grasp a set of relationships which is fundamental to the study of urban history. Towns and cities are products of history, yet have themselves helped to shape history. As the proportion of urban dwellers has increased, so the urban dimension has proved a legitimate unit of analysis through which to understand the spectrum of human experience and to explore the cumulative memory of past generations. Though obscured by layers of economic, social and political change, the study of the urban milieu provides insights into the functioning of human relationships and, if urban historians themselves are not directly concerned with current policy studies, few contemporary concerns can be understood without reference to the historical development of towns and cities. This longer historical perspective is essential to an understanding of social processes. Crime, housing conditions and property values, health and education, discrimination and deviance, and the formulation of regulations and social policies to deal with them were, and remain, amongst the perennial preoccupations of towns and cities – no historical period has a monopoly of these concerns. They recur in successive generations, albeit in varying mixtures and strengths; the details may differ. The central forces of class, power and authority in the city remain. If this was the case for different periods, so it was for different geographical entities and cultures. Both scientific knowledge and technical information were available across Europe and showed little respect for frontiers. Yet despite common concerns and access to broadly similar knowledge, different solutions to urban problems were proposed and adopted by towns and cities in different parts of Europe. This comparative dimension informs urban historians as to which were systematic factors and which were of a purely local nature: general and particular forces can be distinguished. These analytical and comparative frameworks inform this book. Indeed, thematic, comparative and analytical approaches to the historical study of towns and cities is the hallmark of the Historical Urban Studies series which now extends to over 30 titles,

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URBAN SOCIETIES IN EAST-CENTRAL EUROPE, 1500–1700

either already published or currently in production. European urban historiography has been extended and enriched as a result and this book makes another important addition to an intellectual mission to which we, as General Editors, remain firmly committed. Richard Rodger Jean-Luc Pinol

University of Leicester Université de Lyon II

Acknowledgements I have studied, slept, eaten, and breathed the fascinating story of urban societies in early modern East-Central Europe for almost a decade. Over these years, I have consulted several dozen experts, non-experts and friends, from university professors to graduate students in Budapest, Oxford, Leipzig, Prague, Olomouc, Toronto, Wolfenbüttel, Munich and Marburg. I owe much to each and every one of them, perhaps more than they will ever realize. They raised critical, provocative and intellectually stimulating questions which helped me enormously to systematize my research and conceptualize my work. As this study is the modest product of almost ten intellectually fertile years spent at the Central European University, my greatest debt goes to this institution which offered financial backing, a hospitable and motivating environment and which became, for several happy years, my home. In particular, I am grateful to late István György Tóth, my teacher and friend who supervised my PhD dissertation and who made me more familiar with the course and nature of Hungarian history in the early modern age. I have benefited greatly from our discussions over cups of coffee, as they have saved me from numerous obscurities and not a few errors. István György Tóth has done more than anybody else for the successful completion of this monograph without, alas, seeing it in print. This is why the book is dedicated to his memory with love and gratitude. He, László Kontler and Eva Kowalská, above all, have showed me how exciting and attractive a region for a historian East-Central Europe can be. This lesson will not be forgotten. I am also grateful to the Lady Margaret Hall at the University of Oxford, the School of Slavonic and East European Studies in Toronto and Geisteswissenschaftliches Zentrum für Geschichte und Kultur Ostmitteleuropas in Leipzig for providing me an excellent working environment which gave me support and encouragement. Special thanks go to Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and Hertie Foundation whose grants made possible for me to spend six months in the Herder Institute in Marburg and draw there a final version of the manuscript. I also greatly appreciate the financial support provided by the Czech Ministry of Education, MSM6198959225. In particular, I am grateful to Ashgate Publishing for accepting this book in its urban history series. I am indebted to Professor Charles Ingrao who gave me the opportunity to present parts of my research in the Austrian History Yearbook, in 2005, honoured with R. John Rath Prize. Petr Černikovský deserves special mention for going through the entire manuscript with his keen and critical eye. Finally, my greatest debt goes to my wife Pavlína who has lived this project for many years and our children Jan and Barbora who were, so to speak, born into it. Thereafter every hour spent on this book was an hour spent by Pavlína with them. Milledgeville (Georgia), 24 March 2008

CHAPTER ONE

Introduction: The Closed Society and its Enemies Recent changes in the political atmosphere of Eastern Europe will make it easier for English-speaking historians to undertake research in urban history there; in five or ten years it should be possible to list a substantial number of works in English on the urban history of Poland, Bohemia, Hungary and the Balkans in the early modern era. (Christopher Friedrichs, The Early Modern City, 1450–1750, p. 346)

An overview of the major works on early modern urban history of Europe discloses their preoccupation with urban societies in the European West and their persistent ignorance of urban civilization in the European East. With the risk of simplification, the frontier between ‘the explored Europe’ and ‘the unknown Europe’ can be demarcated by the recently fallen iron curtain, that separated for several unhappy decades the communist bloc from the rest of the continent. This may easily be demonstrated when some modern syntheses of urban development in early modern Europe are considered. Most Anglo-American authors such as Paul M. Hohenberg, Lynn Hollen Lees, Christopher R. Friedrichs and Alexander Cowan draw largely on sources that refer to the urban experience in the area stretching from the British Isles to Germany and from the Low Countries to Southern Italy.1 Conversely, references to urban life in the Eastern Europe are either sparing or completely absent. Their failure to fully integrate the vast territories of East of Saxony and Austria into their wide-ranging surveys of early modern cities is usually acknowledged by the authors themselves. For example, in the preface to his excellent book, Christopher Friedrichs elucidates that his synthesis ‘includes all of Western and Central Europe and some of Eastern Europe’, while Hohenberg and Lees clarify that ‘in the language of urban geography our Europe remains underbounded, meaning that we fail to give the peripheries their due’.2 Similarly, the famous databases published by Paul Bairoch and Jan de Vries cover urban societies in the Eastern Europe only marginally and often their demographic estimates are not entirely correct. It is true, that German studies on early modern urban Europe pay slightly more attention to territories that 1 P.M. Hohenberg and L.H. Lees, The Making of Urban Europe 1000–1994, (Cambridge/ Massachusetts – London: Harvard University Press 1995); C.R. Friedrichs, The Early Modern City 1450–1750 (London – New York: Longman 1995); A. Cowan, Urban Europe 1500–1700 (London: Arnold 1998). 2 Friedrichs, The Early Modern City, p. x; Hohenberg – Lees, The Making of Urban Europe, p. viii.

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URBAN SOCIETIES IN EAST-CENTRAL EUROPE, 1500–1700

were largely German-speaking and were connected by countless economic, political and cultural ties with the Holy Roman Empire. By discussing basic parameters of urban life in Germany, Heinz Schilling briefly refers also to cities and towns in the Bohemian Lands.3 The most recent work on European early modern city by Herbert Knittler includes a number of illustrative examples from the Habsburg monarchy and Poland–Lithuania that aim to support the author’s argumentation. Yet again, Knittler’s book may offer hardly more than a highly selective and therefore simplistic view of urban life in Eastern Europe.4 Urban Eastern Europe, therefore, still largely remains terra incognita to most comparative historians. Several causes can be highlighted. First, the iron curtain, that in the post-war period so ruthlessly separated the continent, also discontinued a regular scholarly debate between historians from the European East and their colleagues from the West. It was this lack of mutual communication that caused the rather autonomous development of historical scholarship and course of research in the communist countries. This forty-year gap has not been overcome yet, despite undisputed rapprochement in the last decade. In addition, the marginal attention paid by Western European and American scholars to urban societies in Eastern Europe is largely the result of the region being traditionally seen as rather under-urbanized, at least when compared to the European economic core. From this viewpoint it seems quite natural that a prevailing interest of urban historians is attracted by the most urbanized areas of early modern Europe, such as the Low Countries or Italy. Among other factors that complicate large-scale comparative research, the persistent language barrier is of significance as the crushing majority of relevant studies on early modern East European urban societies have been published in the vernacular and remain linguistically inaccessible to many historians. Lastly, in many areas of research East European historical scholarship has not yet surpassed the confining boundaries of national historiographies, which creates difficulties in identifying the general and specific features in the development of urban societies in the region under discussion. The preceding paragraphs have implied the principal goal of this monograph, which is to investigate the basic parameters and contours of urban life in territories traditionally referred to by historians as peripheries. Some major aspects of urban civilization are explored in the Bohemian Lands, Royal Hungary and the Polish– Lithuanian Commonwealth with some overlaps with Austria, Germany and Hungarian territories under Ottoman sovereignty. In order to distinguish the region from the Easternmost areas of the continent and from the Balkans, everywhere in the book the term East-Central Europe is used. It is one of the ambitions of this book to place this chronically underrated part of the continent on the map of early modern urban Europe. The scope of the problem addressed as well as the geographical dimensions of the territory under review are intimidatingly broad. Yet I believe that only a study embracing a representative sample of urban societies may provide a substantial contribution to the debate about the major economic, social or demographic trends 3 4

H. Schilling, Die Stadt in der frühen Neuzeit (München 1993). H. Knittler, Die europäische Stadt in der frühen Neuzeit (Wien – München 2000).

INTRODUCTION: THE CLOSED SOCIETY AND ITS ENEMIES

3

in early modern East-Central European cities and towns. The large-scale survey also allows one to answer the question, to what extent did urban civilizations in this part of the continent share a common fate and to what degree did variables support deviations from general models? The nature of this book is that it aims to surpass the limits of national scholarships as well as the limits of a bird’s eye view of the EastCentral Europe so often shared by Western scholars. The argumentation revolves around the idea that East-Central European urban societies were confronted with five qualitatively new phenomena that are perceived by most historians as symptoms or agents of political, economic and social transformations on the way from the Middle Ages to Modernity. To be more precise, I have in mind: • • • • •

The early modern urbanization Socially, religiously and culturally diversified migration Reformation Early modern state building Large-scale structural shifts in the European economy

In my view, these processes affected medieval cities and towns basically in two ways. First, major trends in the European economy as well as the rise of the early modern state did much to uproot the medieval concept of the city as an autonomous economic and also political entity. While the traditional system of guild production and many urban economic monopolies were increasingly disturbed by in-depth changes in trade and by the entrepreneurial activities of nobility, in the case of urban political autonomy it was the rising pre-modern state that challenged the urban charters, rights and freedoms by striving to integrate the city into its administrative structures. Second, these processes challenged the integrity of late medieval urban societies by supporting their confessional, cultural and social fragmentation. In particular, it was the Reformation and increase in migration that destabilized a settled urban world by heavily undermining the fundamental principle inherently present in medieval urban societies, that is, the ingrained idea of a socially hierarchical but well-ordered and well-governed community. Potential readers, therefore, should be warned that this monograph has absolutely no ambition to present a general history of early modern urban societies in East-Central Europe. It rather aims to raise some new questions that emerge as natural outcomes of a macro-scale survey and analyse those trends that most contributed to the metamorphosis of medieval urban community to premodern urban society. This obviously needs a more profound explanation. Aiming to enlighten the nature and chief organizational principles of medieval and early modern urban life I have relied upon the influential and prophetic concept introduced by Sir Karl Popper in his famous study The Open Society and its Enemies (1945). In this in many ways paradigmatic text, Popper views closed societies as primarily collectivist organisms whose social coherence and internal stability rest upon semi-biological bonds such as kinship, communal life, sharing common efforts and values and facing common threats. It is the nature of closed societies, Popper tells us, that they are inclined to act as a body and the unified whole, while there remains little space for

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personal initiatives, individual decisions and independent critical assessments. The superiority of collectivism over individualism implies that the closed society supports interventionism, assimilation, integration and obliteration of internal frontiers rather than cultural diversity and plurality of views and critical assessments. Though Popper’s thought is nowadays mostly perceived as a warning against the intellectual seeds of modern totalitarianism, his concept has a universal validity and applies to many historical situations. Popper himself demonstrated his idea on political settlements of urban communities in ancient Greece. This book sets out to defend a thesis that the medieval city was designed as the closed, interventionist society sui generis in which the communal interests and the ingrained sense of unity and collectivism occupied the uppermost place in the hierarchy of values. Most conspicuously, such a (self)reflection of city mirrored itself in literature. The ideals of concord, solidarity, harmony and order permeated practically all literary genres of urban provenance from elegies and panegyrics to chronicles. In order to defend these collectivist principles of urban life, cities developed an entire set of juridical, social and economic instruments with strong assimilative and integrative effects. In other words, all newcomers and minorities found themselves under a permanent pressure to acculturate and assimilate themselves by adopting local rules of the game as well as the norms, values and social modes of the host society. Of course, this is not to say that medieval urban societies were monolithic social entities as some groups, such as Jews, successfully resisted closer integration. In cases when integrative instruments failed, urban societies inclined either to push the alien identities out of the city or at least separate them. In the Middle Ages, a defence of collectivist and communal principles still proved more or less successful as dissenting social organisms potentially producing frontiers within urban societies were usually weak and not numerous. According to Max Weber, in the medieval city ‘outside the Jews, the priesthood was the only alien body’.5 In the early modern period, however, the idea of a closed and collectivist urban society began to be threatened with the rapidly changing reality. In general, the crisis of a city as community had much to do with demographic trends. Most medieval urban centres, particularly in East-Central Europe, were modestly populated and town dwellers, crowded in densely built-up areas, were personally acquainted. The existence of various mutual bonds and, therefore, emotionally conditioned relations formed a key pillar of a collectivist and communal nature of urban life. A demographic boom of the early modern city caused by the massive in-migration, however, weakened the social cohesion which rested upon personal acquaintance. Thus the growing impersonality was the first mark of a crisis of collective urban identity. The increased population mobility, as well as the Reformation and urbanization of nobility also took part in the process, by giving rise to many and previously nonexistent urban subcultures. The civic unity was challenged by the multiplication of alternative identities. Though cities did not give up their assimilation policies and stubbornly defended the collectivist principles of urban life, the traditional integrative instruments gradually collapsed under the pressure of growing cultural, religious, ethnic and 5

M. Weber, The City (New York: Collier Books 1962), p. 207.

INTRODUCTION: THE CLOSED SOCIETY AND ITS ENEMIES

5

social diversities within urban population. In the 16th–18th centuries the medieval idea of a closed and socially coherent urban community still survived but it fought a losing battle with the reality of increasingly multicultural and fragmented urban population. Occasionally, however, the principle of a closed society might have prevailed. For example, the repeated expulsions of Jews and Verbürgerlichung and Kommunalisierung of protestant clergy might be interpreted in terms of a sustained communal and collectivist spirit favouring social, religious and cultural unity. The structural shifts in the economy and the expansion of the bureaucratic state subverted the principle of a closed society in another way. Both rapidly changing market relations and consolidating state power deprived cities of outward symbols of social coherence, namely of their privileges and rights that for centuries formed an important part of the collective identity of medieval urban societies. As these freedoms, such as the autonomy in spheres of law, politics, administration and economy, were gradually suppressed, the class of burghers lost its distinctive features and, therefore, strong corporative awareness. The early modern age, therefore, launched the slow and lengthy process of pulling down the mental boundaries between the city and external world. Considering the transformation of the medieval city, two explanatory notes must be made. The factors subverting the collective identity of urban inhabitants might not have worked collaterally. For example, because of forced re-catholicization, the disputed issue of confessional boundaries in Czech and Moravian cities largely disappeared by the mid-17th century. At the same time, the havoc of the Thirty Years War (1618–1648) and subsequent Polish–Swedish conflict halted the population growth of most cities in East-Central Europe. Some causes of changes within urban societies, therefore, might have been restrained while others might have appeared. The revival of confessional unity and the population decrease were overshadowed by new and possibly more serious threats, namely state interventions into urban affairs, market transformation, urbanization of nobility and revitalization of the Catholic Church autonomy within cities. The other note refers to the obvious fact that this book covers only the initial phase of the complex and long-term transformation of the burgher world as the ultimate defeat of the idea of a closed urban community came as late as the 19th century with the rise of a civic society. This process was also responsible for a semantic change of the word city. In all most commonly spoken Central European languages (German, Czech, Polish, Hungarian) the term, among other connotations, originally referred to community (Rat und Stadt) and symbolical unity of the city inhabitants. The industrialization and the rise of the civic society, however, gave rise to a modern understanding of the word city in which the traditional connotation is missing. Nonetheless, in the period studied the perception of the city as a closed and unified social body still remained embedded in the burgher mentality though its medieval origins were in decline. On a technical note, to avoid anachronisms, the present form of place names, which would turn Pozsony, for instance, into Bratislava, is not used. Instead, I place names commonly used in the early modern age. For large and internationally well known cities, such as Danzig, Prague, Warsaw, Pilsen, Breslau or Cracow, familiar German and English names are used. The names of regions are in English, if their

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English name exists. For the greater comfort of a reader, the attached gazetteer lists the names of East-Central European cities in several languages. Latin, Czech, Polish, German and Hungarian quotations, though they faithfully follow the original, are translated into English.

CHAPTER TWO

Urbanization Trends and the Urban Landscape Peter Mundy, an English traveller who visited the Royal Prussia in the 1640s, noted in his diary that Danzig, by far the largest city in East-Central Europe, ‘with its suburbs (…) may contain a population half as many as Amsterdam or a quarter of that of London’.1 In general, such a sober estimate correlated with the size of cities and the density of the urban network in the area vis-à-vis the most urbanized parts of Europe, that is the Low Countries and Northern Italy. While leading European urban centres saw unprecedented demographic growth as their population multiplied during the 16th and the first half of the 17th century, the largest cities in the Bohemian Lands, Poland and Hungary, basically followed the same trend, if on a diminished scale. While Paris, Naples, Venice and later London, Amsterdam or Madrid fell into the first category of cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants, the two most populous East-Central European centres, Prague and Danzig, fluctuated over the long term between the second (50,000–100,000 inhabitants) and the third (20,000–50,000 inhabitants) category of cities. The absence of a dominant urban settlement with more than 100,000 inhabitants, and consequently a more evenly distributed urban population, made East-Central Europe comparable to Germany, where Cologne (40,000 inhabitants by 1600), Nuremberg (40,000 by 1600) and Frankfurt (20,000 by 1600) ranked among the largest cities and it was only in the 17th century that they were eclipsed by the rapidly expanding Hamburg.2 This chapter is intended as a contribution to debates on the demographics of European urban life in the early modern period. Therefore, the results of the analysis serve as the basis for a large-scale comparison with inherent trends in other European regions as presented by major works on early modern urbanization. In postwar scholarship, various concepts of urbanization were introduced as sociologists, geographers and historians examined different aspects of the process. Yet there is no consensus about the definition, even among historians. Most commonly, urbanization is simply understood as the spatial concentration of people in urban settlements. Usually provoked by the economic potential of the city, incoming migration accelerated its population growth. Some historians, however, have associated urbanization with a whole set of qualitative changes within early J. Keast (ed.), The Travels of Peter Mundy, 1597–1667 (Trewolsta: Dyllanson Truran 1984), p. 73. 2 H. Schilling, Die Stadt in der frühen Neuzeit (München 1993), p. 11; R.E. Dickinson, The West European City: A Geographical Interpretation (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul 1961), p. 297. 1

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modern and modern societies. Thus urbanization was discussed in connection with (proto)industrialization, modernization or even with the class struggle. Others have recognized the three-dimensional concept of urbanization, namely the behavioral, the structural and the demographic. While the first is associated with a qualitative change in styles of living, the second refers to a triangular linkage between population movements, economic and cultural transformations and functional diversifications of cities. The major outcome of this process was the rise of specific types of urban centres such as residential cities, exile cities and fortress towns. Finally, the concept of demographic urbanization relates to large-scale population shifts from the countryside to an urban environment.3 The main attention of this chapter is primarily focused on the third aspect. It is argued throughout the book that in early modern East-Central Europe, the urbanization process was marked by the rise of new towns, population concentration in urban and semi-urban settlements and, finally, the ethnic, cultural and religious diversification of the urban population. All of these trends, however, did not necessarily generate a fundamental change in the traditional structure of the urban economy and they also failed to contribute substantially to the formation of a specific style of living and urban mentality. In other words, in this and subsequent chapters it is argued that between 1500 and 1700, other aspects of urbanization, apart from the demographic one, still remained either underdeveloped or peripheral. With reference to the demographic growth of early modern cities, the nature of the discourse was heavily influenced by J. de Vries’ and P. Bairoch’s databases of European towns, but their approach has not escaped criticism by some urban historians. Having covered only cities with more than 10,000 (de Vries) and 5,000 (Bairoch) inhabitants, both studies imply that early modern urbanization was marked by population concentrations in large urban centres.4 In a way, a one-sided focus on more sizeable and populous cities seems justified, since they usually covered a full spectrum of basic urban functions. Nonetheless, this method fails to discuss the dimensions of urban life in those territories, in which medium-sized (2,000– 5,000 inhabitants) and small settlements (less than 2,000 inhabitants) formed the backbone of the urban network and were at the forefront of economic, demographic and social processes. This definitely applies to early modern East-Central Europe with just a handful of truly large cities, such as Danzig, Breslau and Prague, but with a plethora of rather small semi-agricultural chartered towns that typified urban life in this part of Europe. A historian exploring early modern urbanization in Poland, the Bohemian Lands and Royal Hungary cannot therefore ignore centres with a rather modest population size as they played a pivotal role in the social and economic life of the country. For theoretical debates on urbanization see, for instance, Schilling, Die Stadt, pp. 56–72; H.A. Diedericks, ‘Foreword: Patterns of urban growth since 1500, mainly in Western Europe’, in Schmal, H. (ed.), Patterns of European Urbanisation since 1500, (London: Croom Helm 1981), pp. 3–25; P.M. Hohenberg and L.H. Lees, The Making of Urban Europe 1000–1994, (Cambridge/Massachusetts – London: Harvard University Press 1995), pp. 1–13. 4 P. Bairoch and J. Batou and P. Chévre (eds), La population des villes européennes: Banque de données et analyse sommaire des résultats, 800–1850 (Genéve 1988); J. de Vries, European Urbanization 1500–1800 (London: Methuen 1984). 3

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Nonetheless, there are some fundamental pitfalls in writing about life in medium-sized and small towns since the dividing line between them and a village was sometimes blurred and hard to discern.5 Though they boasted the juridical status of a town, such centres often failed to meet important urban criteria. Usually they lacked a regular market and diversified craft production sufficient to satisfy local and regional demand. Many of these towns had no fortifications, the outward attribute of urbanity. One may resort to contemporary evidence provided by another Englishman and personal physician to the Polish king Jan Sobieski, Bernard Connor. In The History of Poland in Several Letters, published in 1698, he tells us that ‘The whole number of Cities, Towns, Boroughs and Villages in Poland amounts to near a hundred and seventy thousand, whereof there are not much above twenty wall’d’.6 Considerable deficiencies in urban functions, however, did not threaten the juridical standing of these centres. In Poland, for example, the law from 1520 recognized four categories of urban settlements. Apart from the major cities, secondranked urban centres and small boroughs with annual and weekly markets, the statute also included oppida non habentes fora – townships without markets.7 Similarly, the urban network in Hungary was largely formed by several hundred small and mainly agrarian communities on the margins of urbanity that rarely exceeded 1,000 inhabitants. They, in fact, provided for only the basic and everyday economic needs of the local inhabitants and in this respect their role proved indispensable. As there was a plethora of them throughout the region, such settlements were usually distinguished in official documents from cities and villages. Analogous to the German terms Marktfleck, Städtchen, Minderstadt and Ackerbürgerstadt, they are mostly referred to by Czech, Polish and Hungarian scholars as městečko, miasteczko, mezőváros and oppidum.8 Yet it is not always easy for a student of urban history to make a clear dividing line between civitas and oppidum. As the Czech historian Jiří Kejř has recently stressed, in terms of juridical status there was practically no difference between these types of urban settlements and both terms rather referred to unevenly developed economic and administrative functions.9 In this respect, the sources are also not devoid of a certain ambiguity and occasionally uncertainty about the status of the settlement persisted for centuries. These terminological fluctuations appeared, for instance, in the Moravian Land Register from the mid-18th century,

An increasing attention to small urban centres is paid by the urban historians since 1980s. See H.T. Gräf (ed.), Kleine Städte im neuzeitlichen Europa (Berlin 1997); P. Clark and B. Lepetit (eds), Small Towns in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1995). 6 S.B. Connor, The History of Poland in several Letters to Persons of Quality. Giving an Account of the Present State of that Kingdom I (London 1698), p. 216. 7 Corpus Iuris Polonici I/3, pp. 597–599. To the legal classification of cities and towns in early modern Poland also Z. Kulejewska–Topolska, ‘Oznaczenia i klasyfikacje miast w dawnej Polsce (XVI–XVIII w.)’, Czasopismo prawno-historyczne, VIII (2) (1956), pp. 253–268. 8 As regards theoretical debate on terminology see E. Ladányi, ‘Libera Villa, Civitas, Oppidum – terminologische Fragen in der ungarischen Städteentwicklung’, Annales Universitatis Scientiarum Budapestinensis de Rolando Eötvös nominatae, XVIII (1977), pp. 3–43. 9 J. Kejř, Vznik městského zřízení v českých zemích (Praha 1998), pp. 40–44. 5

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in which several urban centres (Zlín, Loštice, Kojetín) are collaterally marked as civitas and oppidum.10 It is evident, therefore, that there was a persistent discrepancy between the total number of people living in settlements with the legal status of a city or town and the proportion of the urban population actively engaged in trade and craft production. Given that urban life still remained largely dependent on agriculture, only some town dwellers were artisans, entrepreneurs and rentiers, while many still earned their living, exclusively or partially, as peasants and farmers. True, considered incompatible with the social status of the burgher, in some large cities agricultural activities were forbidden for full-right town dwellers. The constitution of Danzig, for example, was uncompromising in this respect but this was rather the exception proving the rule.11 If both criteria were considered, juridical standing and the economic profile of most settlements involved, one would be forced to recognize the obvious discrepancy between the urban and the truly urbanized population. When speaking of towns and cities, this chapter mostly refers to the juridical status of the settlement, regardless of its economic profile, the occupational composition of its inhabitants, or the size of its population. This approach emanates from the view that any survey of early modern city life in East-Central Europe would present a highly distorted portrayal if the important segment of the urban network, namely medium-sized as well as small and mostly agrarian townships, were omitted. Apart from the dominance of underpopulated and agriculture-oriented towns, another distinctive feature of the early modern East-Central Europe should be taken into account. Though generally less urbanized than the European West, the region was far from being a homogeneous territory in terms of the density of the urban network. Quite to the contrary: most Western European travellers, from Fynes Moryson in the 1590s to Louis-Phillipe de Ségur in the 1780s, recognized a spatially highly inconsistent dynamism of the population concentration in cities and towns.12 In the early modern period, the urbanization rate differed significantly, not only country by country but also, and in some cases more dramatically, region by region. The Lands of the Bohemian Crown: Uniform Development and the Comparatively High Level of Urbanization At the dawn of the 16th century, the Lands of the Bohemian Crown were formed by a loose conglomerate of highly autonomous provinces, namely Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, Upper and Lower Lusatia, not to mention some minor territories such as Glatz in the Northern part of the state. As the territorial structure of the Bohemian Crown had not practically changed since the Middle Ages, all of the provinces in 10 J. Marek, ‘Městská síť na Moravě v 15. a 16. století’, Časopis Matice moravské, 90 (1971), pp. 281–303. 11 G. Lengnich, Ius publicum civitatis Gedanensis oder der Stadt Danzig Verfassung und Rechte (Danzig 1900), pp. 120, 127. 12 For the image of East-Central Europe in the Enlightenment see L. Wolff, Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment (Stanford: Stanford University Press 1994).

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question shared a similar cultural, economic and political experience. This might also have been responsible for rather insignificant regional differences in the level of urbanization. One may even argue, as some scholars do, that constituent parts of the Bohemian Crown formed a coherent urban landscape, referred to in German as Städtelandschaft.13 Drawing just on early modern sources, a historian would be certainly bewildered by the often mystifying demographic and geographic data provided by contemporary travellers and humanist writers. As for Bohemia proper, most authors agree that the total number of settlements in the mid-16th century was approximately 30,000– 32,000.14 At the same time, they offer differing judgments concerning the density of the urban network. According to Sebastian Münster’s estimates, Bohemia supported about 200 cities,15 but Peter Heylyn in his Microcosmus suggested that the same territory hosted ‘780 Cities, walled Townes and Castles’.16 Higher figures were given by Václav Lebeda of Bedrštorff, who counted 1877 cities, towns and feudal manors.17 As these authors also listed non-urban settlements, their figures are of a little value for our particular purpose. Among contemporary sources one arguably finds the most reliable data in the historiographical work of the otherwise rather untrustworthy Czech chronicler Václav Hájek of Libočany, who listed 421 cities and towns for the beginning of the 16th century. A century later Martin Zeiller, obviously following Hájek’s estimates, argued that Bohemia had 410 urban settlements.18 According to modern surveys, by 1500 the urban network in Bohemia might have been comprised of 420–500 towns, of which almost 40 enjoyed the privileged status of a royal free city.19 Since the basic contours of the urban web had already emerged back in the 13th–15th centuries, in the subsequent period the total number of cities and towns founded on a ‘green meadow’ did not increase to any great extent and most new urban settlements owed their juridical status to their promotion from pre-existing villages. These new urban centres mostly emerged in the outlying hilly regions Kejř, Vznik městského zřízení, p. 29. M. Zeiller, Topographia Bohemiae, Moraviae et Silesiae: das ist Beschreibung und eigentliche Abbildung der vornehmsten und bekandtisten Stätte und Plätze in dem Königreich Boheim und einverleibten Landern, Mähren und Schlesien (Frankfurt 1650) , pp. 4–9; S. Münster, Kozmograffia Cžeská II, in Horbatsch, O. and G. Friedhof and P. Kosta (eds), Specimina Philologiae Slavicae, Band 78 (München 1988), p. 68; P. Heylyn, Microcosmus or a Little Description of the Great World (Oxford 1621), p. 163. 15 Münster, Kozmograffia, p. 68. 16 Heylyn, Microcosmos, p. 163. 17 z Bedrštorffu, Lebeda, V., Knížka obsahující v sobě kratičké poznamenání měst, zámkův, hradův w tomto království českém ležících (Praha 1610). 18 E. Maur, ‘Historické zprávy o lidnatosti Čech a jejich hodnota’, Historická demografie, 5 (1971), pp. 15–37; Zeiller, Topographia, pp. 4–9. 19 F. Hoffmann, ‘K systémové analýze středověkých měst’, Český časopis historický, (3) (1990), pp. 252–275. While Hoffmann’s estimates for the beginning of the 16th century are 418 cities and towns, others are slightly higher – about 500 cities and towns. See J. Janáček, České dějiny – doba předbělohorská 1526–1547) I/1 (Praha 1968), p. 161; The same estimates in P. Jančárek, ‘Populační vývoj českých zemí v předbělohorském období a problematika jeho studia’, Historická demografie, 12 (1987), pp. 125–136. 13 14

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of Bohemia. Because of the influx of colonists, in the Erzgebirge (Krušné Hory) mining district the wave of urbanization peaked in the first half of the 16th century and a handful of towns were also founded before 1600.20 Given that Bohemia proper comprised about 52,000 km2, the density of the urban network ranged between 105 and 125 km2 per town. On a European scale, early modern Bohemia ranked as a country with an average density of population. In East-Central Europe, however, the province was one of the most densely populated areas, with approximately 1,040,000–1,225,000 inhabitants on the threshold of the 16th century. As a result of long-term peace and stability, the total population might have risen to 1,325,000–1,500,000 shortly before the outburst of the anti-Habsburg uprising in 1618.21 With about 27–35 per cent of people living in cities and towns by 1600 (400,000–470,000 town dwellers), Bohemia was also one of the more urbanized territories in the area.22 Urbanization trends in adjacent provinces, constitutionally incorporated into the Lands of the Bohemian Crown, were similar but their dynamism and pace remained uneven. Regardless of the slightly denser urban network in the Margravate of Moravia, with one urban unit per 108 km2 by 1500 and 91–95 km2 at the beginning of the 17th century, the proportion between the urban and non-urban population indicates a more rural character than Bohemia. If Moravia supported about 600,000 inhabitants in the first half of the 16th century and perhaps more than 750,000 in the last decade before the Thirty Years War (1618–1648), then the approximate proportion of the urban population before 1618 (130,000–210,000 in about 240 towns and cities ) may have reached 20–28 per cent.23 This suggests that an average urban centre in Moravia was generally less populated than its counterpart in Bohemia. Considering the legal status of urban settlements in Moravia, one also finds an increasing disequilibrium between the number of royal free cities and private municipalities. Divergent trends are manifested most overtly if Moravia is compared to neighbouring Bohemia, where the number of royal cities grew steadily during the 16th century. Conversely, the group of twelve Moravian royal cities in the early 15th century was halved a P. Horská, and E. Maur and J. Musil, Zrod velkoměsta: Urbanizace českých zemí a Evropa (Praha – Litomyšl 2002), pp. 80–120. 21 Horská and Maur and Musil, Zrod velkoměsta, pp. 80–120; A. Míka, ‘Počet obyvatelstva, zvláště městského v českých zemích před třicetiletou válkou’, Demografie, 14 (3) (1972), pp. 193–202; Janáček, České dějiny I/1, p. 161. Some earlier estimates oscillated around 1,560,000 inhabitants. See O. Placht, Lidnatost a společenská skladba českého státu v 16–18. století, (Praha 1957), pp. 38–39. 22 Míka, ‘Počet obyvatelstva’, pp. 193–202. His estimates of the urbanized population on the threshold of the 17th century are 370,000–400,000 inhabitants. Janáček’s estimate is 468,000 town dwellers in the same period. Janáček, České dějiny I/1, p. 164. 23 While Míka concludes that Moravia supported 650,000 inhabitants before the Thirty Years War, František Hrubý suggests 750,000 for the same period. Míka, ‘Počet obyvatelstva’, pp. 193–202; F. Hrubý, ‘Moravská šlechta r. 1619, její jmění a náboženské vyznání’, Časopis Matice moravské, 46 (1922), pp. 107–169; also F. Matějek, ‘Osídlení Moravy a třicetiletá válka’, Sborník historický, 24 (1976), pp. 53–101; Janáček, České dějiny I/1, p. 162. Josef Válka’s estimates range from 700,000 to 1,000,000 inhabitants on the threshold of the Thirty Years War. See J. Válka, Morava reformace, renesance a baroka (Brno 1995), p. 34. 20

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century later, while private towns and market centres proliferated. As a consequence, six royal free cities (Olomouc, Brno, Jihlava, Znojmo, Uherské Hradiště, Uničov) represented only an insignificant minority among all urban centres, but they ranked among the largest and most populous settlements in the province.24 Unlike Moravia, with no centre dominating the urban landscape, cities and towns in the Duchy of Silesia found themselves in the shadow of Breslau, whose inhabitants made up a considerable portion of the entire urban population of the province. As demographic data suggested by historians vary, they allow only approximate estimates of the urbanization rate in early modern Silesia. Nevertheless, most scholars stress the relatively high regional density of population, which may have reached about 28–29 people per km2 shortly before the Thirty Years War. If available estimates are correct, about 860,000–940,000 inhabitants occupied the territory of Silesia before 1550, approximately 1,000,000–1,100,000 in the second half of the 16th century and perhaps almost 1,300,000 in 1619.25 The early modern historical and geographical works considered Silesia to be a highly urbanized territory. The humanist Nicolaus Henelius, in his famous Silesographia, described the area as particularly rich in cities and towns, while Joachim Curaeus mentioned the existence of 150 urban centres and 19,000 villages.26 These estimates were close to reality as by 1600 the number of cities and towns in the province reached 160–170. In the 1570s more than three quarters of the Silesian population still lived in the countryside, while those dwelling in towns may have slightly exceeded 20 per cent. Before 1618, the proportion of town dwellers may even have comprised one quarter of the entire population of the province.27 As in Bohemia, most urban plantations in Silesia took place in the Middle Ages while in the early modern period only the small number of new towns, mostly mining centres, emerged. Hoffmann, ‘K systémové analýze’, p. 265. Janáček, České dějiny I/1, p. 163; Míka, ‘Počet obyvatelstva’, pp. 193–202. Both scholars slightly modified high estimates provided by Silesian historians. See K. Popiołek, Historia Śląska od pradziejów do 1945 roku (Katowice 1972), p. 74; W. Dziewułski, ‘Zaludnenie Śląska w końcu XVI i poczatku XVII wieku’, Przeglad zachodni, VIII (1952), zeszyt dodatkowy, pp. 419–492. He suggests more than 1,500,000 inhabitants in Silesia before Thirty Years War. 26 N. Henelius, Silesiographia, Hoc est: Silesiae delineatio brevis et Siccincta: in qua non modo regionis rationem, naturam, cultum, et proventum, verum etiam ingenia, mores et instituta habitantium formamque Reipubl. Tanquam in tabula contemplari licet (Frankfurt 1613), p. 30; J. Curaeus, New vermehrete schlesische Chronica unnd Landes Beschreibung, darinnen weyland Joach: Curaus der Artzney D: einen Grundt geleget. Itzoo biß an das 1619 Jahr da sich dero Oestereichischen Wienerischen LINIEN Regierung ganz endet. Mit sehr vielen nothwendigen Sachen vermehret und gebessert. Auch in Vier unterschiedliche Bücher abgetheylet von Jacobo Schickfusio (Leipzig 1625), book 4, pp. 42–43. 27 For the urbanization rate see Dziewułski, ‘Zaludnienie Śląska’, p. 432; Popiołek, Historia Śląska, p. 74. Numbers of Silesian cities and towns in H. Weczerka, ‘Entwicklungslinien des Schlesischen Städte im 17. und in der ersten Hälfte des 18. Jahrhunderts’, in Rausch, W. (ed.), Die Städte Mitteleuropas im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert (Linz/Donau 1981), pp. 119–142; H. Weczerka, ‘Stadt- und Marktgründungen und Stadtabgänge in Schlesien 1450–1800’, Zeitschrift für Ostforschung, 23 (2) (1974), p. 208. 24 25

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Urbanizing trends in the last two territories loosely attached to the Bohemian Crown, namely Upper and Lower Lusatia, have been studied less extensively. It has been suggested that by 1600, both provinces taken together were home to about 300,000–450,000 inhabitants.28 Considering the urbanization rate, recent estimates for all of Saxony (including Lusatia) have revealed that in the mid-16th century roughly one third of the population may have lived in an urban environment. Given the relatively high population density of the major Lusatian cities, Görlitz, Bautzen and Zittau, this judgment also seems acceptable for the smallest and most Northern province of the Bohemian Crown.29 One may conclude that a comparable level of urbanization and a consistent demographic increase in all provinces were symptomatic for the Bohemian Lands in the pre-White Mountain period (before 1620). Towards 1618, the population of the country may have reached 3,500,000–3,900,000, with an average density of between 26 and 30 persons per km2. Perhaps slightly fewer than one million inhabitants may have lived in approximately 1,000 urban centres that were more or less evenly spread throughout the country. This number constituted between 24–30 per cent of the total population.30 In the context of the Habsburg monarchy, the Bohemian Lands were distinguished by the densest urban network and the highest proportion of the urban population, while the rate of urbanization in the Austrian Lands and Hungary remained markedly lower.31 Yet once again it should be stressed that an excessive reliance on statistical data would provide a highly misleading picture of early modern reality since a considerable portion of those living in settlements with the legal status of town were still primarily engaged in agriculture and their way of living did not significantly differ from the rural life of their counterparts in the countryside.

J. Pánek, ‘Města v předbělohorském českém státě’, in Bůžek, V. (ed.), Kultura každodenního života českých a moravských měst v předbělohorské době – Opera Historica I (1991) p. 23, note 3. Also Míka, ‘Počet obyvatelstva’, pp. 193–202. 29 K. Blaschke, Bevölkerungsgeschichte von Sachsen bis zur industriellen Revolution (Weimar 1967), pp. 78–95, 138–141; K. Blaschke, ‘Entwicklungstendenzen im Städtewesen Sachsens zu Beginn der Neuzeit’, in Rausch, W. (ed.), Die Stadt an der Schwelle zur Neuzeit (Linz/Donau, 1980), pp. 245–257; R. Dietrich, ‘Das Städtewesen Sachsens an der Wende von Mittelalter zur Neuzeit’, in Rausch, W. (ed.), Die Stadt an der Schwelle zur Neuzeit (Linz/ Donau 1980), pp. 193–226. 30 J. Pánek, ‘Města v politickém systému předbělohorského českého státu’, in Pánek, J. (ed.), Česká města v 16–18. století (Praha 1991), p. 18. His conclusions that inhabitants in cities and towns formed more than one-third of the entire population of the Bohemian Crown, however, seems too high. 31 Herbert Knittler lists for the beginning of the 16th century 114 cities and towns in the Austrian Lands (including Carinthia and Tyrol) while his estimates of the urbanization rate are 20%. H. Knittler, Die europäische Stadt in der frühen Neuzeit (Wien – München 2000), p. 270. 28

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Poland–Lithuania: Marked Regional Differences and Dynamic Growth of the Urban Network While the absence of substantial regional disparities proved the concomitant feature of early modern urbanization in the Bohemian Lands, in the case of Poland one can hardly speak of homogeneous development. Though far less urbanized than the Bohemian Crown, early modern Poland experienced the more dynamic growth in its urban network. The comparatively low level of urbanization was also acknowledged by some Polish authors. Marcin Kromer, the Bishop of Warmia and one of the most distinguished Polish humanist writers, admitted in his description of Poland that the number of walled cities remained limited as ‘since time immemorial inhabitants had lived in hamlets, villages and small towns’.32 Nonetheless, despite its predominantly rural character, Poland still formed the more urbanized territory of the Polish–Lithuanian state. Again, the obvious discrepancy between the two constitutive parts of the Commonwealth did not escape the attention of contemporary observers. In the 1590s, Fynes Moryson, a critical and open-minded traveller, pointed out that the Eastern part of the Commonwealth, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, ‘hath very few Townes, and the Villages are commonly distant 20 German miles one from the other’.33 In Poland alone, the regional differences in the level of urbanization were no less significant. The striking asymmetry can easily be seen when comparing Mazovia and Royal Prussia. Unlike the other provinces of the Polish Crown that hosted cities with more than 10,000 inhabitants, Mazovia in the first half of the 16th century still lacked a large urban centre. Its leading towns, including Płock, Łomża, Rawa and even Warsaw, still ranked as medium-sized cities with no more than 5,000–6,000 town dwellers. In a relatively vast but sparsely populated territory, by 1500 one would find only 88 cities and towns whose inhabitants made up only 12 per cent of the entire population of the province.34 At the same time, the generally underdeveloped urban life in Mazovia was in sharp contrast to the overabundance of nobles who constituted a more significant segment of the population than in other parts of

32 M. Kromer, Polska czyli o położeniu, ludności, obyczajach, urzędach i sprawach publicznych królewstwa polskiego księgi dwie (Pojezierze – Olsztyn 1977), p. 50. 33 F. Moryson, An Itinerary, a facsimile of the edition from 1617 (Amsterdam – New York: Da Capo Press, 1971), part III, book 2, p. 101. 34 M. Bogucka and H. Samsonowicz, Dzieje miast i mieszczaństwa w Polsce przedrozbiorowej, (Wrocław – Warszawa – Kraków – Gdańsk – Łódź 1986), pp. 118–120; also M. Bogucka, ‘Die Städte Polens an der Schwelle zur Neuzeit. Abriss der soziotopographischen Entwicklung’, in Rausch, W. (ed.), Die Stadt an der Schwelle zur Neuzeit (Linz/Donau 1980), pp. 275–291; M. Bogucka, ‘Towns in Poland and the Reformation, Analogies and Differences with Other Countries’, Acta Poloniae Historica XL (1979), pp. 55–74; M. Bogucka, ‘The Towns of East-Central Europe from the Fourteenth to the Seventeenth Century’, in Mączak, A. and H. Samsonowicz, H. and P. Burke (eds), East-Central Europe in Transition, from the Fourteenth to the Seventeenth Century, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1985), pp. 97–108; S. Pazyra, Geneza i rozwój miast mazowieckich (Warszawa 1959).

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Poland.35 These two extremes – the markedly underurbanized nature of the region and the high proportion of nobility – projected themselves into the way in which Jędrzej Święcicki, in the first half of the 17th century, portrayed Mazovia, as in his work the description of cities and urban societies is preceded with a long passage on the countryside and agriculture. On the next page, the author states that there were about 45,000 noble families in a single Mazovian voivodship.36 A strikingly opposite picture was rendered by the neighbouring Royal Prussia, by far the most urbanized province of rzeczpospolita, which rivalled in this respect even Bohemia and Upper Lusatia. Yet paradoxically, the density of the urban network in Royal Prussia was almost the lowest in the country, with just one town per 546 km2, while even the network of urban settlements in agricultural Mazovia was denser.37 This paradox arose from the fact that out of 50 urban centres only three major cities, Danzig, Thorn and Elbing, comprised more than one-half of the Royal Prussian urban population. Moreover, the dominant position of these cities was further underlined by the almost complete absence of medium-sized towns. With the exception of several cities such as Graudenz or Marienburg, the majority of urban settlements belonged to the category of towns with a population of fewer than 2,000 inhabitants. By 1500, three Royal Prussia voivodships together with the bishopric of Warmia had 375,000 inhabitants, of which more than 100,000 (27.5 per cent) lived in chartered cities and towns. However, if rural Warmia is excluded, the urbanization rate in Royal Prussia would reach 30–32 per cent.38 While the dichotomy in urban life between Mazovia and the Royal Prussia was apparent, two other inland provinces of the Polish Crown, namely Greater and Lesser Poland, witnessed a more uniform pattern of urbanization. By 1500, the former supported approximately 1,000,000 inhabitants and the average density of population ranged from 18 to 20 persons per km2. Given that between 240 and 260 towns and cities accommodated about 200,000 inhabitants, the overall proportion of urban population fluctuated between around 19–21 per cent.39 Unlike Greater Poland, with one urban unit per 220 km2, Lesser Poland proved slightly less urbanized. At J.M. Małecki, ‘Der Aussenhandel und die Spezifik der sozial-ökonomischen Entwicklung Polens im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert’, in Biskup, M. and K. Zernack (eds), Schichtung und Entwicklung der Gesellschaft in Polen und Deutschland im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert (Wiesbaden 1983), pp. 21–41. 36 S. Pazyra, Najstarszy opis Mazowsza Jędrzeja Swiećickiego (Warszawa 1974), pp. 135–136. 37 M. Bogucka, ‘The Network and Function of Small Towns in Poland in Early Modern Times (from 16th to the first half of the 17th Century)’, in Mączak, A. and T.C. Smout, (eds), Gründung und Bedeutung kleinerer Städte im nördlichen Europa der frühen Neuzeit (Wiesbaden 1991), pp. 219–233. 38 Bogucka and Samsonowicz, Dzieje miast, pp. 120; W. Odyniec, Dzieje Prus królewskich, 1454–1774 (Warszawa 1972), pp. 18–28; Bogucka, ‘Entwicklungswege der polnischen Städte’, pp. 174–191. 39 Bogucka and Samsonowicz, Dzieje miast, pp. 120–121. While the authors count with 242 towns for Greater Poland, other scholars offer slightly higher estimates. See J. Wiesiołowski, ‘Sieć miejska w Wielkopolsce w XIII–XVI wieku. Przestrzeń i spoleczenstwo’, Kwartalnik historii kultury materialnej, 28 (3) (1980), pp. 385–399. 35

URBANIZATION TRENDS AND THE URBAN LANDSCAPE

17

the dawn of the 16th century, the total number of cities and towns in Lesser Poland was about 150–165 and one urban settlement dominated over a territory covering 330–360 km2.40 Irrespective of the slightly higher density of population (1,100,000 people, 20 persons per km2), only 13–14 per cent of the population may have lived in towns.41 The list of Polish heartland provinces would not be complete without the small territory of Cujavia, centred around Bydgoszcz, Brześć and Inowrocław. Though not very populous, it was one of the more urbanized provinces with roughly 19 per cent of inhabitants concentrated in 22 towns.42 Ruthenia, a vast Eastern territory of the Polish Crown, had a predominantly rural character. Though Lwów was one of the major Polish cities, the urbanization rate in the province, with around 140 municipalities, did not exceed 13 per cent of the entire population at the beginning of the 16th century.43 All available data suggest that the Polish urban landscape differed strikingly from that in the Lands of Bohemian Crown. By 1500, both the density of the urban network and the percentage of the population living in towns were much lower vis-à-vis the Bohemian Lands. In general, the Polish Crown could support about 3,400,000–3,900,000 inhabitants, of which 15–17 per cent lived in cities and towns.44 During the 16th century, Poland had to cope with a persistently uneven regional distribution of its urbanized population. Apart from economic factors that heavily affected the dynamism of urban change, the political development must also be considered as some constituent parts of the Polish Crown remained autonomous until the 15th–16th centuries. This is to suggest that the heterogeneous nature of the urban network may have been caused by the still unfinished process of the territorial building of early modern Poland. While the Bohemian Crown emerged in its classic form in the Middle Ages and in the 16th century the country already formed a relatively compact territory in terms of urban landscape, the rise of the early modern Polish state was accomplished much later. Consider the story of Prussia, the most urbanized and richest province of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. A longterm military conflict with the Teutonic Knights resulted in the Second Treaty of Thorn (1466) which split the former territory of the Order into two parts. While Royal Prussia became an integral part of Poland, the Duchy of Prussia remained under the control of the Teutonic Knights, but as a vassal state of the Polish Crown. As for Mazovia, the extinction of the Piast ruling family in 1526 permitted the full incorporation of the province into Poland three years later and the peripheral provinces of Podlasia, Volhynia and Ukraine were attached to Poland as late as in

40 Bogucka and Samsonowicz, Dzieje miast, pp. 120–121. The authors list 147 urban centres for the beginning of the 16th century. In her other studies, however, Bogucka listed 164 urban settlements for the same period. See Bogucka, ‘The Network and Function’, pp. 219–233. 41 Bogucka and Samsonowicz, Dzieje miast, pp. 120–121. 42 Bogucka and Samsonowicz, Dzieje miast, pp. 120–121. 43 Bogucka and Samsonowicz, Dzieje miast, pp. 120–121. 44 Bogucka and Samsonowicz, Dzieje miast, pp. 120–121. The authors suggest about 3,900,000 inhabitants. However, Jerzy Topolski’s estimates for Greater Poland are considerably lower. See J. Topolski (ed.), Dzieje Wielkopolski I (Poznań 1969), pp. 442–443.

18

URBAN SOCIETIES IN EAST-CENTRAL EUROPE, 1500–1700

1569 after a series of uneasy political negotiations with Lithuanian magnates.45 The late territorial formation of the early modern Polish state thus complicated the consistent and countrywide development of the urban network until the 16th century. Unlike the Bohemian Crown, where most towns came into existence in the 13th–15th centuries, Poland experienced a genuine urban revolution after 1500, during which the number of newly-founded cities and towns steadily increased. While the Polish Crown in the first half of the 16th century still supported about 680 settlements with municipal rights, by 1600 they rose in number to 860 and to more than 900 fifty years later. If the mushrooming of urban centres in the Polish peripheral regions of the Ukraine, Volhynia and Podolia is considered, the number of towns by 1600 totalled almost 1,300.46 The progress of early modern urbanization remained territorially uneven. A particularly dramatic metamorphosis of the urban web took place especially in the predominantly rural Eastern and Southeastern parts of the Commonwealth. In Red Ruthenia, for instance, the number of towns increased from about 110 in 1500 to more than 200 one hundred years later. The foundation wave continued in the first half of the 17th century, though its dynamism somewhat decelerated. As a result, by 1650, Red Ruthenia hosted about 250 urban settlements. Other provinces, with the exception of Royal Prussia and Greater Poland, followed a similar rate of urban change. In Podlasia, the number of towns doubled during the 16th century, but only a few new towns came into existence in the first half of the 17th century.47 In one aspect this wave of urban foundations differed from the analogous process that occurred in the 13th–15th centuries. While in the Middle Ages it was the King who founded most cities, the agents of early modern urbanization tended to be noble and ecclesiastical landlords. The case of Lesser Poland illustrates the general trend. In three voivodships, Cracow, Sandomierz and Lublin, at least 69 attempts were made in the 16th century to erect a town under private jurisdiction, but only four foundations of royal cities are recorded.48 A proliferation of new urban settlements not only augmented the density of the urban network, but it considerably changed the proportion between the urban and rural segments of the population. Thus before 1600, inhabitants of chartered towns and cities in Poland (excluding the Ukraine, Volhynia and Podolia) probably formed 20–25 per cent of the entire population. Nonetheless, regional differences still persisted. While the urbanization rate was above average in Lesser Poland (25–30 per cent), Greater Poland (24–28 per cent) and traditionally in Royal Prussia (36

See N. Davies, God’s Playground – A History of Poland I (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1981), pp. 3–33, 15–158; H.E. Dembkowski, The Union of Lublin – Polish Federalism in the Golden Age (New York: Boulder 1982). 46 Bogucka, ‘The Network and Function’, pp. 219–233; F. Kiryk, ‘Lokacje miejskie nieudane, translacje miast i miasta zanikle w Małopolsce do połowy XVII stulecia’, Kwartalnik historii kultury materialnej, 28 (3) (1980), pp. 373–384; Bogucka – Samsonowicz, Dzieje miast, p. 371. 47 Bogucka and Samsonowicz, Dzieje miast, p. 371. 48 Kiryk, ‘Lokacje miejskie’, pp. 373–384. 45

URBANIZATION TRENDS AND THE URBAN LANDSCAPE

19

per cent without Warmia), other provinces, namely Mazovia (15–18 per cent) or Podlasia (14–20 per cent) still ranked as less urbanized territories.49 The preceding paragraphs have suggested that after 1500 the urbanization process in Poland accelerated, but the progress of urban change in chronically underurbanized Lithuania was even more spectacular. In the first half of the 16th century, 199 new towns emerged and the whole process climaxed between 1550 and 1600 when almost 400 localities were bestowed with municipal charters. In the period 1600 to 1650, the stormy growth of the urban network slowed, with only 86 new towns founded. In the mid-17th century, around 800 urban centres can be identified. Nevertheless, with 14–15 per cent of the population living in towns, Lithuania continued to be a more sparsely urbanized part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.50 It is estimated that, before the Swedish Deluge in the mid-17th century, the Polish–Lithuanian noble republic had 2,100–2,200 chartered towns unevenly distributed across a vast territory covering 990,000 km2.51 The truly impressive pace of colonization and urbanization did not pass unnoticed. Describing the state of Poland–Lithuania towards 1700, Samuel Pufendorf informs us that ‘the King and nobility possess 90,000 towns and villages, the bishops and canons 100,000 while the other clergymen, monks and nuns, 60,950. Altogether it makes 250,950 towns and villages’. Pufendorf, however, typically for the nascent Enlightenment, voiced his scepticism towards his sources and warned the reader that these numbers should be taken with a pinch of salt.52 Yet despite dynamic urbanization trends, the large plains of Lithuania and Ukraine still retained their rural character, while the locus of urban life was in the Western territories of the state.

Bogucka and Samsonowicz, Dzieje miast, pp. 329–392; Topolski (ed.), Dzieje Wielkopolski I, p. 466. 50 S. Alexandrowicz, ‘Geneza i rozwój sieci miasteczek Bialorusi i Litwy do połowy XVII w.’, Acta Baltico – Slavica, VII (1970), pp. 47–108; S. Alexandrowicz (1980), ‘Powstanie sieci miejskiej Podlasia na tle wcześnych procesów urbanizacyjnych w Wielkim Ksiestwie Litewskim’, Kwartalnik historii kultury materialnej, 28 (3) (1980), pp. 413–428; A. Wyrobisz, ‘Townships in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania during the agrarian and urban reform called “pomera na voloki”’ (2nd half of 16th – first half of 17th centuries), in Mączak, A. and T.C. Smout (eds), Gründung und Bedeutung kleinerer Städte im nördlichen Europa der frühen Neuzeit, (Wiesbaden 1991), pp. 193–204; Bogucka – Samsonowicz, Dzieje miast, pp. 384–385. 51 A. Wyrobisz, ‘Power and Towns in the Polish Gentry Commonwealth: The Polish– Lithuanian State in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries’, in Tilly, C. and W.P. Blockmans (eds), Cities and the Rise of States in Europe, A. D. 1000 to 1800, (San Francisco: Boulder – Oxford: Westview Press 1989), pp. 150–167. 52 ‘Der König und der Adel 90 000 Städt und Dörffer, die Bischoffe und Canonici 100 000, die andern Geistlichen, Mönche und Nonnen 60 950 besessen. Welches zusammen 250 950 Städte und Dörffer machten’. S. Von Pufendorf, Einleitung zu der Historie der vornehmsten Reiche und Staaten so itziger Zeit in Europa sich befinden (Frankfurt am Main 1684, 1699), p. 698. 49

20

URBAN SOCIETIES IN EAST-CENTRAL EUROPE, 1500–1700

Hungary: Avoided Urbanization? For urban historians, early modern Hungary is not an easy territory to study. While the Bohemian Lands and Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth basically followed European urbanization trends that were marked by massive migrations from rural areas to urban centres accompanied by the expansion of large cities and the rise of new towns, it remains questionable if one may speak of collateral processes in the case of Hungary. In the early modern period the Hungarian urban network did not significantly change; only a few towns supported more than 5,000 inhabitants and few covered a broad range of urban functions. During the lively debate that started in the 1950s, Hungarian scholars recognized two principal causes of a retarded urbanization process. It has been argued firstly, that the agricultural boom in the 16th century and the massive import of foreign wares did not stimulate urban craft production and movements of population from the countryside to towns.53 Secondly, the detrimental impact of incessant war with the Ottomans was identified as an equally important factor. Some scholars have suggested that the Turkish invasion (after 1526) had far-reaching consequences for the country’s economy and migratory patterns as the fragmentation of the medieval kingdom into three territorial units – the regions under Ottoman sovereignty, the vassal principality of Transylvania and Royal Hungary controlled by the Habsburgs – abruptly cut the organic development of the urban web. With the seizure of Buda by the Ottomans in 1541, Habsburg Hungary lost its only city with more than 10,000 inhabitants and urban life concentrated into medium-sized towns and cities that were mostly located in what is now Slovakia. The incessant war also affected the rise of Hungarian cities in another way. The unsafe situation of the kingdom living under constant threat of Turkish occupation, as well as the significant financial burden of the country’s defence measures, hindered both the construction of new towns and the rise of residential urban centres so abundant in other regions of Central Europe. For decades, the underdevelopment of urban structures was accepted by historians, from E. Mályusz to J. Szűcs, as a hallmark of the life of the country in the early modern period. To a great extent, this was due to the overwhelming attention paid to a small cluster of economically and demographically stagnating royal cities, while the systematic study of small towns (mezővárosok, oppida) remained neglected until recently. Over the last decades, the thesis on urban backwardness has been challenged by some scholars who argue that private oppida and semi-urban settlements became the true agents of Hungarian urbanization, commerce and entrepreneurship as they began to play an increasingly important role in long-distance trade at the expense of royal cities.54 Symptomatic, in this respect, was the case of Debrecen, the largest 53 J. Szűcs, ‘Das Städtewesen in Ungarn im 15.–17. Jahrhundert’, in Székely, G. and E. Fügedi (eds), La Renaissance et la Reformation en Pologne et en Hongrie (1450–1650), Budapest (1963), pp. 97–164; V. Zimányi, Economy and Society in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Hungary (1526–1650) (Budapest 1987), pp. 9–68. 54 F. Szákaly, Mezőváros és reformáció. Tanulmányok a korai magyar polgárosodás kérdéséhez (Budapest 1995). B.A. Szélenyi, ‘The dynamics of urban development: towns

URBANIZATION TRENDS AND THE URBAN LANDSCAPE

21

centre in the area with 10,000–12,000 inhabitants, which did not enjoy the privileged status of a royal free city but ranked among oppida.55 In 1526, shortly before the Battle of Mohács, the total population of all the Hungarian territories taken together (including Transylvania and Croatia) amounted to 3,500,000–4,000,000. The country had some 30–35 royal free cities (civitates) that comprised about 100,000 inhabitants (2.5–3 per cent of the entire population).56 Besides these, there were some 800–850 rather agrarian oppida that were controlled by feudal lords. Given that the average number of their inhabitants did not exceed 500–600, they made up 12–14 per cent of Hungary’s population. If, also, the inhabitants of royal urban centres are included, then by 1500 some 15–18 per cent of the entire population may have lived in cities, towns and market places.57 The Ottoman military campaign in the early decades of the 16th century, however, dramatically reduced the territory of the Hungarian Crown and only the Northern and Western provinces of the kingdom remained under the direct rule of the Habsburgs. Nevertheless, it so happened that the Habsburg rulers retained the most urbanized part of pre-conquest Hungary with major cities such as Pozsony, Kassa, Nagyszombat, Lőcse, Eperjes and Sopron. Though none of them could fully replace the populous Buda, they became the true administrative and economic centres of Royal Hungary. Because of both the sizeable population movements after 1526 and the paucity of sources, calculating the size of the population in Royal Hungary is a difficult task. By 1600, the number of inhabitants living in territories under the direct sovereignty of the Habsburgs was probably somewhere between 1,500,000 and 2,000,000.58 As for the urbanization rate, the best justified estimates have been drawn from presentday Slovakia (the Northern part of Royal Hungary) with some 200 cities and market towns.59 These urban centres probably covered 17–19 per cent of population, while in other parts of Royal Hungary the proportion of town dwellers was slightly lower.60 in sixteenth and seventeenth-century Hungary’, The American Historical Review, 109 (2) (2004), pp. 360–386. 55 Zimányi, Economy and Society, pp. 63–66. 56 Zimányi, Economy and Society, pp. 10–11; A. Kubinyi, ‘Der königliche Hof als Integrationszentrum Ungarns von der Mitte des 15. bis zum ersten Drittel des 16. Jahrhunderts und sein Einfluß auf die städtische Entwicklung Budas’, in Engel, E. and K. Lambrecht and H. Nogossek (eds), Metropolen im Wandel (Berlin 1995), pp. 145–162; E. Fügedi, ‘The demographic landscape of East-Central Europe’, in Mączak, A. and H. Samsonowicz and P. Burke (eds), East-Central Europe in Transition, from the Fourteenth to the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1985), pp. 47–58. 57 Fügedi, ‘The Demographic Landscape’, pp. 47 –58. 58 Zimányi, Economy and Society, p. 12. The author’s original estimates oscillated between 1,440,000 and 1,760,000 inhabitants. However, they did not cover nobility and soldiers. Therefore, the country’s population might have been slightly higher. 59 V. Matula and J. Vozár, Dejiny Slovenska II (Bratislava 1987), p. 79. 60 T. Lengyelová, Hospodárske a spoločenské pomery v zemepanských mestách na Slovensku v 16.–18. storočí (1997), the unpublished PhD dissertation, Historical Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Slovakian republic, pp. 6, 153–154; T. Lengyelová, ‘Obyvatelstvo v zemepanských mestách v 15.–18. storočí’, Historické štúdie, 38 (1997), pp. 43–58; J. Bartl, ‘K problémom sociálnej štruktúry meštianstva v stredovekých mestách na Slovensku’, in Čierny, J. and F. Hejl and A. Verbík (eds), Struktura feudální společnosti

22

URBAN SOCIETIES IN EAST-CENTRAL EUROPE, 1500–1700

East-Central Europe: Urban Landscape after 1600 On the eve of the Thirty Years War, the entire area under discussion might have comprised some 3,300–3,600 chartered urban settlements. No matter how impressive these numbers may seem, real life in many towns too greatly resembled the daily routine of a peasant in the countryside. On average, only 30–60 per cent of all inhabitants were involved in trade or craft and in some parts of the area, especially in Lithuania and Hungary, the majority of town dwellers were still entirely or partially engaged in agricultural activities. Despite unifying trends, regional discrepancies in the urbanization rate remained significant (Table 2.1). While in some territories more than one third of all inhabitants lived in cities, in other provinces the proportion of town dwellers hardly reached 15 per cent. In the most urbanized regions, Bohemia and Royal Prussia, the percentage of those living in urban areas equalled that of some German territories. By 1600, in Saxony and Hesse, for example, about 30–31 per cent of the population lived in cities and towns, while rough estimates for Thuringia and Württemberg were 26–28 per cent.61 Table 2.1

Regional Differences in Levels of Urbanization by 1600

Estimated urbanization rate (%)

Region

About 30%

Bohemia, Royal Prussia, Upper Lusatia

21–29% 10–20%

Silesia, Moravia, Lesser Poland, Greater Poland Royal Hungary, Mazovia, Lithuania, Ruthenia

Sources: Bogucka – Samsonowicz, Dzieje miast, pp. 329–392; Janáček, České dějiny I/1, pp. 162–164; Matějek, ‘Osídlení Moravy a třicetiletá válka’, pp. 53–101; Dziewułski, ‘Zaludnienie Śląska’, p. 432; Dietrich, ‘Das Städtewesen Sachsens’, pp. 193–222; Zimányi, Economy and Society, pp. 10–11; Žudel, ‘Hlavné znaky vývoja osídlenia Slovenska’, pp. 569–580.

No matter how impressive or low these figures might seem, they must be related to the regional density of population. On average, the whole area was less densely inhabited than the European West and the sparsity of population was the rule rather than an exception. In the vast territory of Poland–Lithuania, at that time the largest country in early modern Europe, the density of population fluctuated between six and eleven persons per km2, while in France, Germany or Italy it was at least three

na území Československa a Polska do přelomu 15. a 16. století (Praha 1984), pp. 241–276; J. Žudel, ‘Hlavné znaky vývoja osídlenia Slovenska v 16. storočí’, Historický časopis 45 (4) (1997), pp. 569–580. 61 Schilling, Die Stadt, p. 9. For Saxony also Blaschke, Bevölkerungsgeschichte, pp. 70–141.

URBANIZATION TRENDS AND THE URBAN LANDSCAPE

23

or four times as much.62 Such an underpopulated landscape could not support a great number of large cities. This is why the true face of Polish urban life was represented by small and modestly inhabited towns rather than by Cracow, Poznań and Lwów. On the other hand, the largest cities in East-Central Europe, Prague and Danzig, found themselves in the two most urbanized and the most densely populated regions. According to historical demographers, early modern Bohemia could support about 25–29 persons per km2.63 Both cities also substantially contributed to the percentage of urban population in their provinces. While Prague town dwellers may have represented 13–15 per cent of all the inhabitants living in Bohemian cities and towns, Danzig had an even more dominant position and its 50,000–52,000 inhabitants made up almost half of the urban population of Royal Prussia. Among the regions under consideration, the most peculiar case was that of Royal Hungary with no urban centre exceeding 10,000 inhabitants while only Pozsony approached this category in the last decades of the 16th century. Nothing better illustrates the overall parochialism of Hungarian urban centres than comparison with Prague. On the eve of the Thirty Years War, the capital of the Holy Roman Empire probably supported more inhabitants than all the royal free cities in Habsburg Hungary put together. Rough population estimates, as presented in Tables 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, indicate the overall demographic trends in about one hundred cities and towns between 1500 and about 1650. At the same time, this representative sample renders a somewhat distorted picture of the urbanization pace since the smallest settlements, those which saw the most impressive population growths, are not included. Consider the urban development in early modern Hungary (Table 2.4). Looking at the major urban centres, it is tempting to conclude that stagnation or moderate population growth typified the demographic trends in most Hungarian cities. It was, however, dozens of provincial but economically flourishing oppida that absorbed most immigrants and managed to multiply their population. The other major inference to be drawn is that the promising demographic boom of cities in Poland and Bohema was abruptly curtailed by military conflicts in the 17th century and, in the flagrant case of the Bohemian Lands, by the significant and enforced emigration of Protestant segments of the population. Plundered during the anti-Habsburg uprising in 1618–1620, the Bohemian Crown was later occupied by the imperial, Swedish and Saxon troops and the entire territory remained the theatre of war, with short periods of truce, until 1648 (Table 2.2). Conversely, despite short-term periods of internal instability (rokosz of Zebrzydowski, 1606–1609) and minor conflicts with the Swedes (1626–1629), Muscovy (1632–1634) and the Turks (1620–1621), the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth did not face a comparably devastating military conflict until the Chmielnicky revolt in 1648 and the Swedish ‘Deluge’ in 1655. In the 16th century, however, most cities and towns were still experiencing marked demographic growth and some major urban centres even doubled their population. I. Gieysztorowa, ‘Research into demographic History of Poland. A provisional summing up’, Acta poloniae historica, XVIII (1968), pp. 5–17. 63 Jančárek, ‘Populační vývoj’, pp. 125–136; Míka, ‘Počet obyvatelstva’, pp. 193–202; Janáček, České dějiny I/1, p. 161; Placht, Lidnatost a společenská skladba, pp. 38–39. 62

24

URBAN SOCIETIES IN EAST-CENTRAL EUROPE, 1500–1700

This was particularly true for Poznań, Olomouc, Pozsony, Prague, Danzig and Thorn, while Cracow rather stagnated. A few cities, however, grew even faster. Some mining towns belonged to those settlements that multiplied their population. Nevertheless, as their demographic upsurge largely depended on the richness of the mines and external demand, their growth may have been as dazzling as it was shortlived. Jáchymov in Western Bohemia perhaps epitomized the most blatant example of an unprecedented population concentration. Thanks to a rich supply of silver discovered around 1500, this unimportant town grew within several decades into the second largest city in Bohemia with about 18,000 inhabitants in 1533. Once the silver resources dwindled, its population decreased, and by 1600 Jáchymov presented itself as a drowsy settlement with little more than 2,000 inhabitants.64 Centres of clothmaking and linen production, mostly clustered in Bohemia, Lusatia, Moravia and Silesia, saw the more enduring demographic boom, only temporarily interrupted by the Thirty Years War and some (Liberec, Jihlava, Jindřichův Hradec) managed to increase their population twice or three times. Another category of urban centres that grew considerably during the 16th century was the residential city with central administrative functions, either within the limited context of a feudal domain (the seat of lay and ecclesiastical aristocrats) or the entire country. If the expansion of early modern European metropoles is considered, then the primacy would probably fall to Madrid, which capitalized on the movement of the Spanish royal court to the city.65 In East-Central Europe, the same pattern applied to Warsaw. The transfer of the royal residence and major state institutions from Cracow to the Mazovian capital between 1570 and 1630, sparked the steady rise of its population. Compared to the city’s parochialism by 1500, the pace of its transformation into a residential city and the administrative hub of the country was indeed impressive. Within a century, the population of Warsaw increased sharply by about 500 per cent and shortly before the Swedish Deluge the number of its inhabitants reached some 30,000.66

P. Jančárek, ‘K problematice demografického vývoje Jáchymova v době předbělohorské’, Historická demografie, 2 (1968), pp. 17–27. 65 J.M.L. García and S.M. Madrazo, ‘A Capital City in the Feudal Order: Madrid from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century’, in Clark, P. and B. Lepetit (eds), Capital Cities and their Hinterlands in Early Modern Europe (Aldershot: Ashgate 1996), pp. 119–142. 66 M. Bogucka, ‘Between Capital, Residential Town and Metropolis: the Development of Warsaw in the Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries’, in Clark, P. and B. Lepetit (eds), Capital Cities and their Hinterlands in Early Modern Europe (Aldershot: Ashgate 1996), p. 199. 64

URBANIZATION TRENDS AND THE URBAN LANDSCAPE

Table 2.2

25

The Lands of the Bohemian Crown: Population Size of Selected Cities, 1500–1650

(NK = not known, years of estimates in italics) CITY Bautzen Beroun

1500–1530 NK NK

Brno Brieg Bytom České Budějovice Český Brod Český Krumlov Cheb

4,500–5,500 NK NK

1550–1580 5,800 (1560s) NK 2,000– 3,450(1549) 23,500–29,500 (1550-1580) 5,000 4,000–4,500 1,000 (1532)

4,350–4,500

Bunzlau

NK

Breslau

20,000–25,000

1600 5,000 (1620) NK

1650 3,500 600

2,400

NK

5,000–5,500 5,000 1,400

18,000–25,400 (1640) NK 3,600 (1675) NK

3,800 (1543)

NK

2,500 (1651)

NK

1,400 (1554)

NK

NK

NK

2,000 (1585)

2,100

2,100

5,700

5,500–7,000

5,300

Domažlice

NK

NK

Glogau Görlitz Hradec Králové Hradiště Jáchymov

NK 9,000 (1528)

8,000–9,800 8,700–10,000

6,400 1,600 (1616– 1618) 12,000 9,000

2,000 (1648) 5,000

NK

NK

7,000–8,000

NK

NK NK

NK 18,000 (1533) 3,000–3,500 (1543)

2,500 2,200(1601)

NK NK

4,500–5,000

NK

Jauer

NK

30,000–32,000

Hirschberg

3,000 (1520s)

3,000–3,450

6,000

Jihlava Glatz Kutná Hora Liegnitz

2,600 3,300 10,000 NK

3,000 4,500 NK 6,500 (1577)

6,000–8,000 6,500 8,000 6,000–8,000

Litoměřice

NK

NK

5,000 (1609)

1,200 1,500–1,800

1,200–1,600 NK

Löwenberg

NK

4,000

Neisse Olomouc Oppeln Pelhřimov

NK 6,000 NK 1,400

7,000 (1551) NK 1,400–2,100 NK

NK 2,000 6,000–7,000 (1617) NK 10,000 (1619) 1,800 NK

Löbau Louny

1,200–1,250

500– 2,000(1640– 1663) 1,000 4,000 NK 4,500 800–1,700 (1650) NK 1,000 1,000 (1648) 3,700 (1647) 2,000–2,500 1,500 NK

26

URBAN SOCIETIES IN EAST-CENTRAL EUROPE, 1500–1700

Pilsen Prague

4,000 (1520s) 25,000–30,000

5,000 (1568) 40,000 (1583)

5,000–6,000 53,600–70,000

Prostějov

NK

NK

5,000 (1590s)

Ratibor

NK

1,800 (1532)

2200–2,500

Slaný

NK

NK

2,400–2,500

Neumarkt Striegau

NK NK

4,100 (1621) 3,500–4,000

Schweidnitz

NK

NK

NK

Sprottau Ústí nad Labem Žatec Zittau Znojmo Sohrau

NK

2,400 (1570) 3,350 (1543) 5,000–6,000 (1580) 2,000–2,600

2,200 (1654) 26,450–30,300 2,000–3,000 (1630–1650) 900 (1664) 800–1,000 (1633) 1,000 (1651) NK

2,900–3,000

1,600–1,700

NK

1,900 (1610)

NK NK 2,500 NK

NK 5,700–8,000 4,000 1,200 (1534)

4,300 NK 4,000 NK

NK 900–1,000 (1654) 2,000 6,000 NK NK

Sources: Multiple sources, see notes.

Table 2.3

Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth: Population Size of Selected Cities, 1500–1670

(NK = not known, years of estimates in italics, data after 1655 bold) CITY Biecz Bochnia Brodnica Bydgoszcz Chełm Cracow Danzig Elbing Gniezno Graudenz Inowrocław Kalisz Kazimierz Dolny Königsberg Konitz Korczyń

1500–1530 NK 3,000–4,000 1,100–1200 NK NK 23,300–27,750 together with Kleparz and Kazimierz 30,000 8,000 NK 2,000 NK NK

1550–1580 3,000–4,000 NK NK NK 1,850–2,100 30,000–33,000 together with Kleparz and Kazimierz 40,000 15,000 3,200 2,000 NK 2,700

1600 4,000–5,000 3,000 2,300–2,500 4,500–6,000 2,300–2,600

1650 NK NK 900–1,000 2,000 1,300

28,000–36,700 with Kleparz and Kazimierz

30,000 together with Kleparz and Kazimierz)

50,000–52,400 NK 4,000–5,000 NK 3,000–4,000 3,000–4,000

67,600–70,000 NK 5,000 NK NK 2,000

NK

NK

4,000–5,000

NK

8,000 NK NK

10,000 1,600–1,700 1,000–1,500

NK NK 2,000

NK 1,100 NK

URBANIZATION TRENDS AND THE URBAN LANDSCAPE

27

Lublin

4,000–6,000

10,000

10,000–11,000

Lwów

8,000

12,300 (1574)

17,000

Marienburg Nowy Sącz Olkusz

NK NK NK

4,500 3,000–4,000 NK

NK 4,000–5,000 5,000–6,000

Piotrków

NK

3,000–3,500

NK

Płock

NK

5,000 15,000 (1550); 20,000–25,000 (1575) 2,300–2,400 (1540); 5,600 (1580s) 2,200 3,700–4,500 12,000 2,000–2,400

NK

8,500 30,000–33,300 (1641-1648) NK 3,500 2,700 3,500–4,000 (1629) NK

19,000–20,000

19,000–20,000

5,000–6,100

3,400–3,600

NK 4,000–5,000 NK NK

1,000 (1629) 3,000 NK 900–1,200 30,000 (before Swedish occupation); 5,000–6,000 (1660) NK 1,800 20,000 NK 3,000 (1639); 800 NK

Poznań

6,000–10,000

Przemyśl

1600

Radom Sandomierz Thorn Tykocin

NK NK 8,000 NK

5,000–6,000

7,000– 10,000(1550s); 10,000–12,000 (1580s)

25,000–30,000 (after 1600)

Wieliczka Wieluń Wilno Wiślica

NK NK NK NK

NK NK NK 1,000

4,000–5,000 NK 10,000–15,000 1,200

Włocławek

NK

1,500–2,000

NK

Wyszogród

NK

2,500

NK

Warsaw

Sources: Multiple sources, see notes.

28

URBAN SOCIETIES IN EAST-CENTRAL EUROPE, 1500–1700

Table 2.4

Royal Hungary: Population Size of Selected Cities, 1500–1650

(NK = not known, years of estimates in italics) CITY Bakabánya

1500–1530 NK

1550–1580 1,200 (1542) 2,700–3,000 Bártfa 2,900–3,500 (1542) Besztercebánya NK 2,300–3,000 Buda/Pest 15,000–25,000 – Eperjes 3,500–3,800 3,000–4,000 Kassa 4,200 4,800–5,000 Késmark 1,800–2,200 2,000 Körmöcbánya 1,300–1,500 1,600–1,800 (1542) Lőcse NK 3,000–4,000 Nagyszombat NK 3,500–4,600 Pozsony 4,200–4,700 6,000–7,000 Selmecbánya NK 2,600 Sopron NK 2,900–3,000 2,000–2,200 Szeben NK (1566)

1600 NK

1650 NK

3,100–3,500

3,200

NK NK – – 4,200 4,100 5,000–6,000 4,600–5,700 (1632) 1,600–1,900 NK NK NK 3,500–3,700 4,300–4,600 5,000 5,200 (1656) 9,000 NK NK NK 5,000 4,000–4,100 (1633) 2,200–3,600

NK

Sources: Multiple sources, see notes.

The European Context What was the position of the East-Central European urban landscape in the context of early modern Europe? Considering the size of Bohemian, Polish and Hungarian towns, it seems obvious that during the period under review, settlements with fewer than 5,000 inhabitants were the foci of urban life. The pivotal role of medium-sized and small urban settlements comes to the fore if the number of large cities is considered. While by 1600, only a small cluster of thirteen to fourteen cities had more than 10,000 inhabitants, urban centres of between 2,000–10,000 inhabitants abounded and their number may perhaps be estimated at 230–300.67 Large cities, therefore, represented a marginal 0.5 per cent of all urban setlements and medium-sized centres probably 9–10 per cent. Small towns and market centres formed the remaining 90 per cent of (semi)urban settlements. A similar structure of the urban network may be observed in some German regions.68 In Electoral Saxony, for instance, 88 per cent of all towns in the mid-16th century did not exceed 2,000 inhabitants, while cities between 2,000– 10,000 inhabitants made up 12 per cent of all urban centres.69 67 According to recent estimates there were about 148 cities and towns in Poland with between 2,000–10,000 inhabitants while 1,132 urban centres had less than 2,000 inhabitants. Bogucka – Samsonowicz, Dzieje miast, p. 371. 68 Gräf, Kleine Städte, pp. 184–205; Schilling, Die Stadt, pp. 8–9. The author’s estimates, however, cover the entire territory of the Holy Roman Empire, including the Lands of the Bohemian Crown. 69 Blaschke, Bevölkerungsgeschichte, pp. 70–141.

URBANIZATION TRENDS AND THE URBAN LANDSCAPE

29

The nature of the East-Central European urban web, marked by the rather vestigial presence of populous cities, is best illustrated by comparison with the urban landscape in other European territories. Table 2.5, taken over from Jan de Vries, testifies to the general expansion of large cities in Western Europe vis-à-vis the urbanization trends in the Lands of the Bohemian Crown, Poland–Lithuania and Royal Hungary. For this purpose, however, some minor revisions of Vries’ geographical divisions of Europe proved necessary. Cities in Lusatia, Silesia, Royal and Ducal Prussia are listed under East-Central Europe, while Vries classed them as German urban centres. In addition, Austria is treated separately from the Bohemian Lands.70 Table 2.5

Number of Cities with at least 10,000 Inhabitants by Country, 1500–1650

COUNTRY Northern, Western and Southern Europe Scandinavia England, Wales, Scotland Ireland Netherlands Belgium Germany France Switzerland Italy Spain Portugal Austria Total number of cities East-Central Europe The Bohemian Crown Poland (Ducal Prussia included, Lithuania excluded) Royal Hungary Total number of cities

1500 Numbers of cities (%) 1 (0.6)

1550 Numbers of cities (%) 1 (0.6)

1600 Numbers of cities (%) 2 (0.9)

1650 Numbers of cities (%) 2 (1.0)

6 (3.9)

5 (2.8)

7 (3.0)

9 (4.5)

0 (0.0) 11 (7.0) 12 (7.7) 20 (12.8) 32 (20.5) 1 (0.6) 44 (28.3) 20 (12.8) 1 (0.6) 2 (1.3) 150 Numbers of cities (%) 2–3 (1.3–1.9)

0 (0.0) 12 (5.6) 12 (6.7) 23 (12.8) 34 (19.0) 1 (0.5) 46 (25.7) 27 (15.1) 4 (2.2) 2 (1.2) 167 Numbers of cities (%) 4 (2.2)

0 (0.0) 19 (8.4) 12 (5.3) 26 (12.8) 43 (19.0) 2 (0.9) 59 (26.0) 37 (16.4) 5 (2.2) 2 (0.9) 214 Numbers of cities (%) 4–5 (1.8–2.2)

1 (0.5) 19 (9.5) 14 (7.0) 19 (9.5) 44 (22.0) 2 (1.0) 50 (25.0) 24 (12.0) 5 (2.5) 2 (1.0) 191 Numbers of cities (%) 2 (1.0)

2 (1.3)

8 (4.5)

6–9 (2.7–3.9)

5–8 (2.5–4.0)

1 (0.6) 5–6

0 (0.0) 12

0 (0.0) 10–14

0 (0.0) 7–10

Source: Based on data in J. de Vries, European Urbanization, p. 29, modified by Jaroslav Miller.

Apparently, the proliferation of large cities proved the most dynamic in the Iberian peninsula as Spain managed to enhance its share from 13 per cent of all cities in 1500 to 15 per cent in 1550 and 16 per cent on the threshold of the 17th century. An opposite trend was identified by Vries in highly urbanized Belgium and Italy, while 70

Vries, European Urbanization, pp. 29, 279–287.

30

URBAN SOCIETIES IN EAST-CENTRAL EUROPE, 1500–1700

East-Central Europe and Germany remained within the European average, at least before the Thirty Years War. Nonetheless, by 1500 the spacious territory of EastCentral Europe hosted less than 4 per cent of all large European urban centres, while in Germany alone this category of cities represented about 13 per cent. During the 16th century, the number of East-Central European metropoles almost doubled, but because of the long-term military conflicts this promising upsurge was discontinued and the revival resumed only after 1700. If the exclusive group of European metropoles exceeding 100,000 inhabitants is considered, none of them was situated in the heart of Europe.71 Apart from Prague and Danzig, with more than 50,000 inhabitants towards the end of the 16th century, all the other large centres in the East-Central Europe fell into the category of cities with a population of between 10,000–50,000. Table 2.5 also shows the highly uneven regional distribution of large cities. Clusters of these urban centres mainly emerged on the North-Western and SouthWestern edges of Europe. Conversely, each East-Central European province, with the exception of Royal Hungary, hosted at least one urban centre in this category. The Hungarian case, as suggested above, was peculiar. By 1500, the population size of the Buda agglomeration (Buda, Pest, Óbuda) was still comparable to that of Prague, Cracow or Danzig and the city most probably would have experienced a demographic rise similar to that of its happier rivals, had the integrity of medieval Hungarian statehood remained intact. Pozsony, the new Hungarian capital after the conquest of Buda, was much hindered in its expansion by the proximity of imperial Vienna, which voraciously sucked the population from adjacent regions. Considering the geographical location of large cities and the hubs of regional economies, the East-Central European urban landscape reveals the existence of basically three distinct models of the urban web. First, an asymmetric model with a dominant urban centre surrounded by medium-sized and small towns emerged in Bohemia, where Prague served as the hub for migration flows, the imperial residence and the unrivalled focus of economic, political and cultural life. The equivalent status was enjoyed by Breslau in Silesia, Cracow in Lesser Poland, Lwów in Red Ruthenia, Poznań in Greater Poland and Königsberg in Ducal Prussia. Arguably, Mazovia also fits into this category, despite the rather parochial nature of its towns until the end of the 16th century. Nonetheless, the advancement of Warsaw and its transformation into the administrative centre of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth entirely changed the nature of migratory patterns as well as the flow of goods and agricultural commodities in the area. The alternative structure of the urban network, namely urban polycentrism, emerged in Moravia, Royal Hungary and Upper Lusatia. All three regions saw the coexistence of several more or less equally populous centres with strong economic functions and vast hinterlands. Olomouc in Moravia, Görlitz in Upper Lusatia and Pozsony in Royal Hungary took the lead, but other cities Jihlava, Brno, Zittau, Bautzen, Kassa, Lőcse and Nagyszombat did not lag far behind. Lower Lusatia, marked by its absence of any populous urban centres, would arguably apply to this category as well. Third, the specific type of urban landscape emerged in Royal Prussia. Here the unquestioned primacy belonged to Danzig, but the unprecedented economic 71

Vries, European Urbanization, p. 70.

URBANIZATION TRENDS AND THE URBAN LANDSCAPE

31

prosperity of the province also allowed the rise of two other large cities, Thorn and Elbing. The accumulation of three urban centres, each of them with more than 10,000 inhabitants, had a clearly negative impact on the growth of other towns as Danzig, Thorn and Elbing absorbed much of the urban population in the province. As a consequence, Royal Prussia had few middle-rank cities while small towns and market centres abounded. As already suggested, the Thirty Years War and a series of military conflicts between Poland and its neighbours after 1650 substantially modified the urban map of East-Central Europe. The devastation and depopulation of many cities and towns due to the combined effects of war, epidemics, economic crises and forced emigration is illustrated in Tables 2.2 to 2.5. It has been estimated by Polish scholars that the level of urbanization in the Polish Crown, excluding Royal Prussia, declined to 18 per cent in 1662, but Lesser Poland, for instance, lost almost one-half of its urban population.72 In Silesia, the proportion of people living in cities fell to below 20 per cent at the end of the Thirty Years War and Bohemia and Moravia shared basically the same fate.73 Table 2.6

An Estimate of the Urbanization Rate in East-Central Europe, 1650–1670

Percentage of urban population

Region

15–25%

Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, Greater Poland, Lesser Poland, Royal Prussia, Royal Hungary

10–15%

Mazovia, Lithuania

Sources: Bogucka, ‘The towns of East-Central Europe’, p. 99; Topolski, Dzieje Wielkopolski, I, p. 466; Matějek, ‘Osídlení Moravy a třicetiletá válka’, pp. 53–101; Maur, ‘Populační důsledky třicetileté války’, pp. 137–152; Historia Polski w liczbach, p. 30.

Apart from the diminution of the urban population, warfare and forced population movements also contributed to the increasing uniformity of the urbanization rate after the mid-17th century (Table 2.6). While the desolation of some highly urbanized regions was enormous, some provinces with a lower percentage of town dwellers, such as Royal Hungary, successfully avoided extensive population losses and served as an asylum for both war refugees and religious migrants. While the spatially uneven distribution of the urban population had proved a distinctive feature of the preceding period, the Thirty Years War and the Swedish invasion of Poland represented a watershed in urbanization patterns and essentially reduced regional differences.

Topolski (ed.), Dzieje Wielkopolski, p. 466; also Historia Polski w liczbach (Warszawa 1993), p. 30. 73 Bogucka, ‘The towns of East-Central Europe’, p. 99; Matějek, ‘Osídlení Moravy’, pp. 53–101; E. Maur, ‘Populační důsledky třicetileté války’, Historická demografie, 12 (1987), pp. 137–152. 72

CHAPTER THREE

Urban Immigration Most surveys of urban growth in ‘the long sixteenth century’ stress the comparatively high level of early modern population mobility encouraged by the emergence of qualitatively new phenomena in the spheres of the economy, culture and religion. There is also a prevailing consensus among historians referring to ‘natural decrease theory’. Historical demographers have suggested that, because of the high mortality rates caused by epidemics, wars, natural catastrophes, and continual problems with hygiene, the natural increase of the urban population was either moderate or nonexistent.1 Therefore, it was primarily immigration that either produced the rise or compensated for population losses.2 In this chapter, I will restrict myself to certain aspects of early modern population mobility in East-Central Europe, a region comparative historians have, to date, largely neglected. By discussing geographical horizons of urban immigration, I will also explore the dimensions of population movement in relation to urbanization and political, economic and religious pressures. For methodological reasons, which are Consider, for instance, Danzig. A reconstruction of major demographic trends made by Jan Baszanowski supports the theory that the reproduction capacity of the urban society simply did not suffice to save the city from gradual depopulation. Although in several decades (1641–1650 and 1661–1690) the number of births was higher than that of deaths, in general natality was highly exceeded by mortality. Thus for the whole 17th century Baszanowski identified a number of deaths about six times higher than that of births in Danzig, which would, over the century, have caused the gradual extinction of the city’s population. Danzig’s impressive population growth therefore rested upon massive immigration. See J. Baszanowski, Przemiany demograficzne w Gdańsku w łatach 1601–1846 (Gdańsk 1995), p. 289. 2 This theory, to be found in numerous historical studies, has been subject to vehement criticism by some scholars. Allan Sharlin, for instance, has tried to demonstrate that immigrants were mostly responsible for the excessive number of deaths. As many of them belonged to the pauper segments of urban society, they often remained childless and unmarried. In consequence, they received no credit for births in the city and their names appeared only in the death registers. See A. Sharlin, ‘Natural Decrease in Early Modern Cities: A Reconsideration’, Past and Present, 79 (1978), pp. 126–138. Some theoretical aspects of early modern urban migration have been also discussed by J. de Vries, European Urbanization 1500–1800 (London: Methuen 1984), pp. 179–200; P.M. Hohenberg and L.H. Lees, The Making of Urban Europe 1000–1994, (Cambridge/Massachusetts – London: Harvard University Press 1995), pp. 85–98; E. Francois (ed.), Immigration et Société Urbaine en Europe Occidentale, XVIe–XXe siècle (Paris 1985); G. Jaritz and A. Müller (eds), Migration in der Feudalgesellschaft (Frankfurt am Main – New York 1988); S. Hochstadt, ‘Migration in Preindustrial Germany’, Central European History, 16 (3) (1983), pp. 195–224; C.R. Friedrichs, Urban Society in an Age of War: Nördlingen, 1580–1720 (New Jersey: Princeton University Press 1979), pp. 45–64; H. Schilling, Niederländische Exulanten im 16. Jahrhundert (Gütersloh 1972), pp. 1–200. 1

34

URBAN SOCIETIES IN EAST-CENTRAL EUROPE, 1500–1700

explained later in the text, the chapter is concerned in particular with the full-right citizens who usually formed between 10–20 per cent of the cities’ total population. First, however, problems of sources and the impact of variables on the nature of immigration will be considered. Limits of Research Attempts to investigate the mobility of the population in the pre-statistical period are limited by several factors. First of all, the insufficiency and fragmentary character of the available data does much to impede any comprehensive survey of the structure and dynamics of urban migration. Most sources do not cover the whole social spectrum of the urban population, but rather refer to just one particular stratum. This is why the calculation of overall migration flows in the early modern age remains virtually an unachievable objective. In addition, available documents mostly served utterly different purposes and the mobility of population was a matter of secondary importance at best. There is no doubt that the early modern age, compared to the preceding period, produced rich material to be examined by students of urban migration. Parish registers, books of wedding contracts, guild records, and judicial documents inform us about the motives, nature, and intensity of immigration into cities. In the case of Pest, for example, parish records, combined with other sources, made it possible to reconstruct some parameters of immigration after the Christian reconquest of the city in 1686. More recently, having explored marriage agreements, historian Petr Vorel managed to outline the contours of immigration into the small and rather agricultural town of Přelouč in Bohemia. Still another source, a list of inhabitants from 1585/1586, shows the geographic origin of newcomers to the New Town, one of Prague’s autonomous municipalities.3 While such sources may serve well for case studies, it still remains questionable whether their quantity is sufficient for a more systematic and comprehensive investigation. As a large-scale comparison requires a survey of comparable records, registers of new burghers (Bürgerrechtsbücher), fiscal books, or city council records (Ratsprotokolle) which are preserved in many municipal archives, arguably seem to be the most suitable source for the study of migratory patterns. Their narrative value is also limited, however; they usually covered only the haut monde of urban society: town dwellers possessing full rights. At the same time, not all newly admitted burghers recruited themselves from immigrants as some of them (usually between 20–35 per cent of successful applicants), mostly marked as Stadtkinder, were sons of local town dwellers. On the other hand, these sources register a socially stable segment of urban society. Undoubtedly, the existence of more permanent social and economic ties with the city had a considerable influence on keeping the burghers in town, while the relative absence of such ties allowed for the greater mobility of other classes of Z. Fallenbüchl, ‘Pest város népességének származáshelyei a statisztika és a kartográfia tükrében (1687–1770)’, Tanulmányok Budapest múltjából, 15 (1963), pp. 239–287; P. Vorel, Dějiny města Přelouče I (Přelouč 1999), pp. 81–85; J. Mendelová, ‘Obyvatelé Nového města pražského na přelomu let 1585 a 1586’, Documenta pragensia, XIX (2001), pp. 81–84. 3

URBAN IMMIGRATION

35

the city’s population. In Polish Międzychód, for example, almost one quarter of new full-right town dwellers between 1668–1695 contracted a marriage shortly before or after getting their burghers status.4 Apparently, the higher level of social anchoring, as well as better living standards, created good preconditions for bringing up children. Moreover, the ratio between the number of births and deaths was arguably more favourable in the group of full-right town dwellers than in the unprivileged strata of urban society. Such an assumption, however, still awaits verification or revision on the basis of a comprehensive sociological and demographic survey of early modern urban populations. Considering the comparative and analytical goal of this chapter, I will explore the mobility of full-rights burghers that was best recorded by municipal authorities. Though historians have regularly used registers of new burghers as an important source, many specific registers have escaped attention, including those in the Bohemian towns of Vodňany, Česká Lípa, and Rakovník. More surprisingly, no systematic survey of immigration has been conducted for several major Hungarian urban centres, namely Lőcse, Kassa and Pozsony. In addition, major outcomes of investigations have been presented mostly in case studies with little or no attention to the social, religious, or economic setting of migration. This fragmentation of research greatly impedes the reconstruction of early modern population movements. Until recently, the same judgment has applied to historical scholarship dealing with the German and Austrian lands, which has been traditionally presented in monographs, rather than in comparative studies.5 With reference to historical scholarship on burgher migration, one should also be aware of some of the methodological inadequacies of previous research. In the past, the narrative value of available sources was often overinterpreted by urban historians. By ignoring the highly selective nature of the registers of new burghers, scholars have generally wrongly equated ‘burgher’ immigration with ‘urban’ immigration.6 Moreover, in 1930s and early 1940s, lists of new citizens were often not studied as historical documents, but rather they were manipulated to testify to the Germanness of many East-Central European cities and towns.7 H. Jockisch (ed.), Das Bürgerbuch von Birnbaum 1668–1853 (Marburg/Lahn 1982), pp. 1–21. 5 A systematic comparative approach towards burgher migration has been recently applied in Schwinges (ed.) Neubürger im späten Mittelalter. See also H. Vasarhelyi, ‘Einwanderung nach Nördlingen, Esslingen und Schwäbisch Hall zwischen 1450 und 1550’, in Maschke, E. and J. Sydow (eds), Stadt und Umland, (Stuttgart 1974), p. 129 –165; F. Mathis, Zur Bevölkerungsstruktur österreichischer Städte im 17. Jahrhundert (Wien 1977); R.C. Schwinges (ed.), Neubürger im späten Mittelalter: Migration und Austausch in der Städtelandschaft des alten Reiches (1250–1550) (Berlin 2002). 6 See, for instance, J. Marek, ‘O studiu městského přistěhovalectví’, Sborník Matice moravské, 79 (1960), pp. 86–111. By analyzing the lists of new citizens the author speaks on ‘urban’ rather than ‘burgher’ immigration. 7 The most illustrative has been the case of Moravian historian Václav Nešpor who studied the burgher immigration into Olomouc. Accused by the Protectorate magistrates of the misinterpretation of the source with the aim to dispute the German profile of the city, he was obliged to leave the study unfinished. After several decades the Nešpor’s research was 4

36

URBAN SOCIETIES IN EAST-CENTRAL EUROPE, 1500–1700

Limits of Immigration Besides the limited narrative value of sources, one has to take into consideration the existence of variables: local specifics with a considerable impact on the nature and intensity of migratory patterns. The most significant of these variables include the geographical location of the city, its function, the immigration policy of urban authorities, military conflicts in the vicinity of the town, and the character of the urban economy. There can be no doubt that the flow of incomers had a beneficial effect on the urban economy, as new inhabitants were usually less reluctant to engage themselves in poorly paid menial work that was shunned by local townspeople. At the same time, the increasing size of the population stimulated demand for urban craft products. Inmigration was, however, a double-edged phenomenon, and it remained one of the most destabilizing factors by making the nature of urban society economically, socially, and religiously heterogeneous. Not only did the growing population concentration increase pressure on urban infrastructure, but the influx of people with different social statuses, lifestyles, and cultural and religious backgrounds also contributed significantly to the existence of frontiers within urban society. Unable to regulate effectively the flow of propertyless and unqualified people entering the city, urban leaders had to pay increasing attention to the living conditions facing the city’s population. In many urban centres, therefore, measures meeting the minimum social needs of the poorest, such as a better water supply, had to be adopted. As a result, private donations, as well as a considerable percentage of municipal expenditures, were channelled into improving infrastructure and funding and maintaining hospitals. Under normal circumstances, however, immigration was restricted naturally, that is, by the absorption potential of the city. In this respect, a whole spectrum of factors mattered, including the state of the urban infrastructure, the city’s accommodation capacity, and the food supply. In addition to these factors, integration into urban economic structures was of vital importance; guilds – and their efforts to keep competition in the urban market under strict control – heavily influenced the demand for new artisans and thus affected such integration. The regional density of the urban network was not without importance as the relationship between immigrants from the countryside and towns was dependent on the quantity of other towns in the vicinity of an urban centre. Finally, the nature of urban immigration was influenced by the function and location of a town. Let us consider the case of Danzig. As we shall see, its key role in the Polish maritime trade, in combination with its location on the periphery of the rzeczpospolita, caused the influx of a massive number of foreign immigrants when compared to inland centres such as Cracow, Prague, or Breslau. In general, one may identify three major types of urban migration. First, there were organized, temporary, and more or less periodical population flows into and out of urban settlements with certain administrative or political functions. While it has been suggested that, on the eve of war with Sweden in the mid-17th century, Warsaw accomplished by Vladimír Spáčil. See V. Nešpor, ‘Matriky měšťanů olomouckých od r. 1668 do r. 1915’, Časopis vlasteneckého spolku musejního v Olomouci, 50 (1937), appendix 1–8, (1938), pp. 99–106, (1939), pp. 109–116, (1940), pp. 119–126, (1941), pp. 163–170.

URBAN IMMIGRATION

37

hosted about 30,000 inhabitants, during sessions of the General Diet (Sejm), which often lasted several months, the number of people in the city rapidly rose to 40,000– 50,000 or even more. This kind of in-migration was particularly important for cities that accumulated central functions. In Olomouc, the capital of Moravia, the Diet as well as the Law Court of the Land (zemský soud, Landrecht) were summoned twice a year and each session attracted at least several hundred people. Moreover, in the first half of the 16th century, the richest Moravian landlord, the bishop of Olomouc, called his numerous vassals to the city in order to discuss economic, administrative, and legal issues.8 Thus, for a considerable part of the year, the population of Olomouc was definitely higher than estimated by historians. Second, cities often faced irregular mass population movements that were most commonly provoked by natural catastrophes, epidemics or, alternatively, by religious and political persecution. The last and the most common type, however, was natural day-to-day migration between the town and its hinterlands and the mutual exchange of urban populations. The existence of cyclical as well as fitful migration waves proves that, regardless of longterm demographic trends, towns were expanding and contracting organisms with enormous population fluctuations, and these fluctuations pose major difficulties for historians writing about population movements. Before discussing the main parameters of early modern burgher immigration, its institutional limits shall be reviewed. Everywhere, city councils applied a whole range of regulatory mechanisms aiming to support or restrain the influx of migrants, secure public peace, and maintain the social or confessional uniformity of the urban population. Such measures did not always reflect the real, immediate needs of the city, as the structure of immigration was often influenced by the private interests of the town’s feudal lord, either the king or noble and ecclesiastical owners. In the long run, the immigration policy of the cities was marked by considerable discontinuity caused by changeable economic, confessional, or political conditions within or outside the urban society. In years after plague epidemics or natural catastrophes, city fathers, aiming to compensate for the population loss, tended to adopt a pro-immigration strategy. This support mostly took the form of less stringent criteria for admission to Bürgerrecht or a more flexible procedure leading to citizenship. Exceptionally, in critical periods when the city found itself on the verge of total depopulation the urban fathers might have even receded from any restrictive requirements in a desperate search for new settlers. By 1700, Eperjes in Upper Hungary faced such a thankless situation while its government decided to offer a building site, full-right citizenship and six-year tax exemption to all free persons willing to settle in the city.9 Arguably, the most conspicuous examples of pro-immigration factors – a low market competition and high demand for labour – emerged in Hungarian towns shortly after their liberation from the Ottomans. Thus, in the first years following 1686, the number of new town dwellers in Buda and Pest saw a steep ascent, and within a decade the average number of new burghers reached about 50 to 60. The 8

Zemský archiv Opava – pobočka Olomouc, Lenní dvůr Kroměříž, Knihy, nos 23,

24, 38. 9 Špiesz, A., Slobodné král’ovské mestá na Slovensku v rokoch 1680–1780 (Košice 1983), p. 21.

38

URBAN SOCIETIES IN EAST-CENTRAL EUROPE, 1500–1700

impressive level of immigration into both cities, briefly interrupted by the Rákoczi uprising in 1703–1711, continued through the first half of the 18th century.10 At the same time, urban authorities everywhere made an effort to maintain social and economic stability by eliminating certain groups of the population from burgher status. Most cities applied criteria that influenced the social, confessional, or ethnic composition of the upper class of urban society. Universally, applicants had to provide evidence of their legitimate birth. Since the social elevation to fullright citizenship usually involved relatively high costs, such as the purchase of a house or the payment of administrative fees, this privileged status was accessible to strata with at least average financial revenues. Requirements, however, were far from uniform across the region. For example, in Česká Lípa, as in many other towns, in addition to money, candidates for burgher status were asked to contribute to public security by providing a bucket to be used in case of fire.11 Restrictions were frequently placed on certain confessions. Protestants were often excluded de iure from citizenship in Catholic towns and vice versa. In the early modern age, Pilsen in Bohemia was arguably the most typical example of systematic support for Catholic immigration. Formally, only Catholics were eligible to apply for burgher status in Cracow, Poznań and Biecz, but in practice the attitude of the city fathers proved more lenient – or pragmatic – especially when the candidate had considerable financial means.12 On the other hand, the mostly Protestant milieu of Royal Prussian cities incited the influx of non-Catholic settlers, especially the Lutherans and Calvinists, though Catholics formally enjoyed equal status and they should not have been prevented from acquiring the citizenship. Subject to open discrimination in this respect remained only some minority confessions, including the Arianism and Socinianism. Insisting upon confessional criteria, city governments everywhere made an effort to secure a homogeneity of urban population as the plurality of creed threatened to undermine concord, unity and order, the foundation stones of urban communal life. One better understands in this context the worries of the urban scrivener in a predominantly protestant Prussian city of Konitz. Having recorded in the municipal register the name of a newly admitted Catholic burgher, he aired his feelings in a laconic while eloquent gloss: ‘He is the third popish burgher. God save us from all evil consequences’.13 The selection of new burghers on a confessional basis, however, could have only a limited impact on the religious structure of the entire urban society which remained, in many towns, persistently heterogeneous. In this respect, a promising opportunity to unify the creed of the urban population emerged in Buda and Pest after the Christian reconquest. A marked depopulation of both cities, caused by the exodus, expulsion, or annihilation of Muslim and Jewish inhabitants, created favourable preconditions 10 Budapest Főváros levéltára, Pest Levéltára, Buda Levéltára (hereafter PL, BL), Matricula civium 1687–1848. 11 Státní okresní archiv Česká Lípa, MěÚ Česká Lípa, no. 41, shelfmark reg. 89/1 K1. 12 S. Gierszewski, Obywatele miast Polski przedbiorowej (Warszawa 1973), p. 77. 13 ‘Ist der dritte nunmehrige päpstische Bürger alhier. Gott verhüte eine schädliche besorgliche Nachfolge’. E. Kloß (ed.), Das Bürgerbuch der Stadt Konitz von 1550 bis 1850 (Münster 2004), p. 52.

URBAN IMMIGRATION

39

for both mass immigration and more effective regulation of the religious profile of the newly formed urban society. Unfortunately, insufficient data for the decades after 1686 does not permit us to identify to what degree the upper strata in Buda and Pest acquired a strictly Catholic character.14 Conversely, it seems that confessional criteria proved less significant on religious frontiers, for instance, the Southeastern territories of the Polish Crown. The religious plurality among citizens is particularly apparent in Przemyśl and, above all, Lwów.15 In the latter, between 1405 and 1604 about 7 per cent of new citizens were Orthodox Ruthenians and 2 per cent belonged to the Armenian Church, while the rest were predominantly Catholic.16 In many cities, however, the religious policy toward new town dwellers was marked by discontinuity caused by changing political and social circumstances. Thus, the mostly Protestant composition of the population of Olomouc was heavily affected by re-Catholicization efforts after the collapse of the anti-Habsburg uprising in 1620. As early as 1625, Cardinal Dietrichstein, acting on behalf of Ferdinand II, issued a decree excluding Protestants from the citizenship.17 Henceforth, nonCatholic applicants for burgher status were obliged to convert to Catholicism.18 Most cities pursued a discriminatory policy toward Jews when it came to admitting new burghers. Major works on early modern urban societies tend to argue that Jewish inhabitants had no right to acquire full-right citizenship until they converted to Christianity.19 Apparently, however, this norm was not strictly pursued everywhere and some exceptions might have occurred. In Bochnia, for example, no less than seven Jews were granted city rights between 1531 and 1656.20 Several Jews also appeared on the lists of new citizens in Lwów.21 Generally, Jewish communities in towns located in the Southern and Eastern peripheries of Poland–Lithuania enjoyed more favourable legal protection. As Jews played an important role in the urbanization plans of Polish, Ruthenian, and Lithuanian magnates, the prospect of life under the aegis of a mighty feudal lord ranked among those factors that caused the gradual movement of the Jewish population to the border provinces of the 14 Denominations of immigrants were recorded more systematically from the mid-18th century. Between 1687 and 1848, the Catholics in Pest represented 86% and in Buda (1686– 1848) 89% of all immigrants whose confession is known. The Protestants and Greek Catholics formed an insignificant minority; Budapest Főváros levéltára , PL, BL, Matricula civium. 15 Archiwum Państwowe Przemyśl, Cathalogus civium civitatis Praemisliensis ius civile acceptantium, no. 429. Also K. Arłamowski, ‘Przyjęcia do prawa miejskiego w Przemyślu w łatach 1541–1664’, Sprawozdanie dyrekcji państwowego gimnazjum, II (1931), p 10; A. Giłewicz, Przyjęcia do prawa miejskiego we Lwowie w łatach 1405–1604 (Lwów 1931), pp. 411–412. 16 Giłewicz, Przyjęcia, p. 411. 17 Státní okresní archiv Olomouc, AMO, Listiny, no. 1355. 18 Nešpor, ‘Matriky měšťanů’, (1937), appendix 7. 19 M. Bogucka and H. Samsonowicz, Dzieje miast i mieszczaństwa w Polsce przedrozbiorowej, (Wrocław – Warszawa – Kraków – Gdańsk – Łódź 1986), pp. 474–475. 20 Archiwum państwowe Kraków, oddzial Bochnia, Akta miasta Bochni, ASB 71. F. Kiryk (ed.), Księga przyjeć do prawa miejskiego w Bochni, 1531–1656 (Wrocław – Warszawa – Kraków – Gdańsk 1979), pp. 13–15. 21 Giłewicz, Przyjęcia, p. 412.

40

URBAN SOCIETIES IN EAST-CENTRAL EUROPE, 1500–1700

rzeczpospolita.22 Similarly, the register of new burghers in the private Moravian town of Velké Meziříčí reveals that in the 17th century Jews were repeatedly admitted as active citizens.23 In the Bohemian Lands, however, such a complete integration of Jews into Christian society was arguably a genuine anomaly. For different reasons, some Polish and Royal Prussian cities pursued a policy of quasi-national discrimination against Scottish immigrants whose unlicensed economic activities posed a grave threat to local trade and guild production.24 A specific regulatory mechanism applied by many Bohemian towns was the criterion of language, as candidates for citizenship were supposed to be proficient in Czech. In the atmosphere of post-Hussite Bohemia, this was mainly directed against German-speaking migrants. In Pilsen, the requirement was introduced in 1500, when the city council excluded German colonists from burgher status unless they learned Czech.25 In 1514, a similar norm was adopted in Litoměřice.26 Similarly, in Prague and some other Bohemian and Moravian cities, at least a basic command of Czech was a formal requirement to be met by applicants for urban citizenship, but apparently this was not strictly enforced.27 Notwithstanding the variety of all imaginable regulatory measures applied by urban fathers, there was a noticeable limitation common to most medieval and early modern European cities. Most applicants for the citizenship were men while women represented a negligible minority, if not a rarity. Sources are explicit in this respect. The Warsaw registers, for example, listed only three dozens females (1.8 per cent) among 1800 new burghers.28 Having examined the proportion of women among newly admitted burghers in more than 40 German and Swiss cities, Barbara Studer showed us that female claimants to citizenship almost everywhere formed a rather tiny group. Yet there were three significant anomalies. In Bremen and Speyer women made about 20 per cent of all new citizens and while in Coesfeld the proportion of female applicants reached 40 per cent! These exceptions, however, only proved the rule. For a historian it is not easy to judge to what extent such male dominance was due to the overly masculine mentality and culture of the early

22 J. Topolski, ‘On the Role of the Jews in the Urbanization of Poland in the Early Modern Period’, in Paluch, A.K. (ed.), The Jews in Poland I (Kraków 1992), pp. 45–50. 23 Státní okresní archiv Žďár nad Sázavou , Archiv města Velké Meziříčí, Knihy, no. 8, fol. 3b–11b. 24 A. Biegańska, ‘A Note on the Scots in Poland, 1550–1800’, in Smout, T.C. (ed.), Scotland and Europe 1200–1850 (Edinburgh 1986), pp. 157–165. 25 J. Strnad (ed.), M. Šimona Plachého z Třebnice Paměti Plzeňské (Plzeň 1888), pp. 93–94. 26 J. Macek, Jagellonský věk v českých zemích 4 (Praha 1999), p. 178 27 Z. Winter, Řemeslnictvo a živnosti XVI. věku v Čechách (1526–1620) (Praha 1909), pp. 21–25; O. Fejtová, ‘Das Verhältnis zwischen Nationalitäten in den Prager Städten an der Wende vom 16. zum 17. Jahrhundert’, GWZO – Berichte und Beiträge (1999), p. 52 28 A. Bartoszewicz, (ed.), Album Civium Civitatis Antiquae Varsovie: Księga przyjęć do prawa miejskiego Starej Warszawy 1506–1586 (Warszawa 2000), pp. 6–7.

URBAN IMMIGRATION

41

modern society and to what degree urban administration and law discriminated against female applicants.29 The preceding paragraphs demonstrate that everywhere cities or feudal lords made an effort to regulate the intensity and the religious and/or social structure of immigration. Urban guilds often resorted to similar criteria – especially language requirements – when considering candidates for membership. Administrative checks on immigration, however, might have secured a certain level of uniformity only within the economically or politically organized segments of urban society, but far less control was exercised over the massive and varied body of the lower social strata which was often the fountainhead of internal conflicts and urban radicalism. A cursory review of the administrative tools aiming at handling immigration has suggested that an in-depth macroanalysis must take into account the nature of the available sources and the policy of urban governments, as well as a plethora of other factors shaping the size and structure of migratory flows. Historians focusing on long-term trends in migration and its social structure and geographical scope cannot avoid considering these variables. Parameters of Early Modern Burgher Immigration Long-term archival research, combined with an analysis of published sources, makes it possible to sketch at least some parameters of early modern immigration into East-Central European cities. Table 3.1 covers the average annual numbers of new burghers in approximately four dozen towns. Most unfortunately, not all the cities for which sources were studied could be included in the list, because they have significant time gaps (Leszno in Greater Poland) or the records cover only a short period of time (Uherské Hradiště in Moravia).30 The dimensions of burgher immigration illustrate people’s natural orientation to move to large residential and commercial centres with a high market potential. Among them, Danzig proved the most attractive destination for migration streams, followed by the constituent towns of Prague. However, the annual numbers of newly accepted citizens in Danzig and Prague must be viewed in historical context. In the case of the Prussian city the sources cover the period of its greatest prosperity – when influx of people climaxed. It also seems that general immigration trends were not damaged by the relatively short-lived conflicts with Sweden in 1626–1629 and in the mid-17th century.

B. Studer, ‘Überlegungen zur rechtlichen und sozialen Stellung der Frau in spätmittelalterlichen Städten’, in Rainer Christoph Schwinges (ed.), Neubürger im späten Mittelalter, p. 170. 30 H.J. Harms (ed.), ‘Lissas Neubürger zwischen dem ersten und zweiten Stadtbrande (1661–1707)’, Deutschen wissenschaftlichen Zeitschrift im Wartherland, 5–6 (1942), pp. 259–284. The registers of new burghers in Uherské Hradiště covered only the period 1684–1691. After this date records continued from 1706. Státní okresní archiv Uherské Hradiště, AM UH, Knihy, no. 410. 29

42

URBAN SOCIETIES IN EAST-CENTRAL EUROPE, 1500–1700

Table 3.1

New Burghers in East-Central European Cities

Large cities (more than 10,000 inhabitants) Danzig (1558–1709) Prague (1618–1770) Cracow (1502–1601) Buda and Pest (1686/7–1720) Lublin (1605–1626) Poznań (1576–1650) Thorn (1627–1703) Lwów (1496–1604) Old Warsaw (1506–1655) Medium-sized cities (5,000–10,000 inhabitants) Pozsony (1630–1650) Görlitz (1500–1676) Kassa (1600–1632) Brno (1561–1683) Bautzen (1634–1699) Olomouc (1668–1696) Jihlava (1537–1560 and 1586–1649) Cheb (1501–1650) Przemyśl (1541–1664) Pilsen (1600–1618) Cities with less than 5,000 inhabitants Eperjes (1584–1650) Lőcse (1550–1650) Broumov (1563–1674) Ivančice (1585–1644) Kościan (1608–1641) Marienburg (1500–1603 and 1617–1700) Kamenz (1570–1744) Bochnia (1531–1656) Bártfa (1597–1648) Žatec (1584–1660) Biecz (1538–1687) Konitz (1551–1700) Międzychód (1668–1695) 31

Total number of new burghers

Annual average

19,026 14,335 (from 1671 no data for Hradčany) 6,544

125 93.7

1,815 (1,119 and 696)

52.7 (32 and 20.5)

750 2,542 2,221 2,289 3,091

34.1 33 28.8 21 20.6

Total number of new burghers

Annual average

939 5,605 1,013 3,570 1,877 748

44.7 31.7 30.6 29 28.4 25.8

475 and 1041

19.7 and 16.3

2,306 1,510 31 161

15.4 12.2 8.5

Total number of new burghers

Annual average

1,529 2,177 2,141 1,109 556

23 21.5 19.1 16.8 16.4

1,396 and 1,244

13.4–15.5 and 14.8–15.6

1,764 1,686 641 875 1,508 1,451 250

13.5 13.4 12.3 11.4 10 per annum 9.7 8.9

65.4

No records for years 1571, 1574, 1594, 1595, 1634–1639, 1643, 1647.

URBAN IMMIGRATION Most (1578–1680) Löbau (1648–1700) Kadaň (1595–1660) Rychnov nad Kněžnou (1568–1664) Sopron (1535–1579) Česká Lípa (1461–1470 and 1491–1670) Rakovník (1542–1660) Domažlice (1584–1669) Velké Meziříčí (1636–1700) Vodňany (1572–1629) Netolice (1626–1695)

43

893 457 548

8.7 8.6 8.3

796

8.2

355

7.9

112 and 1,021

6.2 and 5.7

654 42332 314 165 182

5.5 5.2 4.8 2.8 2.6

Sources: Taken over from J. Miller, ‘Early Modern Urban Immigration in East-Central Europe: A Macroanalysis’, Austrian History Yearbook 36 (2005), pp. 3–39. For sources and literature see also bibliography.

This by no means applied to Prague, whose apogee of glory was already over by 1618, after which the havoc of the Thirty Years War heavily affected the scope of immigration. Before this period, the city, which served as the imperial residence and the political centre of the Holy Roman Empire, saw imposing waves of immigration. For instance, by 1600, about 50 to 60 applicants were granted citizenship annually in the Old Town, and the total number of new town dwellers in all parts of Prague’s agglomeration ranged from 120 to 140.33 Compared to Danzig and Prague, Cracow saw markedly lower immigration rates during the 16th century. Apart from economic stagnation this was also due to the gradual reduction in the city’s central functions in favour of Warsaw after the 1569 Lublin Union. The long-term regressive character of immigration may be verified with the help of available data for both the preceding and subsequent periods. In the period from 1392 to 1506, the average number of new Cracow citizens still reached 80, but in the 16th century, the figure sank to 65. The loss of its royal residential character and the city’s shift to the geographic periphery of Poland–Lithuania caused the descending trend to persist into the 17th century, when only 47 candidates were granted burgher status annually.34

No records for years 1625, 1632, 1640, 1658, 1666. See slightly different numbers suggested by J. Janáček, Dějiny obchodu v předbělohorské Praze (Praha 1955), p. 345; Marek, ‘O studiu’, pp. 92–93; E. Semotanová, ‘Knihy měšťanských práv – významný pramen předstatického období (Příspěvek ke studiu přistěhovalectví do měst pražských v letech 1618–1770)’, Historická demografie, 10 (1986), p. 99. 34 J. Małecki, Studia nad rynkem regionalnym Krakowa w XVI. wiek (Warszawa 1963), p. 21; Gierszewski, Obywatele, p. 118. On economic stagnation in Cracow see J. Bieniarzówna and J.M. Małecki, Dzieje Krakowa II (Kraków 1994), pp. 9–38. 32 33

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The situation in the case of other large urban centres was quite the reverse. The interdependence of the increasingly multifunctional character of the city and the intensity of immigration was perhaps most clearly manifested by Warsaw, from the first half of the 17th century the new capital of the country. Between 1506 and 1655 only 21 burghers won city rights; between 1679 and 1701 their numbers rose to 35. Shortly before the political division of the country, immigration came to its climax and approximately 52 new town dwellers annually gained full rights.35 For similar reasons, a rise of immigration took place in Pozsony, the provisional capital of Hungary, and also in the agglomeration of Buda, Pest and Óbuda after the Christian reconquest.36 For Pest, the steadily upward trends in immigration between 1687 and 1770 have also been confirmed by an analysis of complementary sources, parish registers. A large-scale comparison of migratory flows, then, verifies the hypothesis that major hubs of commerce (Danzig, Lublin) and residential and administrative centres (Prague, Cracow, Pozsony) sucked in the population most greedily. Nonetheless, comparatively high numbers of new burghers have been discovered in towns of a much smaller size too. Here, the most conspicuous examples are Ivančice (Moravia) and Broumov (Bohemia), though in each city the principal motives for immigration differed. The religiously tolerant climate of the former had the greatest influence on the population influx and in the mid-16th century the city hosted the central institutions of the Brethren Unity.37 In Broumov, the boom in the cloth industry made the city one of the major foci of textile production in East-Central Europe and prompted immigration. The significant immigration into Ivančice and Broumov also raises a question relating to the causal nexus between the legal status of towns and the average annual number of new burghers. Some historians, aiming to explain dynamic population rise in many private towns have suggested that the generally more lenient immigration criteria in such centres were responsible for the relatively massive population influx.38 No matter how true this may be, no systematic survey comparing immigration into royal and private cities has yet been made to verify this presumption.39 In comparison with the more populous Polish and Bohemian urban centres, the dimensions of immigration into medium-sized Royal Hungarian towns (Kassa, Eperjes, Lőcse) seem rather surprising. It is the generally accepted view that the Ottoman conquest sparked the exodus of large segments of the population. Naturally, many refugees went to Upper Hungary, hoping to find shelter and a new social existence in inland cities. Though the parameters of Hungarian exile and its social composition are still subject to discussion, the analysis of the geographical origins of urban immigrants, where available, supports the theory that some migratory flows were directed to Upper Hungarian cities. Unfortunately, in most cities, registers 35 Bogucka and Samsonowicz, Dzieje miast, p. 392; Gierszewski, Obywatele, p. 18; Historia Polski w liczbach, p. 47. 36 D. Kosáry and L. Nagy (eds), Budapest története III (Budapest 1975), pp. 130–135. 37 Marek, ‘O studiu’, pp. 86–111. 38 Marek, ‘O studiu’, pp. 94–95. 39 This hypothesis in Marek, ‘O studiu’, pp. 94–95. Most recently P. Vorel, Rezidenční vrchnostenská města v Čechách a na Moravě v 15.–17. století (Pardubice 2001), p. 178.

URBAN IMMIGRATION

45

of new burghers only occasionally mention their origins. This means that our conclusions do not rest upon a representative sample of immigration. Considering only those burghers with a listed origin, applicants for Eperjes citizenship coming from all parts of Hungary formed almost 70 per cent of immigrants arriving between 1537 and 1696. Similarly, between 1597 and 1648, Hungarian immigration into Bártfa accounted for about 63 per cent.40 The sufficiently long stretch of time covered by the sources helps to identify inherent trends in burgher immigration as well. Here, one may wonder to what extent key factors, such as war or economic cycles, were responsible for qualitative and quantitative changes in the nature of migratory flows. Again, the juxtaposition of major urban centres proves instructive (Appendices, Figure A). First, the strikingly divergent trends in immigration into Prague and Danzig should be considered. In the case of Prague, the abrupt end of the Rudolphine boom and the desolation caused by the subsequent war suffocated immigration, which dropped in the mid-17th century to some 60 new burghers per year. Compared to the situation before the Thirty Years War, the average number of newly accepted town dwellers almost halved. The consolidation of social conditions in the second half of the 17th century sparked a moderate growth in immigration, but the pre-war intensity was not matched again before 1700.41 A very similar trend – a short-term decline in immigration – may be observed in Buda and Pest during the Rákóczi uprising at the start of the 18th century. As for Pest, the pernicious effect of war on immigration is confirmed by other sources, mainly parish registers, which also refer to unprivileged segments of the urban population (Table 3.2). Table 3.2

Numbers of New Burghers in Buda and Pest, 1686/1687–1730 (data for Pest compared to a study by Z. Fallenbüchl based on a broader spectre of sources)

Buda, 1686–1730 1686–1691 132 1691–1700 253 1701–1710 181 1711–1720 533 1720–1730 403

Pest, 1687–1730 1687–1690 66 1691–1700 297 1701–1710 148 1711–1720 185 1720–1730 221

(Parish registers records) 138 (1687–1700) 112 513 749

Sources: Főváros Leveltára, Budapest, Pest Leveltára, Buda Leveltára, Matricula Civium, 1686/7–1848; Fallenbüchl, ‘Pest város népességének’, pp. 243–267.

While the Thirty Years War proved responsible for the demographic crisis in Prague, Danzig faced a steadily increasing number of newcomers that culminated shortly before the Swedish invasion. This coincided with the apex of Danzig’s

40 M. Marečková, ‘Řemeslná výroba Bardějova a Prešova v prvé polovině 17. století’, Československý časopis historický, XXIV (1) (1976), pp. 94–98. 41 Gierszewski, Obywatele, p. 55; Semotanová, ‘Knihy měšťanských práv’, p. 99.

46

URBAN SOCIETIES IN EAST-CENTRAL EUROPE, 1500–1700

economic prosperity in the first half of the 17th century.42 Yet another situation is offered by Cracow. If immigration into Prague and Danzig fluctuated markedly, then migratory flows to Cracow saw neither a considerable increase nor a dramatic decline, and in the 16th century the average number of new burghers settled at around 60 per year. Such long-term stability may be interpreted as a sign of stagnation caused by growing economic problems and, toward 1600, by the gradual loss of Central residential and political functions in favour of Warsaw.43 Looking at patterns of immigration into middle-sized towns (2,000–10,000 inhabitants), it is apparent that they were affected in the same way. This is most conspicuously illustrated by a survey of migratory flows into Bohemian and Moravian towns (Appendices, Figures B, C). While in most cities the number of new burghers peaked around 1600, the period of the Thirty Years War brought a marked decline, regardless of the different functional typologies of the settlements compared.44 With the exception of Jihlava, in the first half of the 17th century practically all towns experienced a dramatic fall in the numbers of new town dwellers for several consecutive decades, while a moderate rise began after 1650. In Brno, for instance, the average number of newly accepted burghers was almost halved during the restless years of the Thirty Years War, while in Cheb the flow of full-right inhabitants practically dried out in the 1630s and 1640s. Parallel migratory trends in most cities suggest a fundamental shift in the nature of population movements during the war. The essence of this discontinuity, I believe, was twofold. First, perpetual military campaigns generated a significant structural change as the imminent danger of warfare, frequent epidemics, an overall decline in commerce, and the precariousness of long-term planning provoked spasmodic, provisional, and unintentional movements rather than periodic and planned migration. This phenomenon found its reflection in the growing proportion of newcomers who did not apply for burgher status and, consequently, were not registered in city books. The unstable social conditions during the Thirty Years War may have been responsible for a marked fall in the numbers of new citizens, but in reality the intensity of immigration might have soared significantly. Apart from this qualitative change in population movements, there was another factor lying behind the low number of burghers accepted during the war, namely the shift in migratory flows to safer or religiously more tolerant Hungarian, Saxon, and Polish towns. For cities in Hungary, it seems that exile from Bohemia and Moravia had a positive effect on the number of new burghers in the 1620s through the 1640s (Appendices, Figure D).45 Newcomers from the Bohemian

42 For the economic and demographic upsurge of Danzig see Baszanowski, Przemiany demograficzne, pp. 132–134. 43 Małecki, Studia nad rynkem, pp. 20–29. 44 Immigration into Vodňany and Kadaň followed similar trends as in other cities. Státní okresní archiv Strakonice, Archiv města Vodňan, Kniha smluv svadebních, shelfmark. AM VOD 76; J. Hofmann, ‘Hundert Jahre Bürgerzuwachs durch Einwanderung in Kaaden (1595– 1694)’, Sudetendeutsche Familienforschung, 3 (1930/1931), pp. 23–26, 68–70, 156–159. 45 On Bohemian and Moravian exile, recent works include I. Mrva, ‘Uhorsko, azylová krajina v období novoveku’, Česko–slovenská historická ročenka (1999), pp. 17–26; J. Macůrek, České země a Slovensko (1620–1750) (Brno 1969), pp. 39–68.

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Lands may be traced most easily in Lőcse, where the town registers listed the origins of immigrants more consistently than in other Hungarian cities. Better evidence in terms of religious migration is offered by burgher registers in the Saxon and Upper Lusatian towns situated along the Bohemian border. Here the combined impact of re-Catholicization and military campaigns in Bohemia caused profound shifts in standard migratory patterns. The first emigration wave from the Bohemian Lands, culminating in the late 1620s, was mainly channelled to Saxon urban settlements, including Pirna or Freiberg; in the early 1650s the Upper Lusatian Sechsstädte served as the main target of the massive religious exodus.46 The graphic illustration of immigration trends into Görlitz suggests that population transfers from Bohemia climaxed twice during the period under discussion (Appendices, Figure E). While the first wave of religious immigration in the late 1620s caused a dynamic rise in the number of new burghers, its size was much overshadowed, after two consecutive decades of recession, by the large Bohemian exodus in the period from 1648 to 1670.47 Compared to similar patterns of immigration into Bohemian, Hungarian and Upper Lusatian towns in years of crisis, one observes more heterogeneous trends in Poland (Appendices, Figure F). This may be explained by the merely regional dimensions of armed conflicts that left other parts of the Rzeczpospolita untouched. In Konitz, for instance, the sudden drop in immigration in the late 1620s coincided with the short-term war over the mouth of the Vistula river. In all probability, the uprising of Bohdan Chmielnicki in the late 1640s had a similar effect on immigration into Przemyśl. Though there is a consensus among Polish historians that perpetual warfare after the mid-17th century greatly affected the level of urbanization in the country, our sources do not substantiate such general inferences, as the data available for this period are simply not sufficient.48 Nonetheless, the markedly low numbers of new burghers in Biecz, Poznań and Konitz seem to support the theory of the depopulation of Polish cities after the Swedish deluge. In Poznań, for instance, only 484 people acquired city rights between 1651 and 1675, while in the preceding periods of 1601 to 1625 and 1626 to 1650 the number of new burghers reached 777 and 700, respectively.49

According to official records kept by Saxon magistrates, the city of Pirna, which had about 4000 inhabitants, hosted more than 2100 emigrants from Bohemia in 1629, almost 2000 in 1631, and five years later still about 1600. L. Bobková, Exulanti z Prahy a severozápadních Čech v Pirně v letech 1621–1639 (Praha 1999), pp. xxiv, xxxix. 47 A.E. Stange (ed.), ‘Görlitzer Bürgerrechte von 1601–1676’, Oberlausitzer Sippenkundliche Beiträge, 1 (1937), pp. 34–83. 48 For more on the depopulation of Polish cities after the mid seventeenth century, see Bogucka–Samsonowicz, Dzieje miast, pp. 340–345. 49 Bogucka and Samsonowicz, Dzieje miast, p. 387. 46

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Foreign Immigration Crucial factors such as economic prosperity, war, and urban functions influenced the intensity of migratory flows, but these same factors also affected the geographic scope of immigration. Here, three spatial dimensions should be distinguished: regional immigration, immigration within a state and, immigration from abroad. Again, variables such as the location of the city, the density of the population, and the nature of the urban economy, mattered. The combined effect of these factors was, no doubt, responsible for the highly specific proportion of foreign to domestic immigration into Danzig (Table 3.3). Equally important was a transformation of inherent urban functions, as the case of Warsaw eloquently suggests. As one of the Mazovian regional centres, Old Warsaw saw, until 1500, only a minimal influx of foreign newcomers, who formed between 3 and 5 per cent of all immigrants. The relocation of the royal residence from Cracow and the elevation of Warsaw to the administrative and political metropolis of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth resulted in significant shifts in the geographic structure of migratory flows.50 Thus, the first half of the 17th century was a period of dynamic rise in foreign immigration, which reached almost 20 per cent between 1651 and 1655. Regional immigration, however, experienced an opposite trend. While still dominant around 1500, by the mid-17th century its share was similar to that of long-distance immigration.51 Table 3.3

Regional, Countrywide and Foreign Immigration, Selected Large Cities

CITY

Regional immigration (%)

Countrywide immigration (%)

Foreign immigration (%)

Danzig (1558–1709)

c. 29% (Royal Prussia)

c. 2% (other provinces of the Polish Crown, Lithuania)

c. 69%

Lwów (1496–1604)

c. 36% (Red Ruthenia)

c. 58% (other provinces of the Polish Crown, Lithuania)

c. 6%

Prague (1618–1770)

c. 62% (Bohemia)

c. 10% (other provinces of the Bohemian Crown)

c. 28%

Pest (1687– 1720)

c. 52% (Hungary)

c. 4% (other provinces of the Hungarian Crown)

c. 44%

Olomouc (1668–1696)

c. 49.7% (Moravia)

c. 21.2% (other provinces of the Bohemian Crown)

c. 29.1%

The dazzling rise of Warsaw was glorified in the 1634 description of Mazovia by Jedrzej Swiećicki. See S. Pazyra, Najstarszy opis Mazowsza Jędrzeja Swiećickiego (Warszawa 1974), pp. 147–148. Also M. Bogucka, ‘Krakau – Warschau – Danzig. Funktionen und Wandel von Metropolen 1450–1650’, in Engel, E. and K. Lambrecht and H. Nogossek (eds), Metropolen im Wandel (Berlin 1995), pp. 71–91; M. Karpowicz, ‘Das königliche Schloß in Warschau (1597–1619). Der erste Schritt zur Metropole’, in Engel, E. and K. Lambrecht and H. Nogossek (eds), Metropolen im Wandel (Berlin 1995), pp. 109–114. 51 Gierszewski, Obywatele, p. 131. 50

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Lublin (1605–1626)

c. 50% (Lesser Poland)

c. 32% (other provinces of the Polish Crown, Lithuania)

c. 10%

Old Warsaw (1506–1655)

c. 63% (Mazovia)

c. 27% (other provinces of the Polish Crown)

c. 10%

Sources: Multiple sources, see notes.52

When compared with the statistics available for other cities, the large proportion of foreign immigration to Pest after 1686 stands out as anomalous. Given the enormous depopulation of the country, and considering that some parts of historical Hungary still remained under Ottoman sovereignty, the large influx of Christians from abroad seems only natural. The investigation of the social background of the migrants, however, suggests also other explanations for this phenomenon. In the first decades after the Christian reconquest, long-distance migration was stimulated by comparatively low economic competition in the urban market and by the high demand for specialized crafts. Sources indicate a particularly strong immigration wave of stoneworkers and building experts, most of whom came from abroad.53 Another factor that kept foreign immigration relatively higher than that from the Hungarian provinces was perhaps a religious one. Having lived for a long time in Ottoman-dominated territory, much of the Christian population from the reconquered Hungarian regions might have lapsed from the orthodox Catholic faith, which would, no doubt, have hampered social integration in Pest. Due to the immediate impact of many variables, however, one should not give too much weight to the data presented in Table 3.3. On the other hand, a statistical survey may be utilized as a tool displaying the attractiveness of the city for foreign migrants, as well as the geographical structure of migratory flows. This naturally raises the question of which regions supplied large East-Central European cities with newcomers and what stimuli led to long-distance population transfers. As might be expected, Table 3.4 confirms the quantitative prevalence of burghers coming from the Holy Roman Empire (excluding the Bohemian Lands). It is only logical that the share of immigrants from this territory proved higher in cities lying on the Western 52 The origin of new burghers in Danzig was recorded in 98,7 per cent of cases; Lublin – 91,7 per cent; Pest – 47,1 per cent; Lwów – 85,8 per cent; Prague – 83,8 per cent; Old Warsaw – 88 per cent; Olomouc – 76,1 per cent. See H. Penners–Ellwart (ed.), Die Danziger Bürgerschaft nach Beruf, Herkunft und Volkszugehörigkeit 1539–1709 (Marburg/Lahn 1954), table I in appendix; Giłewicz, Przyjęcia do prawa, p. 384; Semotanová, ‘Knihy měšťanských práv’, pp. 94–95; Főváros Leveltára Budapest, PL, BL, Matricula Civium, 1686/7–1848; J. Sadownik, Przyjęcia do prawa miejskiego w Lublinie w XVII wieku (Lublin 1938), pp. 46– 47; Gierszewski, Obywatele, p. 131; Nešpor, ‘Matriky měšťanů olomouckých’, pp. 99–106, 109–116, 119–126, 163–170. Though Silesia was the inherent part of the Bohemian Crown for much of the early modern period, the population transfers from this territory are usually understood by Polish historians as the migration within boundaries of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. This may cause minor differences in the data shown in table 2.3 and statistical surveys made by Polish scholars. 53 Fallenbüchl, ‘Pest város’, pp. 278–284; Főváros Leveltára Budapest, PL, BL, Matricula Civium, 1686/7–1848.

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periphery of East-Central Europe (Prague, Danzig), while in the case of urban centres in its Central and Eastern parts (Lublin, Lwów) the geographic scope of immigration was distributed more evenly. Among cities under review, the most specific was the story of German immigration into Hungarian cities and in particular, Buda and Pest. Liberated from the Ottomans, the underpopulated country had to be resettled and recultivated. Responsible for the successful implementation of the colonization policy of the Viennese court, the Kaiserliche Kommission zur Einrichtung Ungarns recruited volunteers mostly in the Catholic German principalities. The entire project pursued several equally important goals – to secure the prevalently Catholic nature of newly conquered Hungarian territories, revitalize country’s economy and discipline the troublesome native population prone to revolts against the Habsburg rulers. As the plantation quickly became also a private enterprise pursued by the Hungarian feudal lords, the vision of a strictly Catholic country could not be fully achieved. Nonetheless, it might be presumed that in Buda and Pest the Catholic profile of the new population was checked more consistently.54 Table 3.4

Geographical Structure of Foreign Immigration to Selected Cities (only records that include the origin of migrant are considered)

CITY Danzig (1558–1709)

Prague (1618–1770)

Geographical structure of immigration (%) Holy Roman Empire (Bohemian Crown excluded) c. 75%, Bohemian Crown c. 10%, the Low Countries c. 6 %, Baltic area c. 3%, British Isles c. 1.7% Holy Roman Empire (Bohemian Crown excluded) c. 84%, Italian peninsula c. 6%, Hungary c. 2%, France c. 1.5%, the Low Countries c. 1.2%

Lwów (1496–1604)

Bohemian Crown c. 48%, Holy Roman Empire c. 17%, Italian peninsula c. 12.7%, Hungary c. 9%, British Isles c. 2%

Lublin (1605–1626)

Holy Roman Empire (Bohemian Crown excluded) c. 49.5%, Italian peninsula c. 23%, Muscovite Russia c. 8.6%, Armenia and Middle East c. 6.7%, Scotland c. 3.8%

Pest (1687–1720)

Holy Roman Empire (Bohemian Crown excluded) c. 75.5%, Bohemian Crown c. 9.8%, other 14.7%.

Sources: Budapest Főváros levéltára , Pest Levéltára, Buda Levéltára, Matricula civium 1687/7–1848; Penners–Ellwart (ed.), Die Danziger Bürgerschaft, Table 1, appendix; Semotanová, ‘Knihy měšťanských práv’, pp. 73–115; Giłewicz, Przyjęcia do prawa miejskiego we Lwowie, p. 384; Sadownik, Przyjęcia do prawa miejskiego w Lublinie, pp. 46–47; Gierszewski, Obywatele miast, p. 131.

Though colonists from the German territories, taking advantage of geographic proximity, represented the most numerous body of all foreign immigrants during 54 W. O’Reilly, ‘Divide et impera: Race, Ethnicity and Administration in Early 18th Century Habsburg Hungary’, in Hálfdanarson, G. (ed.), Racial Discrimination and Ethnicity in European History (Pisa 2003), pp. 77–100.

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the course of the 16th–17th centuries, one observes a dynamic rise in immigration from the Italian peninsula, the Low Countries, and the British Isles. While Italian communities were more or less evenly dispersed throughout the region, the primary areas of Anglo-Scottish and Dutch settlement were the Baltic coast and the provinces of Poland’s heartland. Nonetheless, the vestigial presence of Dutch immigrants has also been discovered in Bohemian and Moravian towns.55 The rather stable character of immigration from the British Isles and the Low Countries was, no doubt, caused by the close ties with the maritime trade between Poland and Western Europe. As a consequence, Prussian cities, namely Danzig, Elbing, and Thorn, but also Königsberg, served as foci of immigration from these countries. Apart from economic stimuli, the affinity of confessional and cultural milieu mattered as well. This became evident during the war between the Dutch and the Spanish (1567–1609), which provoked a mass exodus from the Netherlands. Heinz Schilling has estimated that, in 1585, Dutch migrants formed about 5 per cent of London’s population (approximately 10,000 persons), and the proportion was even higher in German cities like Frankfurt (approximately 20 per cent), Emden (approximately 30 per cent), and Aachen (approximately 20 per cent).56 Apart from London and some urban centers in Germany, it was the Prussian Baltic coast that offered asylum to a sizeable Dutch diaspora. The temporal concurrence of commercial, political, and religious factors caused Dutch immigration into Royal Prussian cities to climax around 1600. According to the Danzig registers, 384 newcomers from the Low Countries (the Spanish Netherlands included) acquired citizenship between 1558 and 1619, but only 179 from 1620 to 1709.57 There is no doubt, however, that the Dutch enclave in Danzig was much more sizeable, as many poor immigrants from the Low Countries were employed by their fellow countrymen as labourers and servants. The reciprocity of migratory flows between the Baltic area and the Low Countries is shown by an Amsterdam register recording 22 newcomers from Danzig, seven from Königsberg, and seven from Stettin between 1580 and 1649.58 The motives for immigration from England were similar to those of the Low Countries. While Danzig retained its crucial role in Dutch commerce with the Baltic, from the late 1570s, the English trade switched to the rival port of Elbing, a move that guaranteed broader commercial concessions as well as favourable legal and religious conditions. In around 1600, the city hosted a sizeable enclave of English merchant families, most of which were affiliated with the Eastland Company. According to H. Jordánková and L. Sulitková, ‘Etnická příslušnost a jazyková komunikace obyvatel Brna ve středověku a raném novověku’, Documenta pragensia, 19 (2001), p. 50; J. Pánek, ‘Italové, Nizozemci a Němci v rudolfínské Praze – některé formy a problémy soužití’, Documenta pragensia, 19 (2001), pp. 67–74. Two burghers from the Low Countries in Moravian Ivančice were identified by Marek, ‘O studiu’, p. 105. In Cracow between 1573 and 1602 Leszek Belzyt founds 28 citizens of Dutch origin. L. Belzyt, ‘Sprachlich–kulturelle Pluralität in Krakau um 1600’, Zeitschrift für Ostmitteleuropa – Forschung, 47 (1) (1998), p. 55. 56 H. Schilling, Niederländische Exulanten im 16. Jahrhundert (Gütersloh 1972), pp. 1–200. 57 Penners–Ellwart, Die Danziger, table I in appendix. 58 Amsterdam Poerterbooken, 1559–1651, courtesy of Oscar Gelderblom, University of Utrecht. 55

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rough estimates, between 1600 and 1640, no less than 97 English families settled in Elbing, joining 34 newcomers who had already become full-right burghers before 1600. On the other hand, in Danzig less than dozen immigrants of English origin acquired citizenship between 1580 and 1639. The persistent hostility of the Danzig merchants and brokers, who found themselves jeopardized by Elbing’s economic competition, as well as the more convenient location of Danzig’s port and the broader spectrum of commodities on its market, however, resulted in the gradual decline of the company’s activities in Elbing and the departure of many English colonists.59 Compared to English immigrants, the Scottish diaspora formed in many ways a highly specific entity. Though small groups of Scots appeared in Polish towns toward the end of the 15th century, their immigration remained at a low level until the 1560s and 1570s, when population transfers from Scotland greatly intensified. Yet the actual size of the Scottish diaspora is not easy to estimate, for at least two reasons. Attempting to escape dismal social conditions in their home country, many young Scots sought better prospects on the Baltic, but often they earned their living as vagrant petty tradesmen or as servants in burgher households; others joined the homeless urban poor. Moreover, numerous Scottish merchants competed with local tradespeople trade and producers, pursuing their commercial activities without applying for burgher status and without affiliation with urban guilds. As these groups were covered rather haphazardly by urban administrations, our knowledge of the Scottish settlement still remains rather fragmentary. The precarious social status of many Scots perhaps resulted in the fact that, despite the substantial Scottish immigration in the long period from 1558 to 1709, only 135 newcomers from Scotland gained Danzig burgher status, while in Cracow 33 Scots acquired citizenship between 1573 and 1602 and only one Scottish immigrant (Aberdeen) obtained citizenship from 1537 to 1604 in Lwów.60 In general, Scots have been traced in about 420 17th-century Polish settlements. Despite the fact that the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was not the sole European destination of Scottish migrants, the available data suggest that the main influx was channelled to the rzeczpospolita. It has been argued that, in the first half of the 17th century, Scottish immigration to Poland oscillated between 30,000–40,000 persons, while the dimensions of migration to Ireland, Scandinavia, and the Low Countries did not reach that level.61 While immigrants from the European Northwest mainly settled in Northern and Central parts of Poland, the Italian diaspora, which was not economically tied to sea trade as were many Dutch and British newcomers, rapidly expanded throughout all 59 J.K. Fedorowicz, England’s Baltic Trade in the Early Seventeenth Century: A study in Anglo-Polish Commercial Diplomacy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1980), p. 55; A. Groth (ed.), Historia Elbląga II/1 (Gdańsk 1996), pp. 28–29; S. Gierszewski, S., Elbląg: Przeszlość i terazniejszość (Gdańsk 1988), pp. 80–84; Penners–Ellwart, Die Danziger, table I in appendix. 60 Penners–Ellwart, Die Danziger, table I in appendix; Giłewicz, Przyjęcia do prawa, pp. 384–390; Belzyt, ‘Sprachlich-kulturelle Pluralität’, p. 55. 61 T.C. Smout and N.C. Landsman and T.M. Devine, ‘Scottish Emigration in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries’, in Canny, N. (ed.), Europeans on the Move, (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1994), pp. 76–112.

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of East-Central Europe. Despite the persistent lack of a comprehensive investigation of population transfers from Southern Europe, a marked spatial diffusion of Italian migration is suggested by sources of urban provenance recording Italian burghers in practically all types of cities regardless of size. Thus Vodňany in Southern Bohemia, Uherské Hradiště in Moravia, or Hungarian Eperjes, to name but three, also served as destinations of early modern Italian migration. As harbingers of Renaissance culture in East-Central Europe, however, Italian migrants headed particularly to affluent areas and residential towns. In fact, it was long-term social demand that stimulated population transfers from the Italian peninsula to Hungary, the Czech lands, and Poland–Lithuania. As for the occupational structure of Italian immigration, stoneworkers and bricklayers, but also merchants and financiers prevailed, finding in East-Central Europe enormous market potential for their services. Despite the fact that Cracow and Prague hosted what were arguably the most sizeable Italian enclaves, it was Buda that was first targeted by Italian immigration as early as the second half of the 15th century. András Kubinyi’s investigation argues that the appearance of an Italian settlement comprising several dozen incomers was motivated by the commercial potential of the Hungarian capital during the reign of Matthias Corvinus and the Jagellonian kings. He suggests that Italian entrepreneurs in Buda not only supplied the royal court with goods but they also served as a source of financial credit to the king and Hungarian magnates.62 After the liberation of Buda and Pest by the Habsburgs in 1686, however, immigrants from Italian territories arrived more sporadically.63 In Cracow, the close affiliation of the Italian enclave with the royal court was even more manifest. Under the patronage of Bona Sforza, the wife of Sigismund the Old, the first wave of the Italian settlement in Cracow crested in the first half of the 16th century. Professionally, many Italians were engaged in the service of the Court as diplomats, politicians, or artists, while merchants and craftsmen represented a smaller segment of the Italian colony in Cracow. The flow of immigrants in the second half of the 16th century altered the social and occupational structure of the Italian settlement, however, with 50 to 60 per cent of the newcomers involved in trade or craft production. Yet another pattern characterized Italian settlement in Prague. As the city did not serve as a permanent royal residence, the first Italian incomers were craftsmen, particularly stoneworkers and bricklayers. Unlike Cracow, Prague saw only sporadic and rather haphazard Italian immigration in the early 16th century, but the influx steadily increased in the 1560s–1580s, and reached its zenith in the Rudolphine era.

A. Kubinyi, ‘Die Stadte Ofen und Pest und der Fernhandel am Ende des 15. und am Anfang des 16. Jahrhunderts’, in Bog, I. (ed.), Der Aussanhandel Ostmitteleuropas, 1450–1650 (Cologne – Vienna 1971), pp. 342–433; A. Kubinyi, ‘Der königliche Hof als Integrationszentrum Ungarns von der Mitte des 15. bis zum ersten Drittel des 16. Jahrhunderts und sein Einfluß auf die städtische Entwicklung Budas’, in Engel, E. and K. Lambrecht and H. Nogossek (eds), Metropolen im Wandel (Berlin 1995), pp. 145–162. 63 Főváros Leveltára Budapest, PL, BL, Matricula Civium, 1686/7–1848; Fallenbüchl, ‘Pest város’, pp. 278–284. 62

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Again, economically active classes prevailed, but the percentage of Italians affiliated with the imperial court was remarkable as well.64 By focusing on the full-right stratum of city populations, this chapter has presented a macroanalysis of 16th–17th century urban in-migration. As a quantitative survey of early modern migration requires a great number of typologically uniform sources, registers of new burghers are of vital importance. Moreover, they also cover the most socially stable and, from a demographic point of view, the most important segment of the urban population. The one-sided focus on full-rights town dwellers, however, raises the following question: Would the long-term models of burgher in-migration elaborated here also apply to unprivileged urban strata or poor migrants? Up to this point, there has been no large-scale investigation of abundant alternative sources including books of wedding contracts, parish registers, and guild records. Given that burgher immigration was subject to a whole range of variables that may have caused serious fluctuations in the number of admitted citizens, the data presented in this chapter may or may not reflect general trends and models of urban immigration. A survey based on alternative sources would, therefore, resolve to what degree the migratory patterns apply across the social spectrum of urban inhabitants. With reference to foreign immigration, besides the Holy Roman Empire, three regions supplied East-Central Europe with newcomers: the Low Countries, the British Isles and Italian-speaking territories. In this context, the chapter raises a set of issues that, to date, have been studied rather unsystematically by urban historians. Among these issues, migration stimuli or career chances of immigrants are of particular significance. The opposite perspective – changes within domestic urban societies that were generated by foreign immigration, also deserves particular attention. Because of the substantial numbers of new burghers coming from remote European territories, one can draw a tentative conclusion that the inner integrity of urban society, still medieval in its nature, was challenged by the influx of inhabitants with different cultural and religious backgrounds. True, when accepting burgher status, new citizens obliged themselves to act in the common interest by sharing both imposed duties and ample corporate privileges. The oath of citizenship, therefore, served as the important integrative factor, whose principal goal was to stress the republican and egalitarian nature of urban polity. Everywhere, cities also developed a set of instruments that supported assimilation, full integration and the sense of collective identity rather than diversity and frontiers within urban societies. Despite this, immigrants substantially contributed to the rise of ethnic, cultural, and confessional frontiers within urban societies. In fact, the early modern urban space was far from being a perfect melting pot in which nationalities and social groups were fully amalgamated. There is abundant evidence that everywhere foreigners, if in sufficient numbers, tended to create enclaves with semiautonomous status. Apart from the exceptional case of Jews, it D. Quirini–Poplawska, ‘Die italienischen Einwanderer in Krakow und ihr Einfluss auf die polnischen Wirtschaftsbeziehungen zu österreichischen und deutschen Städten im 16. Jahrhundert’, in Magdefrau, W. (ed.), Europäische Stadtgeschichte in Mittelalter und früher Neuzeit (Weimar 1979), pp. 114–129. On Italians in Prague see J. Janáček, ‘Italové v předbělohorské Praze (1526–1620)’, Pražský sborník historický, XVI (1983), pp. 77–118. 64

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was the Armenians in Polish and Lithuanian towns that enjoyed a high degree of self-governance. Mostly, however, the collective endeavour of foreign minorities focused just on the creation of basic organizational platforms, such as churches, religious fraternities, and schools without further aspirations to far-reaching political and administrative self-governing rights. Still, these institutions were embodiments of centrifugal rather than centripetal forces and under specific circumstances they might have been responsible for confessional and cultural fragmentation of the urban population – as, for example, was the case of Prague’s Rudolphine society by 1600. Given the size of expatriate German, Italian, Dutch, English and Scottish burgher communities, an investigation should be made as to what extent the rising religious, cultural, and ethnic diversity of the urban societies might have undermined their capacity to reach a fundamental consensus on matters of importance and act as a unified legal entity.

CHAPTER FOUR

Integrity of Urban Society Challenged I: Unassimilated Groups in Cities Medieval and early modern urban society was a hierarchized but strongly collectivist, socially relatively cohesive and highly organized community. Innumerable texts portrayed city life exactly in this way. Writing about the urban environment authors mostly utilized the topos of harmony, unity and tradition. A late 17th century panegyric upon Pilsen renders a standardized description of such a well-ordered city: In each town I find a triple harmony, or consonance: The first is a well-designed edifice [i.e. a political system]. The other is a keeping of praiseworthy customs, orders and rights. The last one is a concord and consonance of hearts and minds of town dwellers. Of these three, the nicest is the unity of hearts and minds (...).1

Voicing exactly the same idea, the Hungarian humanist Martin Rakovský (1535?– 1579) resorted, in his poem Descriptio urbis Lunae Boiemicae, to an allegorical picture of the urban community as the human body. While different limbs form a perfectly working body controlled by the will, all urban dwellers are parts of the well-ordered and harmonious community managed by the city council. Evidently enchanted by this rather traditional notion, Rakovský glamorized the collectivist spirit of urban life by disregarding an individual who, in his own words, alone was worth nothing. Prosperity and strength may only arise from unity while quarrelling and discord would unavoidably lead to downfall and, eventually, to destruction.2 Another humanist, Georgius Sibutus, wrote in the late 1520s about Olomouc councillors and town dwellers who ‘in full concord enjoy peace and quiet’ while two decades later Šimon Ennius Klatovský stated that ‘in this city the happy harmony blossoms’.3 Viewed as pillars of the urban culture, urban mentality and republican urban policy these values were considered absolutely crucial in any city or town irrespective of its size and juridical status. Thus the concord among town dwellers was also praised by Michael Fusselius in his panegyric upon the parochial Moravian town of Litovel,

F. Strnad Damas, Město na hůře wystawené od prwního svého wyzdwižení a wystawení wždycky sylné, od přijaté katolické wíry w wíře stálé a neporušené. Od dané wěrnosti králům českým a pánům dědičným nezprzněné, w mnohých a těžkých protiwenstwích neustalé, w wítězstwích od Boha propůjčených užíwání střídmé; Staro=katolické, královské a krajské město Plzeň, na den Památní a Weyroční Slawného Wítězstwí nad nepřátely ouhlawními obdrženého slujícý Nowý Swátek (Praha 1676), p. B3. 2 M. Rakovský, Zobrané spisy, ed. M. Okál (Bratislava 1974), pp. 98, 121. 3 E. Petrů (ed.), Humanisté o Olomouci (Praha 1977), pp. 34, 40. 1

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which had no more than a few hundred inhabitants.4 An emphasis upon harmony, concord and order formed, in Weberian terminology, the constitutive sign of an occidental urban community and were seen as the sine qua non for the prosperity and the very existence of a city, irrespective of its size and geographical location. In the broadest sense, a vague awareness of fellowship and belonging would certainly have been shared by most people living in the city, regardless of their social and property stratification. Basically, this perception accrued from the collective bearing of municipal burdens and from multiple ties between inhabitants and local religious, judicial and administrative institutions that formed the public framework of urban life. Also the mere sharing of the cramped living space unavoidably produced a closed mutual dependence and collective interests ranging from fire prevention and basic hygienic measures (negligence by a single town dweller might have caused a disaster) to wall and moat duties. Finally, social integrity also stemmed from the tacit consensus that some marginal groups whose contribution to the common welfare was minimal, such as beggars or poor orphans, were still integral, albeit problematic, parts of the social community. Particularly instrumental in developing the communal and collectivist sense was contemporary literature. Urban chronicles and, above all, panegyrics exalting the famous past of cities and uniqueness of their constitutions reflected sustained effort to shape and reinforce the collective, inter-generational memory of town dwellers. De iure, however, the collective and communal awareness was carried by a relatively tiny segment of the urban population, namely the full-right citizenry, to which contemporary sources occasionally referred as fraternitas – the brotherhood of burghers.5 The corporative nature of this social class was formally symbolized by the oath, a legally binding act, by which the candidate for burgher status swore his ‘obedience to city council and fidelity to the community’. This contract concluded between the new burgher and the community obliged the former to act in the common interest by sharing imposed duties, to ‘suffer with the town’, as the saying went, but it also allowed him to exploit extensive collective privileges usually denied to the broader population of the city. Yet the oath also bore a symbolic meaning as it represented the ritual ceremony through which the individual adopted the values of the particular community and its collective identity. Nonetheless, these two levels of social cohesion, demarcating the fundamental contours of early modern urban society, did not cover the entire population of the city. Specific groups of inhabitants always stood on the periphery of the urban society and their social status or even right of domicile were permanently or potentially unclear and at risk. Either the majority town population rejected the idea that these religiously, socially or culturally different groups could belong to the city in the 4 Fusselius, M. (ed.), Historia de filio prodigo, amplissimis et clarissimis pietate, prudentia et virtute praestantissimis, D. D. Coss. ac toti Senatorum ordini, Inclytae Reipub. Littouiensis. Scripta, et carmine reddita elegiaco, a Michaele Fusselio, Suinicensi, Silesio, apud eosdem, Ludimagistro, die Visitationis Mariae, Anno reparatae salutis humunae MDLXXX. Huic accessit Sapphicum carmen in laudes Ciuitatis Littouie. Authore Nicolao Rauschio Sehulensi Marchico artium Studioso, 1580. 5 See M. Weber, The City (New York: Collier Books 1962), pp. 97–129.

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same way as they did, or else these groups themselves created barriers strengthening their separation from the rest of the urban environment. Although for various reasons their full assimilation proved unfeasible, limited economic and social integration was possible and, in fact, unavoidable. The unfinished integration process might have had fatal consequences as in periods of crisis (epidemics, famine, siege of the city) these segments of the urban population, because of their cultural or religious dissimilarity, usually found themselves subject to hostility from their host societies. This chapter considers three such groups of urban dwellers that were either seen as dissonant to the idea of a homogenous community of neighbours or at least put up barriers within urban societies and undermined their collective identity. Specifically, I have in mind Jews, the nobility and some enclaves of immigrants from distant and entirely different cultural environments. However, the otherness disqualifying them from closer association with the rest of urban society would probably not suffice for any separate treatment of these groups in a study on urban change. There is still another reason for doing so. The growing cultural, social and religious diversification of urban societies, caused by the presence of these alien organisms in a city, subverted the very principle of a closed community and initialized the long process of its opening. The omnipresence of these three groups in East-Central European cities and towns also explains why other urban inhabitants outside the fellowship of neighbours, such as soldiers or students, are omitted. The Catholic clergy, another specific class within urban societies, is treated separately in a subsequent chapter. Due to their numbers and limited integration potential, the nobles, Jews and foreigners increasingly contributed to the heterogeneous nature of early modern urban societies. Nonetheless, there is abundant evidence that socially, religiously or culturally diversified bodies of the urban ‘others’ were often perceived by majority societies as a single uniform group. For instance, in his inspiring study on stereotypical images of Jewish culture, Janusz Tazbir showed us that early modern Polish literature made many despising analogies between Armenians, Italians, Germans, Scots and Jews.6 Though nobles, Jews and some groups of foreign immigrants formed in many ways distinct and therefore discordant elements in East-Central European urban societies, their all-embracing definition poses a serious problem. Their classification as minorities or closed subcultures would certainly not apply to the urbanized nobility and ethnic groups lacking their own organizational structures and autonomous institutions, like Churches, schools and religious brotherhoods. For different reasons, the term marginal groups is not satisfactory either, as in literature it usually covers also the lower strata of society (urban poor, beggars, orphans), which were, however, considered natural components of broader urban social structures. Arguably, a more appropriate term indicating the different degrees of integration (separation) of these urban enclaves would be unassimilated groups. In general, the line of reasoning in this chapter proceeds from the common to the specific. That is, variables conditioning social status and the integration potential of foreign groups in Bohemian, Polish and Hungarian cities are discussed in the 6 J. Tazbir, ‘Das Judenbild der Polen im 16.–18. Jahrhundert’, Acta Poloniae Historica, 50 (1984), p. 30.

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light of universally shared stereotypes and the reactions of urban societies to ‘the other’. A legitimate question, though due to the lack of systematic research largely speculative, is raised by this approach. How did the growing presence of Jews, nobles and foreigners in East-Central European cities change traditional urban societies designed as closed communities? Was not the fellowship of men disintegrated by the increasing number of inhabitants who were not directly involved in urban affairs and who were not willing to suffer, under all circumstances, with the city? The central idea of this chapter is that early modern urban societies found themselves in a highly schizophrenic situation. This was caused by their demographic and economic dependence on newcomers who, however, increasingly threatened the stability and social cohesion of the urban population. The side effects of growing population mobility in the early modern period were grave, namely the legal disintegration of urban space, the growing cultural, social and religious plurality and the weakening of the inner integrity of the urban commune. The emergence of new frontiers, produced by the Reformation, immigration from exotic countries, the influx of Jews from Germany and Western Europe and the urbanization of the nobility made urban authorities increasingly preoccupied with problems associated with the coexistence of distinct social groups within a limited space. In this situation the role of assimilative and integrative instruments grew substantially, but vis-à-vis the intensity and diversity of immigration they proved increasingly inadequate. Moreover, their effectiveness also depended upon other factors, namely the state policy towards the ‘others’, the level of autonomy the city enjoyed and above all from the integration potential of immigrants themselves. Yet the consensual nature of urban society was subverted not only by the very presence of unassimilated groups in the city, but also by the public debate concerning them. The Jewish issue, which in many cities generated tension between the radical community and the usually more lenient or hesitant urban authorities, might be mentioned here as a most conspicuous example. Similarly, in Prussian cities discord between councillors and the rest of the urban population arose because of the Mennonites. Though members of this religious sect were not theoretically allowed to apply for citizenship, by 1600 several Mennonites had acquired burgher status in Elbing with the consent of the urban political elite. This triggered, however, passionate protests from the community, who pointed out the moral depravity of the Mennonites and potentially subversive effect of their faith upon the inhabitants of the city.7 The emergence of multiple new boundaries within the urban population might also have had a considerable impact upon the status of a city within the regional and state power structures. Yet little attention so far has been given to the potential causal link between the rising religious, cultural, ethnical and social diversity of the urban population and the growing impotence of cities to defend their medieval autonomy vis-à-vis the expanding power of the early modern state. The present state of research, therefore, allows only tentative arguments. Was it a mere coincidence that medieval urban autonomy and the political privileges of the burgher estate proved most vigorously defended in Royal Prussian cities, particularly in Danzig? One may 7 E. Kizik, Mennonici w Danzigu, Elblagu i na Źuławach Wiślanych w drugiej polowie XVII i w XVIII wieku (Gdańsk 1994), pp. 79–84.

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argue that this was made possible largely because of the consistently strict policy towards those groups with the highest potential to disturb the integrity of urban society and urban space. This applied to a set of measures including the exclusion of Jews from permanent residence in the city, the regulation of the confessional profile of burghers as well as the long-term reluctance to give the nobility official permission to buy houses within the urban area. At the same time Danzig provided good economic prospects to numerous foreign immigrants willing to accept the rules and ideology on which the self-government and prosperity of the city stood, while eliminating those not able to meet these demands. On the other hand, were not the collectivist principles of urban life and the republican sense and political potency of early modern Polish urban societies corrupted by their extreme social, religious and cultural fragmentation? These questions still remain largely unanswered, but this does not mean that they should pass unnoticed. The Early Modern City: A Multi-Cultural and Multi-National Environment One of the distinctive features of large early modern European cities was their social and religious plurality and cultural cosmopolitanism. Though the assimilation of immigrants was encouraged in various ways, most contemporary writers and urban travellers clearly recognized the existence of frontiers within urban societies. A classic example of such a perception was a description of Lwów by Jan Alnpek which pointed out the heterogeneous character of the city population in around 1600. According to the author, the city attracted merchants from all over the world but Greeks, Turks, Armenians, Tartars, Wallachians, Hungarians, Germans and Italians clearly dominated. The author also mentioned the coexistence of four religious groups in the city, three Christian and one Jewish.8 Similarly, the cultural variety of Cracow society was underlined by the Italian traveller Jan Mucante during his short stay in 1596. He identified houses owned by Italian, French, English, Flemish, Turkish, Persian, Russian and Muscovite merchants.9 Both sources provide indirect evidence that early modern urban space was far from being a perfect melting pot in which nationalities and religious groups were fully amalgamated. No wonder that bilingualism or trilingualism proved to be the hallmarks of social reality in most cities and towns. Consider the urban centres of Upper Hungary, in which not only German and Hungarian but also Slovak, Czech and Latin were commonly used as spoken and written languages. Besides German, the lingua franca of East-Central Europe, the vernacular became the dominant language of communication in some areas. The rise of Czech in the core areas of Bohemia was impressive, where the municipal administration as well as the urban population largely switched to that language during the 15th–16th centuries. Yet any historian concerned with Bohemian urban societies would easily identify persistent cultural and language frontiers since the cities and towns in Northern and Western border areas preserved much of their Germanness. 8 9

Alnpek, J., Opis miasta Lwówa z poczatku XVII wieku (Lwów 1930), pp. 39, 47–49. J. Gintel (ed.), Cudzoziemci o Polsce – Relacje i opinie I (Kraków 1971), p. 188.

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Virtually all the foreign minorities that contributed to the multi-ethnical and multicultural environment of an East-Central European city found themselves somewhere between two extreme social positions: full assimilation into the local milieu and total separation from the domestic population. Generally, despite the pressure from both urban magistrates and the majority of society, the former was scarcely reached in the first generation due to their cultural otherness, language problems and a persistent national awareness of foreign newcomers. The latter was technically impossible given that the livelihood of immigrants largely depended on the local market, not to mention the authority of the city council to exercise control over them. If the social status of foreign communities is considered, one may conclude that the level of their integration into urban life depended upon several key factors: namely from their readiness to accept the religious and cultural customs of the domestic society, from their occupational skills and ability to meet market demands and, finally, from the existence or absence of political patronage. The expanding Armenian enclaves in Ruthenian and Eastern Polish cities (Lwów, Kamieniec Podolski, Lublin, Kiev), which by 1600 comprised altogether about 5,000–6,000 persons, perhaps epitomized the ideal example of a limited integration potential.10 The self-perception of Armenians as a specific group within the urban population, justified by their autonomous culture and religion (until the union of their Church with Rome in 1630), found its expression in the royal privilege from 1356 and in the Statut Ormiański (Armenian Act) from 1519, which unified the organizational structure of Armenian communities.11 At the same time, a high degree of self-government complicated the fusion of Armenians with the rest of urban society and curbed their career prospects in the political and administrative structures of cities. In general, the inner organization of urban life in the major Ruthenian cities respected the co-existence of national and religious groups with autonomous or semi-autonomous status, namely Polish (Catholic), Armenian and Ruthenian (Orthodox). While the former claimed primacy in urban affairs and urban governments, the Ruthenian and Armenian ‘nations’ enjoyed extensive self-ruling rights, but burgher status or a political career remained less accessible for them.12 As a rule, a more favourable social status was enjoyed by Armenian enclaves in private urban centres such as Zamość or Stanislawów where Armenians, after the mid-17th century, benefited from the sympathetic attitude of the town’s owner Jędrzej Potocki.13 It seems that the social and political discrimination of the Armenian About 1500 Armenians lived in Kamieniec Podolski after the middle of the 16th century. G. Błaszczyk, Litwa na przełomie średniowiecza i nowożytności 1492–1569 (Poznań 2002), pp. 234–235; K. Matwijowski, ‘Uprawnienia stanowe Ormian’, Studia z dziejów rzeczypospolitej szlacheckiej (Wrocław 1988), pp. 241–248. 11 Błaszczyk, Litwa na przełomie, p. 234. 12 J. Ptaśnik, Miasta i mieszczaństwo w dawnej Polsce (Warszawa 1949), pp. 274–284; J. Sadownik, Przyjęcia do prawa miejskiego w Lublinie w XVII wieku (Lublin 1938), p. 35. 13 For the Armenian enclaves in Zamość see R. Szczygieł, ‘Zamość w czasach staropolskich’, in Kowalczyk, J. (ed.), Czterysta łat Zamościa (Wrocław – Warszawa – Kraków – Gdańsk – Łódż 1983), pp. 105–110. For Stanislawów see K. Matwijowski, ‘Jews and Armenians in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries’, Polonsky, A. and J. Basista and A. Link-Lenczowski (eds), The Jews in Old Poland 10

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population in the context of Polish urban societies was counterweighted by career prospects offered by the state as many Armenians reached notable positions in government service during Jan Sobieski’s reign. At the same time, the country’s legislation allowed for their full integration into the economy by helping them to monopolize trade with the East, despite significant resistance from the Jews and Polish and Lithuanian merchants. While Armenian enclaves in Polish and Ruthenian cities formed culturally, religiously and administratively clearly defined minorities and rather closed subcultures, Italian immigrants in the mostly Catholic urban milieu of Polish towns or Dutch newcomers to the predominantly Protestant Royal Prussian centres found themselves in a strikingly different social position. Their confessional affinity with domestic society made their integration and assimilation to the local environment generally less problematic. Considering the dissimilar social status of the Armenians and the Italian or the Dutch communities, one may draw several tentative conclusions. Firstly, the national aspect was overshadowed by the religious orientation and cultural background of the immigrants. Although the significance of the former cannot be completely ignored, it usually proved less crucial for the successful integration of foreigners into the host society than confessional and cultural criteria. This is why some scholars, while exploring the relationship between foreign minorities and majority society, speak of the linguistic/cultural and religious rather than national plurality of the urban population.14 Secondly, the social status of foreign groups was dependent on local variables like the religious profile of the city population or the scope of the inner autonomy of the city. For example, Polish cities were generally more receptive to the needs of Italian Catholic immigrants than the largely Protestant pre-White Mountain (before 1620) urban society in Bohemia. At the same time, due to the patronage of magnates, some religious minorities such as the Jews or Armenians found more auspicious economic conditions and better legal protection in private urban centres rather than in royal free cities. Thirdly, the lower the integration potential a foreign community possessed, the more it stuck to its internal autonomy and its own institutions. Needless to say that the Jews epitomized an extreme example of self-separation from their Christian neighbours, but Armenians and Ruthenians in Polish and Lithuanian cities adopted a rather similar strategy. Mostly, however, the collective endeavour of foreign minorities, if concentrated and large enough, focused only on the creation of rudimentary organizational structures, namely Churches, religious fraternities and schools, without further aspirations to far-reaching political and administrative self-governing rights. Nonetheless, these institutions embodied centrifugal rather than centripetal forces and they might have

1000–1795 (London: I.B. Tauris 1993), pp. 63–72; C. Chowaniec, Ormianie w Stanisławowie w XVII i XVIII w. (Stanisławów 1928). 14 L. Belzyt, ‘Grupy etniczne w Krakowie okolo roku 1600. Próba opisu topograficznego’, Studia historyczne, 40 (4) (1997), pp. 465–485; H. Samsonowicz, ‘Gesellschaftliche Pluralität und Interaktion in Krakau’, in Dmitrieva, M. and K. Lambrecht (eds), Krakau, Prag und Wien – Funktionen von Metropolen im frühmodernen Staat (Stuttgart 2000), pp. 117–129.

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been responsible for confessional and cultural fragmentation within urban society, as was arguably the case of Rudolphine’s Prague by 1600.15 In the early modern age, trends toward the increasing cultural and national plurality of urban societies were encouraged by some new factors, including massive religious exiles or the dynamic rise of student migration. Everywhere, groups of foreign immigrants posed a potential threat to the stability of the local social climate and occasionally they even transformed the economic, cultural and confessional profile of the domestic urban environment. For example, the German Anabaptists and later the Jews in Mikulov (Nikolsburg), members of the Brethren Unity in Ivančice and Leszno as well as Protestant refugees from Northern Bohemia in Lusatian cities in the mid-17th century all had a significant impact on the economy and culture of their host cities. The relevance of academic migration, supported by the impressive boom of Catholic and Protestant academies, also cannot be ignored by works on early modern population movements. Peregrinating students coming from diverse parts of the continent had the lion’s share on the diffusion of foreign modes and cultural values to the rather parochial milieu of East-Central European urban centres. Consider the geographical background of the student body enrolled at the sole Hungarian university, established in provincial Nagyszombat. In 1643, for example, out of 49 Catholic graduates, 34 were students from Hungary and fifteen alumni originated from neighbouring territories including Silesia, Moravia and Austria.16 Other newly founded colleges, however, matriculated undergraduates from more exotic areas. As shown in Table 4.1, Collegia nordica in Olomouc (Moravia) and Braunsberg (Royal Prussia), established to educate the future defenders of the Catholic faith in Scandinavia, attracted students from all over East-Central and Northern Europe. Table 4.1

Geographical Background of Students Enrolled at Collegia Nordica in Olomouc and Braniewo

Collegium nordicum Olomouc (1578–1624) Lands of Bohemian Crown 231 (40%) Scandinavia 94 (16%) German lands 88 (15%) Hungary and Transylvania 73 (13%) Poland–Lithuania 34 (6%) Prussia 20 (4%) Other 31 (6%)

Collegium nordicum Braunsberg (1578–1618) Scandinavia 193 (40%) Poland–Lithuania 90 (19%) German lands 72 (15%) Prussia 42 (9%) Hungary and Transylvania 25 (5%) Lands of Bohemian Crown 8 (2%) Other 51 (10%)

Sources: Hojda, ‘Několik poznámek k dějinám collegia nordica’, p. 51–52.

The growing number of universities and colleges with large student bodies also threatened the integrity of urban societies in another way. As academic communities 15 J. Pánek, ‘Italové, Nizozemci a Němci v rudolfínské Praze – některé formy a problémy soužití’, Documenta pragensia, 19 (2001), pp. 67–74. 16 B. Varsik, Národnostný problém trnavskej univerzity (Bratislava 1938), p. 130.

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everywhere enjoyed a broad autonomy, their presence in a city contributed to the legal fragmentation of urban space. While religious and academic migration was largely the outcome of early modern social reality, economic migration was a traditional and incessant process. Understandably, it was large cities promising better job prospects, higher market potential or the prospect of court service that attracted most migrants. Thanks to case studies by Josef Janáček, Janina Bieniarzówna and, most recently, Karin Friedrich, Leszek Belzyt and Karen Lambrecht, we know a good deal about the growing cultural, national and confessional diversity of the population in large East-Central European cities. For the particular purpose of this subchapter, their works are significant in two ways. Firstly, they make some general conclusions possible. Secondly, they raise a whole range of questions that can be discussed from a comparative perspective, namely issues referring to the social status of foreign enclaves in cities, their survival strategies, their integration potential and career outlook within domestic urban power structures. Given the extensive and sustained German colonization, whose outset dated back to the 12th–14th centuries, the urban milieu in most provinces of East-Central Europe was either predominantly German or the German speaking echelons of society played a leading role in urban economy and government. During the early modern period, this remained particularly true in the cities of Lusatia, Silesia and Royal Prussia. Most foreign travellers examining the social and political state of Poland–Lithuania in the 16th–17th centuries did not fail to recognize the striking cultural gap between the increasingly Polonized urban environment in the Commonwealth’s heartland provinces and Royal Prussian cities, persistent bastions of Germanness. For example, in his comprehensive description of Poland from 1698, one of the most competent foreign experts on Polish affairs, Bernard Connor, considered the Germanness of Danzig’s social milieu one of the most flagrant features of that city.17 Generally speaking, however, in the early modern period the national composition of East-Central European urban societies changed considerably. Two large-scale processes sparked the transformation of the linguistic, cultural and national profiles of cities. In the early modern period, vernacular cultures started to claim a marked share in the public life of East-Central European urban centres. Moreover, cities in all three countries became targets of an extensive influx of people from different corners of Europe. As a consequence, German settlement, though still dominant, was complemented and in some cases even eclipsed by population flows from other parts of Europe. Before debating the integration of foreign enclaves into domestic urban societies, which is the main objective of this subchapter, it is necessary to briefly summarize the fate of the German civilization in the early modern Bohemian, Polish and Hungarian urban milieu. In Bohemia proper, the nationalist spirit of the Hussite Reformation provoked a massive exodus of the German-speaking population and the simultaneous rise of Czech elements in city governments and urban guilds. Though population flows from the German lands never completely ceased, the markedly 17 S.B. Connor, The History of Poland in several Letters to Persons of Quality. Giving an Account of the Present State of that Kingdom, II (London 1698), p. 44.

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reduced immigration into ‘heretical country’ during the rest of the 15th century could not alter the prevalently Czech environment of most Bohemian towns. However, the Lutheran Reformation, the tranquillization of the political situation in the country and the accession of the Catholic Habsburg dynasty to the Bohemian throne in 1526 reopened the door to German immigration.18 The analytical studies by the pioneer of Czech urban history Zikmund Winter render valuable evidence concerning the gradually increasing population flows from German territories after the 1520s. His surveys of the national composition of the new burghers in Prague’s agglomeration indicate both Czech hegemony in the first half of the 16th century and an impressive influx of German immigrants after 1550. While in Prague’s Old Town between 1526–1548 Czechs still formed a striking majority of all new burghers (c. 82 per cent), Germans were still represented rather sparingly (c. 16 per cent). Yet between 1549 and 1621, German applicants for citizenship already constituted more than one-third of all new burghers, while the proportion of Czech immigrants fell to 58 per cent. Analogous trends were revealed by Winter in Prague’s New Town, though here German affluence proved less dynamic. To be sure, Winter’s inferences cannot be accepted without criticism, but they illustrate major trends in immigration from the German lands.19 The revival of German immigration into Bohemia was also abundantly reflected in contemporary pamphlets and literature. For example, in his memoirs, the Kutná Hora burgher Mikuláš Dačický of Heslov expressly linked the declining fame and opulence of this mining city with the influx of Germans. According to the author, their dishonest business conduct and ruthless lust for money greatly damaged Kutná Hora’s economy.20 Nonetheless, the extensive population flows from Germany in the pre-White Mountain period, no matter how economically and culturally potent, did not lead to the re-Germanization of the still predominantly Czech social environments of most Bohemian cities. Many Bohemian cities responded with systematic pressure on German newcomers to conform to local conditions by learning the Czech language. At the same time the influx of the German speaking population provoked a variety of defensive reactions as the unchecked infiltration of the German language into Church services and political institutions was considered a potential threat to domestic culture and national identity. This fear was reflected in the infamous Language Act of 1615, aimed at preserving the ancient Czech language. One also finds an emphatic defense of the vernacular in contemporary literature. Upset by the spread of German services in Prague’s Churches, Pavel Stránský aired his wrath in a militantly nationalist tract published in 1618. Convinced that the expansion of the German tongue into all spheres of public life may have heralded not only the twilight of domestic culture but also of the Czech nation and Bohemian 18 On Martin Luther’s and Thomas Müntzer’s increasingly sympathetic view of the Hussitism see, for example, J. Macek, Víra a zbožnost Jagellonského věku (Praha 2001), pp. 339–354. 19 Z. Winter, Řemeslnictvo a živnosti XVI. věku v Čechách (1526–1620) (Praha 1909), pp. 26–27. O. Fejtová, ‘Das Verhältnis zwischen Nationalitäten in den Prager Städten an der Wende vom 16. zum 17. Jahrhundert’, GWZO – Berichte und Beiträge (1999), pp. 38–59. 20 M. Dačický z Heslova, Paměti (Praha 1996), pp. 250, 252, 267.

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statehood, he resorted to drawing a historical parallel with the sorrowful lot of the Slavic tribes that once lived along the river Elbe. Stránský’s vivid depiction of their annihilation and subsequent enslavement by the Germans was intended as a warning that a similar scenario might also come to pass in Bohemia. Pursuing a merciless assimilation policy might have been the only way of escaping this fate, suggested the author.21 In other provinces of the Bohemian Crown, less affected by the Hussite Reformation, cities and towns generally preserved much of their Germanness. However, during the 15th–16th centuries, the gradual emancipation of the vernacular took place in some urban centres. In Moravia, for example, the German-speaking population still prevailed in border territories and also in large cities such as Jihlava and Olomouc, while in Brno and Znojmo the Czech national element began to play a more active role in urban administration, politics and economy.22 It seems that vis-à-vis the early rise of vernacular culture in Bohemian cities, the emancipation process in Polish or Hungarian towns was somewhat behind. In the early modern age, many cities and towns in both countries became scenes of dramatic national/religious conflicts, ranging from debates over the composition of city councils and the language used in guild registers to struggles over parish Churches. With reference to the language criterion, a survey of early modern Cracow society by J. Bieniarzówna and J.M. Małecki suggests the gradual Polonization of urban guilds and municipal and Church administration since the first half of the 16th century.23 In Poznań, the corresponding development might have occurred even earlier.24 The rise of Polish, however, remained territorially uneven as in some provinces of rzeczpospolita, particularly in Royal Prussia and in Western areas of Greater Poland (Wschówa, Międzyrzecz), urban environments retained their predominantly German character. This is not to say that the German-speaking milieu was totally spared the intervention of the Polish culture. One should not overlook that the building of the early modern Polish–Lithuanian state rested upon the concept of a common identity and that language was seen as the chief instrument for accelerating political integration and cultural assimilation. Admittedly this was the message of an address delivered in 1589 by Jan Rybiński at Danzig College. The speaker emphatically argued for the idea of a common language by pointing out the

P. Stránský, Český stát – Okřik (Praha 1953), pp. 371–372. L. Sulitková, ‘Národnostní struktura moravských měst ve středověku se zvláštním zřetelem na královská města’, in Marsina, R. (ed.), Národnostný vývoj miest na Slovensku do roku 1918 (Martin 1984), pp. 255–266. 23 J. Bieniarzówna and J.M. Małecki, Dzieje Krakowa II (Kraków 1994), pp. 71–85; Belzyt, ‘Grupy etniczne’, pp. 465–485; L. Belzyt, ‘Demographische Entwicklung und ethnische Pluralität in den grösten Städten Ostmitteleuropas 1400–1600’, in Engel, E., K. Lambrecht and H. Nogossek (eds), Metropolen im Wandel (Berlin 1995), p. 66; K. Friedrich, ‘Cives Cracoviae: Bürgertum im frühneuzeitlichen Krakau zwischen Stadtpatriotismus und nationaler Pluralität’, in Dmitrieva, M. And K. Lambrecht (eds), Krakau, Prag und Wien – Funktionen von Metropolen im frühmodernen Staat, (Stuttgart 2000), pp. 143–162. 24 Ptaśnik, Miasta i mieszczaństwo, pp. 271–272. 21 22

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benefits of communicating in Polish.25 As in the case of Bohemia, the identification of the language with national, cultural and confessional issues was also reflected in Polish humanist and baroque literature. Dozens of contemporary tracts and essays concerned with the question of language testify that as well as German their authors viewed the rise of Italian as a potential threat to the vernacular.26 Given the multi-national milieu of urban centres in late medieval Hungary, it was not unusual that political power was divided between the Germans and the Hungarians or the Slovaks. This model ran successfully in a series of towns including Žilina, Kolozsvár and even Buda, where local riots in 1439 gave rise to a reorganization of the city government based on parity representation of the Germans and Hungarians.27 Yet the political and economic rise of Hungarian and Slovak segments of urban societies was a lengthy process with uneven outcomes in different towns. Nevertheless, power struggles in 16th century Hungarian towns and emerging national/religious frontiers incited reforms in urban administration. The Slovak historian Ferdinand Uličný, for instance, has pointed out that all the major urban centres in the late 15th and 16th centuries already employed Slovak or Hungarian preachers besides the German ones.28 Another survey undertaken by Anton Špiesz has revealed that after 1550 an increasing number of guild registers began to be written in Slovak and Hungarian.29 Arguably, even the most strongly germanized Zips region was confronted with basically the same trend as the rest of Royal Hungary. At least this is suggested by the steadily growing frequency of Slovak and Hungarian surnames in urban registers between 1550 and 1650.30 By 1600, because of the continuous influx of Hungarian refugees from the Ottomandominated areas, the issue was also addressed by the state. By expressly stating that all ‘nations’ should have equal access to municipal offices in royal cities, an Act from 1608 considerably strengthened the political position of Hungarians and Slovaks vis-à-vis the Germans.31 The resolution did not pass unnoticed as in several Hungarian cities the new criteria for occupying posts in urban governments were quickly adopted shortly afterwards. In Korpona, the Slovaks and Hungarians reached a parity representation together with the Germans while in Besztercebánya, 25

B. Nadolski (ed.), Wybór mów staropolskich (Wrocław – Kraków 1961), esp. pp. 183–

189. See W. Taszycki (ed.), Obrońcy jezyka polskiego wiek XV–XVII (Wrocław 2004). G. Székely, ‘Elemente des regulierten und des organischen Wachstums in der ungarischen Städteentwicklung im Zeitalter des Feudalismus’, in Glatz, F. (ed.), Settlement and Society in Hungary (Budapest 1990), pp. 50; A. Ságvari (ed.), Budapest Fóvárosunk Története (Budapest 1973), p. 17. 28 F. Uličný, ‘K výskumu národnostnej štruktúry stredovekých miest na Slovensku’, in Marsina, R. (ed.), Národnostný vývoj miest na Slovensku do roku 1918 (Martin 1984), p. 161. 29 A. Špiesz, ‘Slovenský element v remeselnej výrobe miest a mestečiek v období neskorého feudalizmu’, in Marsina, R. (ed.), Národnostný vývoj miest na Slovensku do roku 1918 (Martin 1984), pp. 175–187. 30 I. Chalupecký, ‘K vývoji národnostnej štruktúry miest Spiša v rokoch 1550–1650’, in Marsina, R. (ed.), Národnostný vývoj miest na Slovensku do roku 1918, (Martin 1983), pp. 207–218. 31 Corpus Iuris Hungarici, 1603–1657, pp. 18–19. 26 27

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given the absence of a strong Hungarian-speaking community, the power remained divided between the German and Slovak population.32 Besides the emancipation of the vernacular Czech, Hungarian, Polish and Slovak cultures, there was another factor that stimulated changes in the national composition of East-Central European cities, namely an extensive incursion from diverse parts of Europe. An investigation of the geographical structure of migratory flows (see Table 3.4 in Chapter Three) has disclosed a steady increase in immigration from several European countries, above all from Scotland, England, the Low Countries and the Italian speaking territories. Long-distance immigration was usually motivated either by economic prospects or religious reasons and the level of integration of foreign enclaves largely depended on their willingness to conform to the rules of the host society and on the extent to which they competed with local producers. Observed from this viewpoint, a peculiar case was that of the numerous Scottish diaspora in Poland–Lithuania whose social status differed, in general, from that of Dutch or English communities living in Polish urban centres. The latter, being more engaged in long-distance trade and municipal crafts, often ranked among the affluent strata of urban societies as merchants and well-to-do artisans. Conversely, the typical image of the Scot was that of a small-scale tradesman, craftsman or vagrant pedlar who often rivalled urban guild production and domestic trade. Although small groups of Scots appeared in Polish towns towards the end of the 15th century, their immigration remained at a low level until the 1560s–70s, when population transfers from Scotland greatly intensified. However, for at least two reasons the actual size of the Scottish diaspora is not easy to estimate. Trying to escape dismal social conditions in their home country, many young Scots sought better living prospects in the Baltic, but often they earned their living as vagrant petty tradesmen or servants in burgher households or they joined the homeless urban proletariat. Moreover, numerous Scottish retailers provided competition for the local economy by pursuing their commercial activities without applying for citizenship and without affiliation with urban guilds. As these social groups were covered rather haphazardly by urban administrations, our knowledge of Scottish settlement still remains rather fragmentary. No wonder that municipal magistrates in some cities, mainly in Royal Prussia, adopted a discriminatory policy towards Scottish incomers, unless they agreed to share all communal burdens and integrate themselves into domestic society. The issue was even raised several times by the Polish Sejm and the state authorities promulgated a series of decrees aiming at eliminating unauthorized commercial activities carried out by itinerant Scots. Confronted with the hostile and unfavourable attitudes of local establishments, many Scottish pedlars and petty tradesmen consciously shunned city markets and other traditional places of commerce and preferred to operate on the streets or visit urban households where they offered their goods. Unlicensed economic activities as well as the lack of financial means, no doubt, were the chief reasons that prevented many Scottish immigrants from buying a house in the city and obtaining citizenship.

32 A. Špiesz, Slobodné král’ovské mestá na Slovensku v rokoch 1680–1780 (Košice 1983), p. 104.

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That the pauper immigration from Scotland evolved into a grave social problem was well illustrated by a petition to James I in 1624, in which the well-to-do Scottish colony in Danzig informed its ruler that many young and poor Scots coming to the city often remained jobless and homeless and some resorted to begging.33 Neither the substantial immigration of Scots to Poland, nor their rather modest standard of living escaped the attention of Fynes Moryson, according to whom Scots ‘flocke in great numbers into Poland (...) rather for the poverty of their owne Kingdome, then for any great trafficke they exercised there, dealing rather for small fardels, then for great quantities of rich wares’.34 Apart from the wretched social conditions of many Scottish immigrants, there was another factor that often hindered their close integration into Polish urban society, namely their Protestant faith. This applied, above all, to mostly Catholic cities in the Polish hinterland. In Bochnia, for instance, Mathias Karlowski de Edenborg, civitate scociensi, was the only full-right citizen of Scottish origin between 1531 and 1656, though probably more Scottish families settled in the town during the period under discussion.35 Despite the clear preference given to Catholics, Protestants in Polish cities usually were not completely cut off from the citizenship, but they had to rely more on their personal wealth and social and commercial bonds with the local haut monde. The story of Georg Kruchsang from Aberdeen, one of eight non-Catholic merchants who were granted Cracow citizenship in 1646/1647, renders evidence of such a strategy. He was obliged to pay the impressive sum of 300 guldens (złoty) as a fee for his elevation to the upper echelon of urban society. This high sum demanded by the Cracow magistrates did not reflect the size of Kruchsang’s property but was rather a tribute for his Protestant denomination.36 We have seen that discriminatory strategies applied against trading activities by Scots, especially in Royal Prussia, as well as their dissimilar confessional orientation in the mostly Catholic milieu of Polish towns rather decelerated the process of their integration into local communities. Despite this, a certain number of Scottish merchants infiltrated the propertied classes of urban society in both Royal Prussian and Polish cities. Levies imposed on Polish Scots in 1651 suggested that some Scottish merchants in Cracow, such as Jakub Karmichel or Alexander Dyxon, had personal wealth of considerable size.37 The myth of the poor Scot was also challenged by the traveller Peter Mundy, who in the mid-17th century observed in Thorn ‘many rich and well furnished shops belonging to Scots’.38 But in general, the economic importance of Scottish capital remained quite low as compared to Italian or Dutch 33 T.C. Smout and N.C. Landsman and T.M. Devine, ‘Scottish emigration in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries’, in Canny, N. (ed.), Europeans on the Move, (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1994), pp. 81–82. 34 F. Moryson, An Itinerary, a facsimile of the edition from 1617 (Amsterdam – New York: Da Capo Press, 1971), part III, p. 155. 35 F. Kiryk (ed.), Księga przyjeć do prawa miejskiego w Bochni, 1531–1656 (Wrocław – Warszawa – Kraków – Gdańsk 1979), p. 68, record no. 1034. 36 J. Bieniarzówna and J.M. Małecki, Dzieje Krakowa II (Kraków 1994), p. 204. 37 Bieniarzówna and Małecki, Dzieje Krakova, II, p. 204. 38 J. Keast (ed.), The Travels of Peter Mundy, 1597–1667 (Trewolsta: Dyllanson Truran 1984), p. 68.

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capital and the large number of Scots who settled in Poland belonged to the middle and lower classes of urban society with a rather mediocre standard of living. In marked contrast to peregrinating Scottish pedlars, who were often subject to illtreatment by the urban authorities and guild masters, the Italians proved more ready to meet the market demands that were insufficiently satisfied by local sources. Their integration into existing economic structures, therefore, proved less problematic. Moreover, unlike the Scots, many Italians enjoyed royal or noble patronage and a great number of them quickly climbed the career ladder as diplomats, architects, financiers, artists and scholars. In the context of East-Central Europe it was the Polish– Lithuanian state that rendered by far the best opportunities for immigrant Italians to sate their individual ambitions and desires. Between the reign of Sigismund the Old (1506–1548) and John III Sobieski (1674–1696) no less than eighty individuals of Italian origin gained noble status or were bestowed the Polish indygenat.39 Like everywhere, the impact of Italian architectural innovations was considerable in East-Central Europe, but the dimensions of the building boom largely depended on the availability of skilful and highly-qualified labour familiar with the latest techniques. As a consequence, the region was swarming with Italian immigrants who settled primarily in large residential and commercial centres with higher market potential. Though not completely monopolized by the Italians, it appears that the building industry was the only professional enterprise in which Vlaši or Wlósi, as they were called, clearly overshadowed the Germans and other foreign immigrants. The dominant position of the building crafts is confirmed by abundant studies analyzing the occupational structure of the Italian diaspora. Between 1571 and 1604, almost one-half of the new burghers in Lwów engaged in building activities came from the Italian peninsula.40 A substantial number of stoneworkers among the Italians in Brno has been identified by L. Sulitková.41 In addition to large and populous cities, Italian bricklayers, stoneworkers and experts in building techniques also headed for residential magnate centres. In Bytča, the residence of the Hungarian Palatine György Thurzó, no less than nine families of Italian stoneworkers were identified in around 1600.42 It appears that the occupational composition of Italians was alike in any type of cities. Though between 1538 and 1688 only two Italians acquired citizenship of Biecz (Lesser Poland), one of them, Anthoni Conti from Milan, was referred to in the municipal registers as murarz (bricklayer).43 Similarly, one of the three new burghers of Italian origin in Domažlice (1584–1669) was engaged in building activities.44

W. Tygielski, Włosi w Polsce XVI–XVII wieku (Warszawa 2005), pp. 384–389. A. Giłewicz, Przyjęcia do prawa miejskiego we Lwowie w łatach 1405–1604 (Lwów 1931), p. 406. 41 L. Sulitková, ‘Italové v Brně v předbělohorském období’, in Cadorini, G. (ed.), Cramars – Furlánští a italští obchodníci v Českých zemích, 1 (Praha 1999), pp. 62. 42 J. Kočiš and S. Churý, Bytča 1378–1978 (Martin 1978), p. 63; J. Kočiš, Bytčianský zámok (Martin 1974), pp. 39–41. 43 T. Slawski, ‘Studia nad ludnościa Biecza w wiekach XIV.–XVII.’, Malopolskie studia historyczne, (3–4) (1958), pp. 61–63. 44 P. Mužík, ‘Knihy domažlických měšťanů’, Okresní archiv Domažlice – Výroční zpráva, IX (1986), p. 81. 39 40

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The other sphere of economic activity, apart from the building craft in which the Italian diaspora retained a considerable share, was small and large-scale trade as well as financial transactions. The highly profitable import of lucrative commodities (wine, luxury cloth, oriental spice) in combination with financial loans provided to the aristocracy and well-to-do burghers catapulted some Italians to the apex of EastCentral European urban societies. Admittedly, the most stories of the impressive career advancement of Italian immigrants took place in Cracow, where no less than six Italian merchants belonged to the tiny class of the richest burghers in 1643.45 Even more striking proved the material opulence of Italian entrepreneurs as expressed in the list of Swedish contribution from 1655, according to which a group of the thirteen wealthiest persons included twelve Italians.46 In Prague, the trade activities of the Italians substantially weakened the enduring monopoly of Nuremberg merchants and some Italian companies, such as the branch of Werdeman’s banking house, supplied the imperial troops with weaponry or they channelled their investments into silver mining in Kutná Hora. As the dazzling careers of several merchant families in Prague and Cracow illustrate, social admission to the urban haut monde was usually secured by many foreigners through a combination of patronage, close social bonds with the local élite, and personal wealth. Among the Italian entrepreneurs in Rudolphine Prague, Ercole da Nova was the most prominent figure. He managed the commercial and financial activities of numerous magnate and noble families in Bohemia, the Rosenbergs, Wallensteins, and Žerotíns among them, and the scope of his financial affairs and transactions remained unrivalled for a long period of time. Granted city rights in 1589, elevated to the city council of Prague’s Little Town and ennobled in 1604, he ran a prosperous banking house until his death in 1606.47 Ercole da Nova’s life story offers a portrait of a successful immigrant who owned four houses in the city, generously supported his Italian relatives, bestowed rich donations on the Catholic and Protestant Churches, did not avoid close integration with Prague’s social milieu and who twice married the daughters of local patricians.48 Cracow offers a similar life story in the case of Hieronymus Pinocci, who settled in the city in 1640. His successful involvement in the wine trade and affinity with the leading Cracow patrician family of Delpace via marriage not only secured Pinocci’s elevation into the urban élite, but also opened the door to a meteoric political career in the urban administration as a councillor and burgomaster and then in state service as the royal secretary and diplomat at the Viennese imperial court, London, and the Low Countries.49 Bieniarzówna – Małecki, Dzieje Krakowa, II, p. 204. J. Bieniarzówna, Mieszczaństwo krakowskie XVII w. (Kraków 1969), p. 138. 47 On the political career of Hercule da Nova in Prague’s Little Town city council see P. Bišková, ‘Malostranské radní elity na přelomu 16. a 17. století’, Documenta pragensia, XXII (2004), p. 111. 48 On Italians in Prague see J. Janáček, ‘Italové v předbělohorské Praze (1526–1620)’, Pražský sborník historický, XVI (1983), pp. 77–118. 49 K. Targosz, Hieronym Pinocci. Studium z dziejów kultury naukowej w Polsce w XVII wieku (Wrocław 1967), pp. 9–11. 45 46

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Brief profiles of Ercole da Nova’s and Hieronymus Pinocci’s careers demonstrate a model pattern of full economic and social integration based on close commercial and personal bonds with the aristocracy and urban patriciate, profitable financial activities, and finally marriage as the strongest integrative mechanism. However, successful social and economic assimilation did not automatically open the door to public office and urban government. The reasons why the local community excluded ‘foreigners’ from direct access to political power were usually religious. Here again a juxtaposition of Prague and Cracow may be instructive. In predominantly Catholic Cracow, the chances for Italian burghers to have a political career in urban government proved high. While in the first half of the 16th century Cracow city council was still controlled by German and Polish patricians and the first Italian surname among the councillors appeared in the 1540s, a century later no less than ten Italians had won nomination to the city government. By 1600, the number of representatives of Italian origin in the Cracow city council already exceeded that of the councillors from the German cultural milieu. The strong position of Italians in the city administration is further illustrated by the fact that of the 139 Italians who were granted Cracow citizenship in the 17th century, 21 (15 per cent) acted at least once as municipal councillors.50 In addition, for many, the advancement to the upper levels of Polish urban society was only a stepping-stone to a further career. According to data provided by J. Bieniarzówna, in the 17th century several Cracow burghers of Italian origin were appointed royal secretaries and some Italian families, including the Cellaris, Delpaces, Orsettis or Pinoccis, attained noble status.51 The situation in Prague where the Italian enclave, due to its Catholic faith and frequent language problems, was for a long period disqualified from participation in political life, differed a great deal. According to the lists of municipal councillors only three Italians were identified in the Old Town government between 1547 and 1650 and just one in the New Town council between 1600 and 1650. In all cases, however, their tenure coincided with a period of strong re-Catholization after the collapse of the Protestant anti-Habsburg uprising in 1618–1620.52 Exceptions proving the rule were several representatives of the Italian community who settled in Prague’s Little Town. In the pre-White Mountain period three or four Italians joined Little Town’s political elite, namely Ercole da Nova, who by 1600 was serving as a councillor in Little Town, Pietro della Pasquina, a member of the same city council in 1616, and Jan Baptista Bussi.53 Though arguably no Bohemian and Moravian town could rival Cracow and other Polish cities in providing such favourable conditions for the political careers of resident Italians, it appears that in some urban environments the Italian immigrants were more successful than in Prague. This applies to Brno, Belzyt, ‘Grupy etniczne’, pp. 465–485; Bieniarzowna, Mieszczaństwo krakowskie, pp. 32–33. 51 Bieniarzowna, Mieszczaństwo krakowskie, pp. 155–172. 52 J. Douša, ‘Seznamy staroměstských konšelů z let 1547–1650’, Pražský sborník historický, 14 (1981), pp. 65–119; J. Mendelová, ‘Rada Nového města pražského v letech 1600–1650’, Pražský sborník historický, XXIX (1996), pp. 59–106. 53 Janáček, ‘Italové v předbělohorské Praze’, p. 110; Bišková, ‘Malostranské radní elity’, p. 111; P. Bišková, ‘Městská rada na Malé Straně v letech 1547–1650’, Documenta pragensia, XXI (2002), pp. 69. 50

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with several dozens of Italians settled in the city by 1600. Of these, at least three managed to join the urban political elite before 1618, but circumstances remain unclear.54 Either they might have converted to Protestantism or, as Catholics, they might have found support with the feudal overlord and been utilized as instruments in his struggle against the political autonomy of the city. If religious, cultural, economic and social factors are taken into consideration, there is no doubt that the most favourable conditions for successful integration were offered by Royal Prussian cities in the case of Dutch and English immigrants. Most immigrants from the Low Countries and England decided to settle in Prussia for commercial, religious and political reasons and there they found a similar social and cultural climate. Apart from religious reasons, it was especially the Dutch who could utilize their language affinity in a predominantly German-speaking society, an advantage enjoyed neither by the Italians nor immigrants from the British Isles. Moreover, in the Prussian urban milieu there emerged two additional integrative factors that were either absent or weak in other East-Central European cities. Firstly, there was strong urban republicanism and self-identification with civic values, a tradition that was deeply embedded in the rising Dutch bourgeois society as well. Secondly, when compared to inland cities Danzig and Elbing were dependent on the market demand in the European Occident and close commercial and financial collaboration with foreign merchants which proved of vital importance for their economy. The significance of sea trade with the Low Countries and England projected itself on the social status of the Dutch and English diaspora, shared capital investments and the great Dutch cultural impact on the urban milieu in the Royal Prussia. Both close commercial collaboration between the Prussian patriciate and Dutch merchant companies and strong pro-integration factors encouraged large-scale immigration from the Low Countries to Prussian cities. In Danzig itself between 1558 and 1709, burghers of Dutch origin, mainly from Amsterdam, represented the second largest community after immigrants from German lands and their proportion of the total immigration from outside Prussia reached almost 6 per cent.55 The extensive commercial and social bonds between Prussia and the Low Countries were perhaps best embodied by the personality and life story of the Amsterdam merchant Cornelis Loufsz. Born in Danzig, he moved to the Low Countries and ran a prosperous company that was mainly engaged in the sea trade between the Baltic and Amsterdam. In 1567, he found himself at the zenith of his career. Apart from a commercial exchange with Danzig, in which his father played the key role, Loufsz managed to expand his trade activities to Lisbon. His address in Warmoesstraat, the élite Amsterdam quarter, reveals that he was one of the wealthiest merchants. The ongoing war of independence, however, brought a fundamental change to the lives of the inhabitants of Amsterdam, including Cornelis Loufsz. As a Protestant, perhaps 54 H. Jordánková and L. Sulitková, ‘Italové a Španělé v předbělohorském Brně’, in Borovský, T. and L. Jan and M. Wihoda (eds), Ad vitam et honorem – profesoru Jaroslavu Mezníkovi přátelé a žáci k pětasedmdesátým narozeninám (Brno 2003), pp. 727. 55 Netherlands and Belgium taken together. See H. Penners–Ellwart (ed.), Die Danziger Bürgerschaft nach Beruf, Herkunft und Volkszugehörigkeit 1539–1709 (Marburg/Lahn 1954), table I in appendix.

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a Lutheran, he joined the anti-catholic opposition in the city and his house even served as the temporary residence of the leader of the Protestant nobility, Hendrik van Brederode. When attempts to seize political power in the city collapsed and the Catholic families resumed their position, Cornelis Loufsz was sentenced to the confiscation of his property and life-long exile in 1568. Like many emigrants from the Low Countries who settled in Prussian cities, Loufsz took advantage of his family background, commercial contacts, as well as the favourable religious climate, and returned to Danzig, his native city. Loufsz’s family ties and the fact that he was probably still seen as a burgher of Danzig may have prompted the Hanseatic League’s protest against his persecution by the Amsterdam authorities. Having moved his company to Danzig, Loufsz revitalized his trade, now channelled to Emden, Rotterdam and Middelburg, rather than to Amsterdam. A radical change of policy in Amsterdam in 1578 made possible the return and political rehabilitation of many exiled Protestants. Unlike the Hooft merchant family and other Amsterdam emigrants who considered Prussia a place of temporary asylum, Cornelis Loufsz decided to stay in Danzig. The story of the rich Amsterdam merchant who opted for Danzig as his residence and the headquarters of his company illustrates the cultural, religious and commercial attractiveness of the Prussian milieu for Dutch immigrants. In addition, Loufsz’s decision to remain in Danzig suggests that the affluent Baltic city offered economic potential and commercial opportunities that were comparable to those available in Amsterdam, despite Danzig’s more peripheral location. A belief that in the matter of international trade, Danzig was seen as an acceptable alternative for Amsterdam may be one of the major reasons behind Loufsz’s behaviour.56 Another group of Dutchmen, however, merely considered the Baltic area as simply a market territory to be visited for business purposes, not a place to settle. Usually, the principal goal of a temporary stay was to establish personal contacts, create commercial networks and become familiar with East-Central European business environment. Activities undertaken by another Dutch merchant, Hans Thijs (1556–1611), typified this pattern of trade governance. In a way, the case of Thijs was somewhat peculiar as in Poland he traded different kinds of wares whose very nature required using differing commercial strategies. Based in Elbing and Danzig between 1585 and 1595, Thijs and his father-in-law Augustijn Boel bought leather to be exported to Germany and the Low Countries. While most leather was purchased in Danzig from local merchants and guilds, the rest came from other Prussian markets, namely Thorn and Königsberg. Along with the leather trade, Thijs sold precious stones and jewelry on behalf of his father. As this business involved considerable travel around Poland in search of customers, he had to rely on commissionaries, his brother and his servant, to sell jewels in more remote outlets like Warsaw, Cracow or Königsberg. After his return to Amsterdam, Thijs, familiar enough with the markets of Central and East-Central Europe, started to create his own business network embracing agents in many European countries. While in 1595 his commercial 56 M. van Tielhof, ‘Handel en politiek in de 16e eeuw: een Amsterdamse Oostzeehandelaar tijdens de eerste jaren van de Opstand’, Holland, regionaal-historisch tijdschrift, 29 (1997), pp. 37–52.

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interests were strongly represented especially in Poland (four agents) and Germany (four agents), the subsequent decade saw a marked recession in Thijs’ Polish leather trade and his commerce was channelled rather to France. Thus in 1605 he retained just one agent in the noble republic.57 A similar business strategy was pursued by English merchants, who comprised an important segment of immigration from the British Isles. Systematic and institutionalized support on behalf of English entrepreneurs was particularly strong in Elbing, which hosted the headquarters of the Eastland Company. Not only did the magistrates of Elbing agree with the broad commercial, legal and religious freedom of the English enclave, but they did not hesitate to seek diplomatic help from the English government against the hostility of the Danzig merchants. Repeated political interventions in favour of the Eastland Company by Elizabeth I and James I, diplomatic negotiations between the Polish king and English envoys extraordinary (James Sandiland in 1609 and Thomas Roe in 1629) and the protection by urban authorities, saved the leading role of Elbing in the Anglo–Polish commerce for half a century and made its port a hub of trade for English cloth and other commodities.58 As the cases of the Italians in pre-White Mountain Prague (before 1620) and that of the Scots or Armenians in Poland explicitly suggests, mere economics did not usually suffice for a merging with the local environment if religious, language or cultural frontiers between foreign enclaves and the domestic population persisted. The aversion of the former to complete acculturation often resulted in the long-term schizophrenic position of immigrants between full integration and social separation. The consequence of semi-integration was at least twofold. Firstly, confessional and cultural minorities tended to create closed communities within domestic urban societies. Secondly, foreigners might easily have become targets of public hostility whenever the city suffered from war, economic crisis or increased criminality. To demonstrate the former, the story of the Italian-speaking enclave in Prague, which created a half-separated colony mostly settled in the Little Town, might be instructive. Though respected as renowned architects, stoneworkers and successful merchants, the Italians, because of their Catholic faith and insistence on their language, were persistently viewed as strangers and their assimilation proved slower and more problematic than in the case of the incoming Germans. In Bohemia and Moravia, the question of language as an integrative factor was of particular relevance since the Czech tongue was acknowledged as the only official means of communication in land administration and countrywide political bodies.59 Also in many cities burghers were required to be proficient in the vernacular. A new dimension to language criterion was added by the Lutheran Reformation in Germany as it linked religious and national issues. Consider, for instance, the case in Pilsen. In his letter of 1526 addressed to Pilsen city council, the administrator of Prague’s archbishop, alarmed 57 O. Gelderblom, ‘The Antwerp diaspora and the rise of the Amsterdam Market: The case of Hans Thijs (1556–1611)’. I am indebted to the author for providing me the manuscript of his article. 58 See J.K. Fedorowicz, England’s Baltic trade in the early seventeenth century: A study in Anglo-Polish commercial diplomacy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1980). 59 Archiv český, V, pp. 16, 456.

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at the quick spread of Lutheranism in Bohemia, demanded that only the Czech language be used in Church services. In an explanatory note, he further added that ‘The German nation is infected with the old ferment of heresy (...) and the Germans should learn Czech in order to prevent the full Germanization [= Lutheranization] of such a glorious Bohemian town’.60 One may only guess if the author was aware of the paradox inherent in his demand. After the Hussite revolution the word ‘heretical’ applied in Catholic Europe rather to the adjective ‘Bohemian’. In this particular context, however, ‘the Bohemian town’ signified a Catholic religious environment as Pilsen was one of the few cities in Bohemia that remained loyal to Rome. It was the Germans now who were credited with heresy. As for Prague, applicants for citizenship were expected to have a good command of Czech as well, but this requirement was often a formality and a mere ability to understand the prescribed oath often sufficed. In other cases, the city council granted citizenship conditionally, providing that the applicant would learn Czech within a certain period of time.61 The use of the Czech language was also strongly encouraged in urban administrations. For example, during a session of the General Diet in 1611, the burgher estate raised the demand that only those speaking Czech should be entitled to apply for seats in city governments.62 Urban authorities stressed the priority of the vernacular over other languages, especially German, on many occasions. Though some national groups, such as the Germans or Italians, acquired the right to pursue religious services in their native languages, such a privilege did not have a universal character but was bestowed upon a particular chapel or Church. When the Little Town councillors granted official permission for German services in the Holy Trinity Church, they accented the exceptionality of such a step and added that the Czech language should remain dominant.63 The crucial role of the common language as the symbol of self-identification with the country and pillar of land patriotism was repeatedly stressed by contemporary writers as well as politicians. The humanist historian Václav Hájek of Libočany, for instance, expressly stated that it was the unity of language which made possible the pacification of armed conflicts between cities and the nobility in 1517 ‘as all speak common language they came to agreement in a good concord without strangers’. According to the author, previous negotiations failed mostly because of the presence of Polish and German missionaries.64 Apart from the reluctance of many Italians to learn Czech, their integration into mostly Protestant pre-White Mountain Prague was further obstructed by their close links with the Jesuits, who considered them natural allies in their effort to restore the Catholic Church in the Lands of the Bohemian Crown. In addition, among the first Jesuits settled in Prague, only a few had a good command of German or Czech while J. Strnad, M. Šimona Plachého z Třebnice Paměti Plzeňské (Plzeň 1888), pp. 93–94. Winter, Řemeslnictvo a živnosti, pp. 21, 25. 62 Sněmy české, XV/2, p. 532. 63 J. Teige, ‘Akta k dějinám národnostního boje v Praze’, Časopis společnosti přátel starožitností českých, X (1902), pp. 96. 64 J. Pešek and B. Zilynskyj, ‘Vztah k městům a problematika pražských dějin doby jagellonské v Kronice české Václava Hájka z Libočan’, Pražský sborník historický, XVI (1983), pp. 71–72. 60

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most of them spoke Italian.65 The persevering unwillingness of many resident Italians to conform to the domestic confessional milieu further amplified the gap between the Italian community and the majority of Prague’s population. All the Catholic services for Italians in the St. Kliment Church held by Jesuits, the foundation of Italian Chapel (vlašská kaple) in 1567–1569, the activities of the charitable Marian Congregation under the aegis of the Jesuits and finally the establishment of an Italian hospital (vlašský špitál) in 1601, constituted the most visible symbols of the confessional separatism of the Italian diaspora in Prague.66 Along with the foundation of their own institutions, the Italians were also inclined to create a rather closed settlement in one of Prague’s quarters. The existence of the relatively compact and well-to-do Italian colony substantially hindered the assimilation process, but on the other hand, it offered better protection against potential anti-Italian or anti-Catholic xenophobia. By 1600, the Little Town had become the locus of the Italian settlement and a place for commercial contacts between the Italians and the local population. In the majority of cases, commodities such as Italian wines, exotic fruits, cheese, but also fine textiles and weaponry were sold in the small shops clustered in the so-called Italian Street (Strada d’Italiani) and around the Italian market (Vlašský plac).67 However, despite its market potential and economic conjuncture in the Rudolphine era, Prague’s milieu offered only few conditions necessary for the full social integration of the mostly Catholic Italianspeaking immigrants. Compelled by circumstances, some Italians began to send their sons to Lutheran schools, though they themselves remained Catholics. Others preferred to stay in smaller towns with a more favourable religious climate. Of the cities in Bohemia, it was the mostly Catholic Pilsen that offered better assimilation prospects for the small Italian enclave embracing at least fifteen families in the second half of the 16th century.68 Incomplete integration also resulted in another social phenomenon, namely urban riots in times of crisis and violence directed against culturally or religiously alien enclaves. The first victims of social unrest were traditionally the Jews, but the hatred of town dwellers occasionally also turned against half-integrated foreign enclaves. War, epidemic or economic distress excited rumours, demagogic propaganda and latent antipathies against minorities which might have burst into furious rage and physical attacks. Two short-lived episodes from the 1570s testify to a dormant animosity towards the Catholic Italians living in Prague. In 1572, a procession of prisoners condemned to the galleys in the Mediterranean passed through the city. The armed Italian guards, however, were assailed by Prague’s poor and many prisoners were released from their chains. As the chronicler Václav Březan noted, ‘they murdered several Italians’.69 Following the event the rumours 65 G. Heiss, ‘Mezi ochranou a ohrožením: Italská a židovská obec v Praze a ve Vídni v 16. a 17. století ve zprávách jezuitů’, in Fejtová, O. and V. Ledvinka, V. and J. Pešek, and V. Vlnas (eds), Barokní Praha – barokní Čechie 1620–1640 (Praha 2004), pp. 179. 66 Janáček, ‘Italové v předbělohorské Praze’, pp. 81–82, 101–103 67 Janáček, ‘Italové v předbělohorské Praze’, pp. 88, 103. 68 M. Bělohlávek, Dějiny Plzně I (Plzeň 1965), p. 147. 69 V. Březan, Životy posledních Rožmberků I, ed. J. Pánek (Praha 1985), p. 238.

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spread charging Italians with the invention of such an inhuman and cruel treatment of the Christians. Three years later Prague’s representatives voiced their grievances in the Diet concerning the arrogant and violent conduct of the Italians. The emperor apparently did not turn a blind eye to their complaint as he ordered a list to be made of Italians and other strangers staying in Prague with the remark that all jobless foreigners immediately had to leave the city.70 A potentially fatal event for the Italian community in Prague, however, might have been the siege of Prague by mercenary troops of the bishop of Passau in 1611. As Catholics, Italian colonists were charged with actively assisting this military aggression which aimed at paralyzing the Protestant opposition in Bohemia and supporting Rudolph II against his brother Matthias. Though the involvement of the Italians in this affair proved far from certain, sources classified their behaviour as a violation of the sacred solidarity with the city and the burgher community. Indeed, anti-Italian xenophobia was a sign of the aversion against aggressive Catholicism rather than a dispute caused by rational motives.71 During the anti-Habsburg uprising, the causal nexus between the subversive conduct of the Italians and the political disunity of Bohemian cities was stressed by Protestant propaganda. For example, in a pamphlet printed after the conquest of the Catholic city of Pilsen, the raped virgin (Pilsen) is lamenting her wretched lot and branding the Italians and Jesuits as the main culprits.72 An almost complete absence of publicly expressed hostility against the Italians in Poland–Lithuania provides us with good evidence about their more profound integration and acculturation in the noble commonwealth, as compared to 16th century Bohemia. Having examined early modern Polish narrative sources, Wojciech Tygielski identified a comparatively positive image of the Italian as a learned, gifted, successful and rich, but often crafty and acquisitive man.73 Indeed, this topos of an Italian appeared in many literary works including poems by the greatest Polish humanist author Mikołaj Rej of Nagłovice.74 If early modern Polish literature rendered practically no negative judgments referring to Italian immigration than the Lament Korony Polskiej (The Lamentation of the Polish Crown), the tract penned in 1650s by Gabriel Krasiński was arguably the single text that might be considered consistently critical. Being a dialogue between two fictitious figures, Terrygena, a native Pole, and Peregrynus, a stranger, Krasiński’s tract aimed at disclosing the mercenary motives beyond the massive population flows from Italian-speaking territories to Poland–Lithuania. In Terrygena’s words, it was the economic misery of their country and complete destitution that forced the Italians to seek asylum in the affluent, prosperous and hospitable noble republic. Having integrated themselves into domestic society, made successful careers and dazzling fortunes, they afterwards Janáček, ‘Italové v předbělohorské Praze’, pp. 100–101. Janáček, ‘Italové v předbělohorské Praze’, pp. 107–109. 72 Naříkání taužebné zpronewěřilého města Plzně, kteréž činí nad swým pádem, když Léta 1618. 21. dne Měsýce Listopadu od Pánůw Stawůw Králowstwí Czeského, Náboženstwí pod obojí, skrze Pana Arnossta Hrabě z Mansffeldu, po obležený dewýti Téhodnůw brannau rukau dobyto bylo. W způsob písně složená (1619), unpaginated. 73 Tygielski, Włosi w Polsce, pp. 555–565. 74 M. Rej z Nagłowic, Źwierciadło albo kstałt, w którym kaźdy stan snadnie sie moźe swym sprawam, jako we źwierciedle, przypatrzyć (Kraków 1914), p. 319. 70 71

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returned with their property to the Italian peninsula. The Polish environment here stood as a victim of merciless exploitation and moral depravity. Half-hearted in faith and undisciplined in manners the Italians caused both moral damage and material loss as they exported the financial resources they gained in Poland.75 Even Krasiński’s antiItalian pamphlet, however, pointed out the ease with which immigrants from Italianspeaking territories integrated themselves into Polish society. It is probable that the criticism was above all motivated by the scope of Italian immigration and the tract was designed as a warning against the potentially fatal cultural, social and economic consequences of an unchecked influx of foreigners. The topos of an unscrupulous and insatiable stranger coveting power and material goods at the expense of domestic society was far from unusual in contemporary European literature and one would certainly find dozens parallel examples. In the social environment of Poland-Lithunia public xenophobia was directed against other national and confessional minorities. Of these it was the Scots, other than the Jews, who formed the most numerous and controversial unassimilated enclave. In a way, Scottish immigrants in Polish cities found themselves in the same precarious situation as the Italians in pre-White Mountain Prague. Occasionally, as in Cracow during the Polish-Swedish war (1655–1662), Scots were met with open hostility. In this particular case, the ‘heretical’ Scots were denounced for collaboration with the Swedish occupiers and the Scottish community consequently found itself subject to public animosity. Several Scottish merchants saw their property confiscated, while others were forced to provide financial loans to the king.76 The above-cited examples imply that ethnic conflicts in early modern cities were increasingly intertwined with religious issues. This suggests the existence of the double frontier within urban societies, namely the gap between ‘domestic inhabitants’ and ‘foreign immigrants’ as well as between ‘major’ and ‘minor’ confessions. The ethnic and religious perceptions of nationality were also demonstrated by the close association of some national groups with certain confession. In the mostly Catholic Polish heartland, for instance, Scottish immigrants were classified as Calvinists, while in Moravian Brno, during religious unrest in the 1590s, the Calvinist confession was rather identified with Dutch immigration.77 Similarly, in Prague the terms ‘German’ and ‘Lutheran’ were often treated as synonyms.78 An awareness of the latent tension between the domestic population and immigrants as well as the need to regulate relations among different national and confessional groups was also reflected in the policy of state and municipal authorities. By attempting to curb rising criminality and eliminate conflicts between local inhabitants and Italian immigrants, in 1575 the Bohemian Diet issued an ordinance whereby unemployed Italians were ordered to leave the country. An imperial decree 75 G. Krasiński, Taniec Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej, ed. M. Korolko (Warszawa 1996), pp. 120–133. 76 Bieniarzówna and Małecki, Dzieje Krakowa, II, p. 388; K. Friedrich, ‘Nationale Identität und Pluralität in Krakau und Prag im 16. Jahrhundert’, GWZO – Berichte und Beiträge (1999), pp. 60–79. 77 J. Válka, Morava reformace, renesance a baroka (Brno 1995), p. 55. 78 Friedrich, ‘Nationale Identität und Pluralität’, pp. 68–69.

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from 1601 ordered the building of gallows in three Prague markets as a warning to the Italians and other foreigners inclined to commit crimes.79 A different strategy, aiming to avoid an escalation of national and confessional discord, was adopted in 1613 by the Little Town council. In its manifesto, no one was allowed to use the expressions ‘Bohemian’, ‘German’ or ‘Italian’ in a shameful and offensive way, since the Christian love and solidarity of the burghers should not be obstructed by internal discords.80 Urban Jews: Between (Self) Separation and Limited Integration The judicial records of the Moravian Landrecht register show a rather ludicrous discord from 1575, during which both protagonists, the Olomouc burgher Anna Fischer and the pauperized nobleman Rafael Pruský of Prusy, alarmed municipal magistrates and the law court of the land and mobilized a great number of witnesses. Though penniless, such nobles used to accent their social supremacy over town dwellers but their etiquette and vocabulary remained plebeian. Like many petty nobles without their own domicile, Rafael Pruský occupied a small and austere room in a house belonging to a local burgher. One day, discontent with the quality and quantity of food served by Anna Fischer, he lamented that soup, baked eggs, plums and five pieces of baked fish was a poor lunch for him and his hungry companions. According to Rafael’s testimony, the drunken Anna hurt his honour by calling him ‘a fucking Jew’. The judicial records show that Rafael reacted swiftly and called Anna ‘a liar’ and ‘a fucking bitch’. As a consequence, both stubborn opponents charged each other with libel and moved the zemský soud, the highest Law Court in Moravia, to consider their case.81 The dispute between Anna and Rafael confirms that in early modern society the word ‘Jew’ had a negative connotation derived from a stereotypical image of Jewish culture, religion and lifestyle as antagonistic to a Christian one. On the other hand, the generally unfavourable stance of the Christian world towards the Jews can hardly be considered, in a modern sense, anti-semitic as in most cases anti-Jewish sentiments lacked any racial motivation. There is rich source material which implies that East-Central European society basically shared the same spectrum of prejudices against Jewry as the Gentile population in the West. Usually Jews were charged with usury, dubious financial speculations, lust for wealth, ritual murders and all kinds of devilish practices against Christians. Compare two texts originating in geographically distant areas of Europe and different cultural environments. In his play The Famous Tragedy of the Rich Jew of Malta Christopher Marlowe depicted the main figure, in line with popular demand, as an unscrupulous financier and usurer, murderer and poisoner plotting against the Christians on behalf of the Turk and who eventually did not escape his just punishment. The same list of Jewish misdeeds and moral offences Winter, Řemeslnictvo a živnosti, pp. 21–22. Teige, ‘Akta k dějinám národnostního boje’, p. 96. 81 J. Miller (ed.), Konfliktní soužití: Královské město – šlechta – duchovenstvo v raném novověku. Knihy půhonné a nálezové královského města Olomouce (1516–1616), (Olomouc 1998), pp. 230–231, record no. 24. 79

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can be found in a private letter written in 1577 by the Prague burgher Jan Folk. The author drew particular attention to baneful financial and economic activities carried on by the Jews which probably most irritated people like Folk, urban merchants and craftsmen. Besides his complaints against counterfeiting money, usury and Jewish trade and craft competition, Folk accused the Jews of sacrilege, espionage on behalf of the Turks, burglaries, blasphemy and idleness.82 Convinced of ill-affected behaviour of Jewry to Christians, Folk clamoured for the expulsion of Jews from the country. According to him, ‘we should follow the example of other countries, nations and cities (...) that are well aware that the Jewish nation is reserved and perfidious and brings misfortune to Christians (...). No wonder that the Jews were ejected from France, Spain, England and major imperial cities’.83 The universal understandability and compatibility of anti-Jewish arguments substantially facilitated the distribution of printed pamphlets and tracts across Europe. Consider two infamous texts printed in Germany, Flagellum Judeorum and Speculum Judeorum, which were soon translated and published in several other languages, including Czech.84 Nevertheless, among the most influential sources of anti-Jewish popular feelings, the pulpit and the literature of whatever kind occupied a prominent place. If the former is considered, it was especially the agitation of vagrant priests, above all the Franciscans, that incited the antipathy of Gentile society against the Jews. Criticism of Jewish economic activities was a central theme of public speeches delivered in Italian cities by Bernardin of Siena, but the anti-Jewish campaign climaxed in sermons made by his younger confrère John Capistrano (1386–1456).85 Like Bernardin, he was active in Italy, but he also disseminated hostility towards the Jews in Germany and the Bohemian lands as well as Poland. In Silesia, his activities had a particularly tragic outcome as he was partially responsible for the expulsion of Jews from many Silesian towns including Breslau. In the early 1450s, he also took an active part in the trial of Breslau Jews who were charged with ritual murder and the desecration of wafer bread. Many of them were anguished and eventually publicly burnt at the stake.86 Many sources provide ample evidence about subsequent J. Folk, ‘Přípis psaní Hans Folka, kupce a měštěnína Starého města Pražského, kdež slove u Vlčíhrdlu k urozenému vladyce panu Pavlu Grymüllerovi z Střebska, nejvyššímu prubíři zemskému království Českého o židovském neřádném pokolení’, in Bondy, B. and F. Dvorský (eds), K historii Židů v Čechách, na Moravě a v Slezsku II (Praha 1906), pp. 547–563. 83 Folk, ‘Přípis psaní Hans Folka’, p. 553. 84 E.F. Hess, Flagellum Iudaeorum – Bič židovský (Praha 1603); E.F. Hess, Speculum Iudaeorum, To jest Zrcadlo židovské (Praha 1604). 85 On the Franciscans and their anti-Jewish agitation see H.H. Ben–Sasson, H.H. (ed.), Geschichte des jüdisches Volkes II (München 1979), pp. 235–237. 86 Capistrano is often labelled by historians as the chief initiator of the trial with Jews in Breslau. This view perhaps originated in the chronicle by Peter Eschenloer (?–1481) who was not, however, an eyewitness to the event as he came to the city several months later. Furthermore, Capistrano’s biographer Johannes Hofer convincingly proved that the trial began without Capistrano, who at that time was staying in the residence of the Breslau bishops in Neisse. Yet, as a jurist and inquisitor, he was called to Breslau shortly afterwards. See P. Eschenloer, Geschichte der Stadt Breslau I, ed. G. Roth (Münster – New York – München 82

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pogroms in Schweidnitz, Jauer, Striegau, Liegnitz and Glogau.87 Jew-hunting in Silesia and Capistrano’s frenzy apparently also activated anti-Jewish sentiments in adjacent regions and shortly afterwards the Jewish communities had to leave many Bohemian and Moravian cities. One also reads that Christian inhabitants of Skalice (Bohemia), radicalized by the massacres in Silesia, robbed their Jewish neighbours, set their houses on fire and plundered the Jewish cemetery.88 In the Reformation age, however, anti-Jewish attacks were rather carried by Protestant theologians. Luther himself, despite his initially sympathetic attitude expressed in his famous tract Jesus Christus ein geborener Jude sei (Jesus Christ is the born Jew), later radically changed his stance and turned into one of the most bellicose opponents of Jewry.89 In an extreme way, Luther aired his xenophobia in his plan from the early 1540s, which advocated large-scale Jewish pogroms and de facto suggested the annihilation of Jewish civilization in the whole of Central Europe. Above all, Luther voiced his anti-Jewish sentiments in the essay Von Juden und ihren Lügen (On Jews and their Lies) in which he recommended the public persecution of Jews, the destruction of their houses, the eradication of synagogues and Jewish schools and the proscription of Jewish trade and usury.90 Though such an uncompromising view was not shared by all Lutheran theologians, some, like Andreas Osiander or Martin Bucer, basically followed Luther’s ideas.91 In terms of anti-Jewish sentiments in humanist literary output, there was little difference between printed pamphlets and contemporary scholarly works. In fact most writers, from Jan Dlugosz and Václav Hájek of Libočany to Krzystof Opaliński, expressed open or latent animosity towards the Jews.92 Though the coexistence of the Jewish minority and Christian majority was marked by persistent social, religious and economic tensions, the mutual distrust rarely turned into open violence. It was during periods of distress, usually caused by epidemics, bad harvests, natural catastrophes or military setbacks, when the latent conflict tended to escalate. In the Bohemian lands, the social xenophobia against the Jews climaxed during the Ottoman military campaign of 1541 that, after the capture of the Hungarian capital, provoked public hysteria. Two arguments justified the subsequent expulsion of the Jews from Bohemia, namely Jewish espionage

– Berlin 2003), pp. 168–169; J. Hofer, Johannes Kapistran. Ein Leben im Kampf um die Reform der Kirche I (Heidelberg 1964), pp. 209–221; Ben–Sasson, Geschichte des jüdisches Volkes, II, p. 237. 87 See F. Wachter (ed.), Geschichtschreiber Schlesiens des XV. Jahrhundrets (Breslau 1883), p. 64; H. Markgraf (ed.), Annales glogoviensis bis z. J. 1493 (Breslau 1877), p. 41. 88 Bondy and Dvorský (eds), K historii Židů, p. 902, record no. 1157. 89 M. Luther, Sämtliche Schriften – Wider die Sacramentirer und andere Schwärmer, sowie auch wider die Juden und Türken, 20 (2) (St. Louis 1890), pp. 1792–1821. 90 Luther, Sämtliche Schriften – Wider die Sacramentirer, pp. 1860–2029. 91 Ben–Sasson, Geschichte des jüdisches Volkes, II, pp. 320–323; M. Breuer and M. Graetz (eds), Deutsch–jüdische Geschichte in der Neuzeit I (München 1996), pp. 72–74. 92 Z.V. David, ‘Židé v kronice české Václava Hájka z Libočan’, Folia Historica Bohemica, 16 (1993), pp. 53–69; Pešek and Zilynskyj, ‘Vztah k městům’, p. 67. On the image of the Jew in early modern Polish literature Tazbir, ‘Das Judenbild’, pp. 29–56.

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on behalf of the Ottomans and the illegal export of silver by Jewish merchants.93 Similarly, in the mid-17th century, Polish Jews were suspected of an anti-state plot on behalf of the Swedes and they were blamed for the miseries of Poland.94 Even the heroism of Jewish town dwellers during the siege of Lwów by the Cossacks in the mid 17th century or during the defence of Prague against Swedish troops (1648) could not overcome the inborn distrust of the majority of society.95 There is a prevailing consensus among experts on Christian-Jewish relations that anti-Jewish sentiments were most openly aired in urban environments. Books and pamphlets identified in private burgher libraries reveal that overall the early modern urban market was highly receptive to the topos of the Jew as a wanton, merciless and greedy figure living off the Christians. For instance, in 16th and early 17th century Prague and Olomouc property inventories one finds copies of Luther’s xenophobic tract Von Juden und ihren Lügen, aggressively anti-Jewish pamphlets by the converted Jew Johann Pfefferkorn as well as the tracts Flagellum Judaeorum and Speculum Judaeorum that were, because of their popularity, published twice in two consecutive years, 1603 and 1604.96 Cohorts of historians, from the pioneers of East-Central European Jewish studies, M. Schorr, M. Balaban, I. Schipper and S.H. Dubnow to M. Horn, J. Goldberg, M. Bogucka or T. Pěkný, agree that it was mainly economic competition, religious bias and Jewish financial activities that were at the bottom of discrimination by Gentile urban society.97 Relevant findings in this respect have been made by Polish scholars who recognized a direct connection between the steady decline of Polish urban economies after 1500 and the dramatic rise of antiJewish hostility in early modern Polish cities.98 Though the Jews had to cope with virulence and aversion on the part of the Christians, there was a massive influx of them to East-Central Europe and in the early modern age the region became the locus of Jewish civilization for centuries to come. This raises the question about the Jewish urban experience in Poland, Hungary and the Bohemian lands. Given the omnipresence of anti-Jewish sentiment in Christian urban societies, one wonders what the nature of the integrative mechanisms were that secured the unprecedented growth of the Jewish population in many EastCentral European cities, towns and market places during the early modern age. To explain such a paradox, historians usually highlight the successful survival strategies of the Jews as well as the importance of political and socioeconomic variables. Attention is mainly drawn to financial links between the Jews and the state and aristocracy, the level of Jewish autonomy, Jewish lobbying techniques or

Bondy and Dvorský, K historii Židů, p. 318, record no. 458. Tazbir, ‘Das Judenbild’, p. 51. 95 M. Horn, Powinności wojenne Źydów w Rzeczypospolitej w XVI i XVII w. (Warszawa 1978), p. 84. 96 L. Prudková, ‘Recepce judaik v měšťanském prostředí na pozadí předbělohorské tiskařské produkce’, Miscellanea Oddělení rukopisů a starých tisků, 15 (1998), pp. 170–172. 97 See S.H. Dubnow, History of the Jews in Russia and Poland 1–3 (New York: Jewish Publication Society of America 1975); S.H. Dubnow, Nationalism and History: Essays on Old and New Judaism, ed. K. S. Pinson, (Philadelphia: Meridian Books 1961) 98 Tazbir, ‘Das Judenbild’, pp. 36–37. 93 94

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the ability of the Jews to capitalize on opposite interests in host societies.99 In this light, the (anti-)Jewish legislation and multifaceted discrimination of Jews may be perceived in various ways. The Jewish ghetto, a traditional symbol of segregation and social and religious bias, was equally a place of safety and protection as well as an expression of the deliberate self-isolation of the Jewish enclave from the external Gentile world. Similarly, the expulsions of Jews from cities may be viewed as a triumph of xenophobia in urban societies, but also as a protective strategy of rulers aiming to spare the lives of their Jews in times of increasing anti-Jewish animosity. This was likely the case of the eviction of the Cracow Jews by the Polish King Jan Olbracht in 1495, which was preceded by attacks against the Jewish community by Christian town dwellers. Yet the Cracow Jews gained permission to settle in Kazimierz, located in the immediate vicinity of the city. This made it possible for Jews to further benefit from Cracow’s economic potential while securing them against sudden fits of hostility from their Christian neighbours.100 The story of the Cracow Jews may well illustrate that in East-Central Europe the forces of repulsion and social segregation were often opposed by perhaps less apparent but significant factors making the limited integration of Jews into Christian society feasible and their coexistence with the local population possible. To delineate the contours of Christian–Jewish relations in the East-Central European urban environment, this chapter debates four interrelated issues from a comparative perspective: Firstly, the mobility of Jews and the chronic precariousness of Jewish life. Secondly, the immediate link between the level of urban autonomy and pressures calling for the eviction of Jewish communities. Thirdly the outflow of Jews from royal free cities and their concentration in private towns and feudal domains. Fourthly, the high degree of administrative and economic autonomy of the Jewish communities and its relation to municipal institutions. The Mobility of the Jews and (Dis)Continuity of Jewish Settlement During the early modern period, Jewish communities in Europe spent a considerable amount of time on the move. By the end of the 15th century, a numerous Jewish diaspora was expelled from the Iberian Peninsula, in France there were no large Jewish enclaves and in England Jews received official permission to settle in the country as late as 1656. In the politically fragmented territory of the Holy Roman Empire the presence or absence of Jews much depended on the benevolence of feudal lords or city councils. While in 1498 the Jews were expelled from Nuremberg, by the mid-16th century there were officially no Jewish communities in Augsburg, Colmar, Köln, Heilbronn, Lindau, Nördlingen, Ravensburg, Regensburg, Rothenburg, Strasbourg or Ulm. In 1562, Münster drove out its Jews and was later followed 99 See B.D. Weinryb, The Jews of Poland (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America 1973), pp. 160–165; G.D. Hundert, ‘Jews, Money and Society in the 17th century Polish Commonwealth: The Case of Kraków’, Jewish Social Studies, 43 (1981), pp. 269. 100 M. Bałaban, Dzieje Źydów w Krakowie i Kazimierzu (1304–1868) (Kraków 1912), pp. 50–51; B. Wyrozumska, ‘Did King Jan Olbracht Banish the Jews from Kraków?’, in Paluch, A.K. (ed.), The Jews in Poland I (Kraków 1992), pp. 27–37.

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by Dortmund and Aachen. By 1600, only several large cities in Germany, namely Hamburg, Frankfurt am Main and Worms, hosted sizeable Jewish colonies.101 Following anti-Jewish policies in the large part of the continent, many Jews headed to Northern and Eastern Europe where they hoped to find a tolerant religious climate and more stable living conditions. Nevertheless, the mobility of Jews within East-Central Europe was also considerable since their social status in Hungary, Bohemia and Poland was far from fixed. The vicissitudes of their life are well illustrated by forced population shifts between the two largest East-Central European Jewish settlements – Prague and Kazimierz. After its relocation from Cracow to Kazimierz in 1495, the Jewish ghetto saw a steady demographic increase due to several waves of Jewish immigrants expelled in 1508 and 1541 from Prague.102 Yet after the death of Ferdinand I, under whom the Jewish settlement in Bohemia dwindled, the social status of Prague’s Jewry visibly improved. Maximilian II and Rudolph II supported the economic activities of Jews and they proved less reluctant to confirm the legal and administrative autonomy of Bohemian Jewish communities. The vicissitudes of the life of Bohemian Jews during the first two Habsburg rulers were also reflected in contemporary sources. In a report comparing Ferdinand’s and Maximilian’s attitudes towards Jews one reads that ‘The emperor Ferdinand I wished to expel all the Jews living in Bohemia (...). Maximilian and his wife were merciful rulers who sheltered the Jews under the wing of their Grace and the Jews served them with true joy (...).’103 The bettered position of Prague’s Jews was symbolically manifested by Maximilian’s unprecedented visit to the Jewish ghetto, though this gesture of mercy was motivated by the financial needs of the royal treasury rather than by emperor’s warm sympathies with the Jews.104 Due to the lenient attitude of the Habsburg rulers towards Jews, the Prague ghetto quickly overshadowed other Jewish centres in East-Central Europe and the continual influx of new inhabitants even led to its territory being expanded to neighbouring Libeň. In the mid-17th century, the Chmielnicky uprising forced a large Jewish exodus back from Kazimierz and the whole of Poland to the Bohemian lands. This is why after 1650, Prague’s Jewish Town as well as other Bohemian and Moravian ghettos were flooded with Jewish refugees from the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and later also by Jews coming from Vienna.105 To analyze the precarious nature of Jewish settlement in early modern EastCentral Europe, it would perhaps be logical to begin in Hungary, where the medieval Jewish civilization after the battle of Mohács (1526) almost crumbled. In the chaotic period following the Ottoman triumph, the traditional mechanisms that protected the 101 F. Rattenberg, Das Europäische Zeitalter der Juden I (Darmstadt 2000), pp. 249–253; C.R. Friedrichs, The Early Modern City 1450–1750 (London – New York: Longman 1995), pp. 240–242. 102 Bieniarzówna and Małecki, Dzieje Krakowa, 2, pp. 150–151; V. Ledvinka and J. Pešek, Praha (Praha 2000), p. 336; J. Goldberg, ‘Metropolen und Zentren der Judenschaft in Polen’, in Engel, E. and K. Lambrecht and H. Nogossek (eds), Metropolen im Wandel (Berlin 1995), p. 138. 103 Bondy and Dvorský, K historii Židů, pp. 993–994. 104 Dějiny Prahy, I, p. 306. 105 T. Pěkný, Historie Židů v Čechách a na Moravě (Praha 2001), pp. 644–645.

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Hungarian Jews were either weakened or ceased to exist. In particular, this applied to the central power, which underwent a deep crisis after the martyr-like death of Louis II on the battlefield, and during the conflict between Ferdinand I and John Szapolyai over the Hungarian throne. The influential office of the Jewish prefect (princeps Judaeorum), who looked after the rights of Jewish community in Hungary, survived only a couple of years after the Mohács catastrophe and its authority markedly declined.106 Having lost political protection and juridical support, the Hungarian Jews found themselves subject to severe attacks from the urban population. From the post-Mohács period, there is abundant evidence of openly expressed hostility towards the Jewish communities in major Hungarian towns, particularly in Sopron, Nagyszombat, Pozsony, Bazin and Szenc. By taking advantage of the debilitated royal power, the citizenry of these towns resorted to a series of anti-Jewish measures, from supplications to Louis II’s widow and Ferdinand I to acts of physical violence, with the objective of driving the Jews out of urban territory. The nature of the anti-Jewish strategy is particularly well-documented in the case of Sopron where a strong Jewish enclave, about 350 people according to city authorities, resided before Mohács.107 The grievances from September 1526 explained that the whole city fell into misery and debts because of the mischievous conduct of Jewish moneylenders arbitrarily raising interest rates and falsifying financial records in their own favour. Moreover, the Jews were held responsible for depriving Christians of their daily bread by usurping urban trade and all profitable commercial activities.108 Two years later, in their new supplication to Ferdinand I, the Sopron councillors vindicated the ejection of Jews from the city by appealing to the social inevitability of such a step. The core of their argument was twofold. They stressed the personal tragedies of many Sopron burghers who, unable to repay their debts, were forced to sell their homes and give up their property. No doubt the urban fathers largely dramatized the issue, but for example the Geschäftsbuch (Business register) of the Sopron merchant Paul Moritz from 1520s shows his indebtedness, though at a relatively low level, to the local Jewry. At the same time, Moritz’s records provide evidence that many Jewish merchants sustained their business contacts with the Sopron citizenry even after their expulsion from the town.109 Apart from referring to the catastrophic financial situation of the Sopron burghers, magistrates raised yet another and equally classic argument which testified to their anxiety about the legal and social integrity of urban society. They underlined the morally corrupt conduct of Jews who, while not working and not sharing communal duties, parasited on the rest of the community.110 A similar scenario occurred in other Hungarian cities and in some the ejection of the Jews acquired a truly violent form. In Bazin, the removal of the Jewish 106 R. Patai, The Jews of Hungary (Detroit: Wayne State University Press 1996), pp. 85–107. 107 Monumenta Hungariae Judaica (hereafter MHJ), V/1, p. 393. 108 MHJ, I, pp. 160–164. 109 K. Mollay (ed.), Das Geschäftsbuch des Krämers Paul Moritz (Sopron 1994), pp. 37–78. 110 MHJ, V/1, pp. 392–399.

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community was preceded with a pogrom during which several dozen Jews were burnt at the stake.111 In all cases, the immediate motives for expulsion were the same – the commercial competition by the Jews and the financial dependence of many citizens on Jewish loans. Since the burghers owed considerable sums of money to local Jews, they were inclined to expel their creditors rather than repay their debts. Moreover, as the register of immobile Jewish property in Pozsony suggests, the precarious situation of the Jews was largely utilized by the local burghers who seized their chance to cheaply purchase Jewish houses.112 Thus within a decade after Mohács, Jews were ejected from many major Hungarian cities and forced to move to other East-Central European urban centres, including Kismárton, Vienna and Cracow. It is likely that some Jews also settled in private towns owned by Hungarian magnates, but since no systematic research has been done yet, our knowledge of Jewish life in post-Mohács Hungary still remains largely incomplete. There is evidence of the vestigial presence of Jews in small towns in Nyitra county (Galgocz, Nyitra) and several Jewish families might also have lived in Eperjes, but it seems that no significant rise in the numbers of Jews in Hungary began before the mid-17th century, when towns situated in the Western provinces of the country (Trencsén, Nyitra, Pozsony) became magnets for Jewish immigration from Vienna and Moravia.113 At the same time, the horrors of the Chmielnicki uprising in Poland and the Swedish Deluge forced many Polish Jews to seek asylum in Eastern and Northern Hungary.114 The registers of at least three Northern counties, Turóc, Liptó and Árva, testify to the presence of Jews as late as the second half of the 17th century.115 After 1526, the Jewish settlement in the Hungarian capital came to an abrupt end as well. A historian investigating the history of Hungarian Jewry must be rather puzzled by the often contradictory reports on what happened to the Buda Jews in 1526. According to the Swiss humanist Johann Kessler, the Ottomans, once they seized the city, massacred all the Jews except twenty.116 A contrary depiction, however, was offered by the Jewish historian Joseph Hakohen, who stressed the Sultan’s mercy towards the timid Jewish settlement in the Hungarian capital.117 Still another interpretation of the episode was provided by contemporary news reports that confirmed the violent death of 3,500 Jews but only as a tragic consequence of their collective refusal to be removed from Buda and settled in Ottoman-controlled cities.118

J. Mlynárik, Dějiny Židů na Slovensku (Praha 2005), p. 22. MHJ, VIII, pp. 155–156. 113 W.O. McCagg, A History of Habsburg Jews, 1670–1918 (Bloomington/Indianapolis: Indiana University Press 1989), p. 11. 114 R. Büchler and G. Fatranová and S. Mičev, S., Slovenskí židia, (Banská Bystrica 1991), pp. 6–7; I. Sedlák, Dejiny Prešova I (Košice 1965), p. 172. 115 Štátny oblastný archiv Bytča, Archiv Turčianskej župy, Archiv Liptovskej župy, archiv Oravskej župy. 116 MHJ, XII, p. 70. 117 Patai, The Jews of Hungary, p. 162. 118 Newe Zeyttung wie es mit der Schlacht zwüschen dem Künig von Ungern und dem Türckischen Keyser ergangen...Item: Wie der Türck die Statt Ofen erobert unnd wie Graff Christoffell Kriechisch Weyssenburg ingenomen hat, (1526). 111

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Yet despite the strikingly different interpretations, most contemporary sources, including a narrative by the Turkish historian Ferdi Efendi, referred to the Turkish plan to transfer the Jewish community from Buda to Ottoman territory.119 This seems to imply that after the initial violence committed by Turkish soldiers, most Jews were sent to Istanbul, Edirne and other towns in the Ottoman Empire. Nevertheless, the consolidation of Ottoman rule in Hungary after 1541 brought a gradual revival of the Jewish enclave in Buda. According to fiscal registers covering non-Christian inhabitants of the city, there were 50 Jewish taxpayers in 1546 and more than 100 in 1590.120 In a way, the story of the Jewish civilization in the city nicely demonstrates the better living conditions of the Jews in Turkish-occupied areas vis-à-vis Habsburg Hungary. Though Jews and other non-Muslim communities living in the Ottoman Empire remained second-class inhabitants, they enjoyed state protection and secure social status as well as a high level of internal religious and administrative autonomy. This was arguably the chief motivation behind the active participation of the Buda Jews in the defence of the city in 1686. Jacob Richards, eyewitnessing the final siege of Buda by Christian armies, provides a rough estimate of the city’s population: ‘(...) garrison is not halfe soe strong as when the Christians laid siege to it in the year 1646 when it consisted of 15,000 men, and now not above 7,000, Vizt 3,000 Janizaries, 1,000 Horse, 1,000 Jewes, and about 2,000 inhabitants’.121 Once the city was captured, the fate of its Jewish population followed a similar scenario to that of 1526. Many Jews were stabbed to death by plundering soldiers, while those who managed to survive were sent to Vienna, Pozsony or Mikulov in Moravia.122 Another description of the course of events by Johann Dietz, the field barber in the Brandenburg army, states that many rich Buda Jews were escorted to Berlin, where some of them converted to the Christian faith and even married.123 While Royal Hungary until the mid-17th century probably hosted no significant Jewish enclaves, Poland–Lithuania and some provinces of the Bohemian lands became the main destinations of the waves of Jewish migration. This, however, did not mean that the life of the Jews in these countries was marked with greater stability. Consider first the fate of the Silesian Jewry. Though Breslau drove the Jews out of its walls as early as 1453, until the mid-16th century Jewish merchants continued to play a considerable role in the commercial exchange between the city and Poland. The great fire of Prague in 1541 and the fall of Buda in the same year, however, instigated a wave of anti-Jewish sentiments. Seen as allies of the Ottomans, Jews were forbidden to enter Breslau and Jewish enclaves settled in other Silesian territories, such as those from the principalities of Oppeln and Ratibor, who had MHJ, XII, pp. 70–71. A. Gerő and J. Poór, J., Budapest: A History from its beginnings to 1998 (New York: Boulder 1997), p. 29. 121 J. Richards, A Journal of the Siege and Taking of Buda by the Imperial Army (London 1687), p. 7. 122 MHJ, V/1, p. 428; Patai, The Jews of Hungary, pp. 178–180. More details on the Christian reconquest of Buda in F. Szákaly, Hungaria eliberata – die Rückeroberung von Buda im Jahr 1686 und Ungarns Befreiung von der Osmanenherrschaft (1683–1718) (Budapest 1986), pp. 51–98. 123 MHJ, XIII, pp. 73–74. 119

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to leave the country.124 Though Charles of Liechtenstein’s project from the early 1620’s reckoned with the massive arrival of Hamburg-based Sephardic Jewry to the principality of Jägerndorf, the extensive re-immigration of Jews to Silesia was provoked only by the Chmielnicki uprising and the Swedish occupation of Poland in the mid-17th century.125 In particular, Polish Jews concentrated in Glogau and Zülz, but in the second half of the 17th century the increasing numbers of Jews were also allowed to settle in Breslau and its suburbs.126 In Bohemia proper, the religious antipathies of the Christian population and the sustained efforts of strong municipal guilds to rid themselves of economic competitors led between 1450 and 1550 to the removal of Jewish communities from many provincial royal free towns and the same fate was shared by Jews in Upper Lusatia.127 By the mid-16th century, therefore, the locus of the Jewish settlement was shifted to Prague, which gradually turned into an unrivalled centre of Jewish culture not only in the Bohemian lands but in the whole of Central Europe. By 1500, according to rough estimates, Prague’s Jews might have represented about one-third of all Jewish inhabitants settled in the country, but in terms of economic potential, the Jewish ghetto in Prague clearly dominated. Indirect evidence renders a register of Jewish creditors from 1497–1500, in which Prague’s Jews comprised more than 60 per cent of all records, followed by Kolín (10 per cent of all creditors) and Litoměřice (7 per cent).128 In the mid-16th century, Prague perhaps hosted about one thousand Jews out of the three thousand living in Bohemia.129 Several decades later, in the heyday of its glory as an imperial residence, the city hosted the most sizeable Jewish community in East-Central Europe, numbering perhaps 10,000 souls. Within the context of Central Europe, the exclusive status of Prague as a Jewish metropolis seems paradoxical given that the city was situated outside the territory with the highest concentration of Jews in Europe, Poland–Lithuania. This was the result of several factors, including the long tradition of a Jewish settlement in Prague, the centralizing policy of Prague’s Jewish community, as well as the comparatively sympathetic attitude of the Habsburg rulers after the mid-16th century. Moreover, the Jewish population in rzeczpospolita szlachecka was dispersed throughout hundreds of cities and residential towns belonging to Polish and Lithuanian magnates and no dominant Jewish centre comparable to Prague emerged. Apart from Prague, after 1550, the minor Jewish enclaves remained in Kolín and in numerous private towns (Mladá Boleslav, Roudnice and Labem, Teplice and others).130 Though Moravia experienced the forced exodus of Jews from royal 124 B. Brilling, Geschichte der Juden in Breslau von 1454–1702 (Stuttgart 1960), pp. 7–13. 125 A. Herzig, ‘Die Hamburger Sephardim und ihr Taktieren um Niederlassungsrechte im Fürstentum Jägerndorf im 17. Jahrhundert’, in Herzig, A., Beiträge zur Sozial- und Kulturgeschichte Schlesiens und der Grafschaft Glatz (Dortmund 1997), pp. 3–13. 126 Brilling, Geschichte der Juden, pp. 22–23, 57–73. 127 Stadtarchiv Bautzen (ed.), Von Budissin nach Bautzen (Bautzen 2002), p. 135. 128 Bondy and Dvorský, K historii Židů, I, pp. 173–180. 129 Pěkný, Historie Židů, p. 641. 130 Pěkný, Historie Židů, pp. 403–422. On the Jewish settlement in Teplice also K. Kocourková, ‘Židovská komunita v poddanském městě (z dějin města Teplic)’, in

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cities as well, numerous Jewish enclaves moved to private towns where they found a more favourable social climate. Unlike Bohemia, where Prague served as the hub of Jewish settlement, the Moravian Jews were disseminated throughout the entire territory of the province and many private towns and residential centres (Mikulov, Uherský Brod, Holešov, Kojetín, Prostějov, Lipník nad Bečvou, Boskovice) hosted densely populated ghettos or separate Jewish quarters.131 Oddly enough, the Thirty Years War (1618–1648) substantially contributed to the short-lived betterment of Jewish life in the Bohemian lands and to the expansion of the Jewish population. This was a consequence of several concurrent factors that, in their results, had a beneficial effect on the Jewish Bohemian and Moravian settlements. Because of the massive Protestant emigration, heavy population losses and economic damage caused by long-term warfare, the importance of Jews for the royal treasury and the early mercantilist country’s economy increased. Furthermore, magnate entrepreneurs found in Jews willing creditors as well as qualified merchants able to sell the products of their feudal estates in regional and international markets. This is why many feudal landlords decided to settle Jewish communities in their towns and market places. The term symbiosis would perhaps best illustrate the relationship between the Bohemian and Moravian noble landlords and Jewry in the 17th century. While Jews were granted broad autonomy, generous economic privileges and legal protection by magnates, they were expected to contribute to the prosperity of the feudal domain.132 Nonetheless, in the context of East-Central Europe it was the social and religious milieu of Poland–Lithuania that attracted most Jewish migrants. But even the noble republic did not avoid the massive, though usually short-lived, evictions of Jews. By the end of the 15th century, all Jewish enclaves in Lithuania were ordered to leave the country, but several years later they received official permission to return to their previous domiciles.133 Another large-scale emigration wave was generated by the Chmielnicki revolt in 1648–1649, during which thousands of Jews were massacred by Cossacks and thousands sought refuge in other countries. These tragic episodes, however, did not reverse the generally progressive trend in Jewish settlement. While in the 15th century the Polish Jews still comprised a marginal group of inhabitants, the extensive immigration waves from the Bohemian lands, Germany and Western Europe sparked the unprecedented growth of the Jewish population in Poland. Some estimates suggest that after the mid-16th century the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth supported between 100,000–150,000 Jews, while before 1650 their population probably reached almost half a million. Despite the short-term decline of the Jewish population during the Chmielnicki uprising and the Swedish wars, towards the end of the 18th century the size of the Jewish settlement might have

Macková, M. (ed.), Poddanská města v systému patrimoniální správy (Ústí nad Orlicí 1997), pp. 114–119. 131 Pěkný, Historie Židů, pp. 403–422. 132 V. Lipscher, ‘Jüdische Gemeinden in Böhmen und Mähren im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert’, in Seibt, F. (ed.), Die Juden in den böhmischen Ländern, (München – Wien 1983), pp. 73–86. 133 Ben–Sasson, Geschichte des jüdisches Volkes, II, pp. 240–241.

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grown to 900,000–1,000,000.134 Given that most Jews settled in cities and towns, their share of the total urban population was considerable and in some centres they formed sizeable communities. While in the 16th century, Jews might have comprised 10 per cent of the Polish–Lithuanian urban population, their proportion probably doubled by 1650 (see Table 4.2).135 Table 4.2

Estimated Proportion of Jews in the Total Population of Selected Polish Cities and Prague

Approximate proportion of Jews in the urban population (%) Lwów 20–25% in the mid-17th century Poznań 10% by 1600 Gniezno 10–15% in the 17th century Cracow agglomeration 10% by 1600 (Cracow agglomeration), 15% in the mid(Cracow, Kazimierz, Kleparz) 17th century (Cracow agglomeration) 3% in the mid-16th century, 10–20% by 1600, 7–10% in the Prague mid-17th century Przemyśl 18–22% in the mid-17th century Tykocin 25–30 % in the 1670s Brześć 12% after the mid-16th century Chełm 12% in 1560s, 30–40% in the first half of the 17th century CITY

Sources: Bogucka – Samsonowicz, Dzieje miast, pp. 470–473; Ledvinka – Pešek, Praha, p. 337; Bieniarzówna – Małecki, Dzieje Krakowa 2, p. 223; Błaszczyk, Litwa na przełomie, p. 222, Mrówczyński, ‘Ludność i gospodarka Tykocina’, p. 162.

City Autonomy and Pressures for the Eviction of Jews Three interrelated factors proved decisive for the absence or presence of Jews in cities – the patronage of the feudal lord, the scope of autonomy the city possessed, and the market potential and commercial opportunities. If only the last aspect is considered, the direction of Jewish migratory flows into large cities and hubs of commerce would seem logical since international market centres offered better prospects for Jewish financial and trade activities. Yet, when looking at the map of late medieval and early modern Jewish settlement in East-Central Europe, the long series of expulsions of Jews from major cities cannot be overlooked. Since the mid-15th century, a significant number of large urban centres, including Thorn, Breslau, Brno, Bautzen, Görlitz, Demographic estimates vary considerably. For the mid 17th century they range from 300,000 to 500,000 Jews living in the Commonwealth. For details see Z. Guldon and K. Krzystanek, ‘The Jewish Population in the Towns on the West Bank of the Vistula in Sandomierz Province from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Centuries’, in Polonsky, A. and J. Basista and A. Link–Lenczowski (eds), The Jews in Old Poland, 1000–1795 (London: I.B. Tauris 1993), p. 328; Goldberg, ‘Metropolen und Zentren’, p. 135; Bogucka and Samsonowicz, Dzieje miast, p. 474. 135 Goldberg, ‘Metropolen und Zentren’, p. 135; Bogucka and Samsonowicz, Dzieje miast, pp. 469–474. 134

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Olomouc, Danzig and Pozsony forbade Jews to live in their territories. Usually, the Jewish merchants were only permitted, under harsh restrictions, to conduct their trade in the city and attend urban fairs once or twice a year. Any explanatory model illuminating the relationship between Gentile societies and Jews in cities must, therefore, also focus on the scope of municipal selfgovernment and patronage by feudal lords. Generally speaking, the broader the municipal autonomy, the higher the pressure for the eviction of Jews from the urban environment. Anti-Jewish sentiments in cities, apart from religious reasons, were usually aroused by economic motives since Jewish trade and crafts competed with the guilds. No wonder that Christian producers and economically active groups of urban society often lobbied for the expulsion of Jews or at least sought to put heavy restrictions on Jewish production. Under such circumstances, the lot of Jewish enclaves depended on the authority of the feudal lord of the city as urban governments alone were usually not strong enough to withstand sustained pressure from the citizenry and local guilds being hotbeds of anti-Jewish sentiments. In the Holy Roman Empire, disputes over Jewish settlements in Frankfurt am Main and Worms were examples par excellence of antagonistic interests between the emperor and urban communities. After 1600, anti-Jewish feelings, carried by urban guilds, found their expression in the forced removal of Jews from both imperial cities. Yet the triumph was rather ephemeral as the emperor shortly enforced both the return of the Jewish inhabitants and the restoration of their synagogues.136 This suggests that whenever the city acquired a high level of self-government at the expense of central power, the Jewish enclave found itself in a precarious situation as the ruler lost much of his control over urban affairs and the radicalism of the middle social strata counterbalanced the usually more lenient attitude towards Jews shown by the urban authorities. In the German lands, for example, the majority of large imperial cities, except for Frankfurt, Hamburg or Worms, prevented Jews from living on their territories. Naturally, this pattern did not apply universally as other factors, such as the size and economic strength of the Jewish enclave or the authority of local guilds, mattered as well. In general, the situation in East-Central Europe seems to verify this premise since Jews were banned mostly from cities that enjoyed a high level of internal autonomy. In several ways, the case of Danzig may serve as a model example. In spite of the medieval right de non tolerandis Judaeis, Danzig’s prosperity owed much to Jewish merchants who were engaged in trade with Polish inland territories and with the European West. No wonder that the official ban on Jews living in the city gave rise to numerous Jewish settlements in close proximity to Danzig, such as, for instance, Old Scottland. Yet towards the end of the 16th century the city council, aware of the crucial role of Jews in Danzig’s commerce, tacitly approved the emergence of a Jewish enclave in one of city’s suburbs, the Long Garden. For decades to come, the presence of Jews in the city as well as the expansion of the Jewish trade was a font of discord between Danzig’s city council, still controlled by patrician families, and the urban community represented by the Third Order (Centumviri). Though Jews were several times expelled from the city, the combined pressure of the Crown, Polish 136

Rattenberg, Das Europäische Zeitalter, pp. 249–253.

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gentry and the city council blunted the radicalism and religious bias of the middle and lower strata. Eventually, both sides had to compromise and the Jews, both Polish and foreign (so called Portuguese Jews), were allowed to stay and do their business provided that afterwards they left the city.137 On the other hand, when looking at the flourishing Jewish enclaves in Polish commercial centres such as Lublin, Poznań or Lwów, the above mentioned hypothesis seems unconvincing, but in fact it is reinforced. In Poland, where the autonomy of royal cities was substantially curbed by the authority of the Sejm and royal representatives (starosta), the pressure on urban Jews was lessened. It is true that some royal municipalities were granted the privilege de non tolerandis Judaeis, which is usually understood au pied de la lettre by students of early modern urban life. Yet this right did not automatically imply that the city hosted no Jews as the privilege, for whatever reasons, was often not enforced. Alternatively, the Jewish inhabitants had to leave the city but they were permitted to settle in the close neighbourhood as in the case of Cracow and its satellite Kazimierz. Notwithstanding the resistance of city governments, Jews also used to settle in urban residences belonging to the nobility and in urban areas exempted from the municipal law (jurydyki). In Poznań, according to the Polish historian Majer Bałaban, no less than one hundred Jewish families lived in such areas by 1600 while in Wilno, the Jews living in noble palaces and jurydyki were the true founders of the Jewish ghetto though the city kept the privilege de non tolerandis Judaeis.138 Therefore, it was the restricted self-government of Polish royal towns, vis-à-vis the highly autonomous cities in Royal Prussia and Bohemia, that made possible the long-term settlement of Jewish enclaves in their urban milieu. As a consequence, the populous Jewish enclaves found themselves not only in major cities such as Lwów, Kamieniec Podolski and Gniezno, but in dozens of provincial royal towns throughout Poland–Lithuania. Here, the investigation of Jewish communities in the Sandomierz region by Zenon Guldon and Karol Krzystanek is suggestive. After the mid-17th century, Jews were identified in fourteen royal towns out of eighteen, while a century later there were no royal cities in the Sandomierz region without a Jewish community.139 Rather atypical, in terms of urban autonomy, was the continuous existence of a Jewish ghetto in Prague, which as a caput regni and the leader of the Bohemian burgher estate enjoyed vast political and administrative privileges. Though the hostility of gentile urban society occasionally resulted in the official removal of Jews by royal order, the ghetto in Prague never ceased to exist as the Jewish community provided regular and extraordinary financial resources to the king. It was not by chance that the heyday of Prague’s Jewry coincided with the transfer of the imperial court from Vienna to Prague under Rudolph II, which curbed the encroachment of the urban authorities into Jewish affairs and increased the role of Jews in Crown’s financial transactions. M. Bogucka, ‘Jewish merchants in Gdańsk in the 16th–17th centuries: A policy of toleration or discrimination?’, Acta Poloniae Historica 65 (1992), pp. 47–57. 138 M. Bałaban, Historja i literatura źydowska III (Lwów – Warszawa – Kraków 1925), pp. 179–180. 139 Guldon and Krzystanek, ‘The Jewish Population in the Towns’, p. 333. 137

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Jewish Migration to Private Towns Nonetheless, at the macro-scale level the migratory patterns of the Jewish population were quite the opposite to the case of Prague. Though theoretically Jews were still subject to the authority of the king, during the early modern period they increasingly sought the protection of magnates and the nobility. As early as the first half of the 16th century, increasing numbers of Jews started to move to flourishing private and residential towns that gradually evolved into administrative and cultural loci of the Jewish civilization in Central and East-Central Europe. In the German lands, the transformation of Jewish urban settlement had much to do with the expulsion of Jews from imperial cities. In Fürth, for instance, the first Jews obtained residential rights in 1528 and fifty years later the town hosted a Jewish community of about two hundred persons. By 1600, the process of the concentration of Jewry in small and medium-sized urban centres took place particularly in Northern Germany, where Jewish communities were reinstated in Hildesheim, Halberstadt, Minden, Essen and dozens of other towns.140 Though the rise of Jewish enclaves in private and residential towns was a general trend everywhere, arguably the most dynamic transfers of the Jewish population to noble feudal domains occurred in Poland–Lithuania. No doubt the commercial potential of a provincial town could not rival that of Lublin or Poznań, but it was the patronage of the feudal lord, usually motivated by economic and financial interests, that guaranteed a more stable social position for Jewish communities. Moreover, in less populated private towns Jews formed socially, culturally, economically and religiously a more important segment of urban society than in the cosmopolitan and crowded environment of large cities. Thus, apart from the traditional hubs of Jewish diaspora such as Kazimierz, Lwów, Lublin and Poznań, the early modern age saw a parallel rise of alternative, though usually smaller, Jewish settlements in private towns such as Zamość, the centre of Sephardic Jews in Poland, Opatów, Brody, Leszno or Tykocin, to mention at least some.141 Once again, the province of Sandomierz may serve as the model example illustrating the massive influx of Jews to private towns. While after the mid-16th century Jews inhabited only nine private urban centres in the region, during the second half of the 17th century this number grew to 26 and before 1800 a Jewish settlement was already identified in 44 towns owned by magnates and rich nobility.142 Similar research has been conducted by Maurycy Horn for the large territory of Red Ruthenia. As shown in Table 4.3, the nature of Jewish settlement followed the same pattern in both regions, Red Ruthenia and the Sandomierz province.

M.E. Meyer (ed.), German – Jewish History in modern times 1 (New York – Chichester: Columbia University Press 1996), pp. 83–85. 141 See Bogucka and Samsonowicz, Dzieje miast, pp. 469–475; R. Szczygieł, ‘Zamość w czasach staropolskich’, in Kowalczyk, J. (ed.), Czterysta łat Zamościa (Wrocław – Warszawa – Kraków – Gdańsk – Łódż 1983), pp. 105; G.D. Hundert, The Jews in a Polish Private Town – The Case of Opatów in the Eighteenth Century (Baltimore – London: John Hopkins University Press 1992), pp. 13–35. 142 Guldon and Krzystanek, ‘The Jewish Population in the Towns’, p. 333. 140

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Table 4.3 Year 1500 1575 1648

Jews in Ruthenian Cities and Towns, 1500–1648 Overall number of urban centres 110 191 254

Number of royal cities with a Jewish population 19 44 55

Number of private towns with a Jewish population 6 40 108

Sources: Horn, Źydzi na Rusi Czerwonej, pp. 18–27.

One finds yet another message is inherently present in Table 4.3. An additional factor to be considered when discussing the motives of the Jewish immigration into private urban settlements is the crucial role of Jews in the colonization and urbanization of Eastern and Southeastern Polish territories. As discussed in previous chapters, after 1500 the underpopulated peripheral provinces of the country experienced a marked dynamism of urban change. The Polish historian Jerzy Topolski has suggested that numerous Jewish communities, being invited to settle in the mushrooming private towns and on the latifundia of magnates, took an active part in the urbanization of Red Ruthenia, the Ukraine and Volhynia. Thus the Polish periphery, with its enormous economic potential and lesser social pressure, gradually turned into the core of Jewish settlement in the East-Central Europe.143 Topolski’s thesis is well documented by the number of Jews living in the vast feudal domains of the Czartoryski magnate family, who were mostly located in Southeastern Poland. It has been estimated that in 1765 the Czartoryskis were feudal lords to about 30,000 Jews, which comprised at that time almost 4 per cent of Polish Jewry.144 One may easily argue that the character of Jewish settlement in Moravia and Bohemia followed a similar pattern. During the 16th–17th centuries, most private towns that hosted Jews saw a significant rise in their numbers, despite the fact that the Habsburg rulers still insisted on their legal claim to authorize Jewish immigration to feudal domains. In Mikulov, for instance, Jews inhabited about 32 houses in 1560, but a century later they dwelled in 98 houses. In 1670s, the town capitalized on the expulsion of the Jews from nearby Vienna and provided asylum to another 80 Jewish families.145 Arguably, the most dynamic expansion was experienced by the ghetto in Boskovice (Moravia), where the Jewish community multiplied in the course of several decades. While in 1585 only nine married couples, thirteen widows and 45 unmarried Jews are recorded, in 1613 there is evidence for 35 married couples, six widows and 293 unmarried Jews.146 The impressive growth of Jewish enclaves in Mladá Boleslav, Prostějov, Osoblaha, Roudnice nad Labem, Třebíč and many other

J. Topolski, ‘On the Role of the Jews in the Urbanization of Poland in the Early Modern Period’, in Paluch, A.K. (ed.), The Jews in Poland I (Kraków 1992), pp. 45–50. 144 M.J. Rosman, The Lord’s Jews – Magnate-Jewish Relations in the Polish – Lithuanian Commonwealth during the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge/Massachusetts: Harvard University Press 1990), p. 41. 145 Pěkný, Historie Židů, p. 412. 146 J. Bránský, ‘Z dějin židovské obce v Boskovicích’, in Muzeum Kroměřížska (ed.), Židé a Morava (Kroměříž 1997), p. 25. 143

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private towns implies that this was mainly due to immigration either from royal free cities or abroad. In order to attract more Jewish families to their towns, many feudal landlords did not hesitate to offer them far-reaching concessions that, however, often harmed the economic interests of the Gentile population and restricted the authority of urban governments. This generated a paradox as in some towns the Jews, being exempted from various municipal burdens, formed a truly privileged social group even visà-vis their Christian neighbours. One of the most liberal charters in Moravia was issued in 1651 by Count Jan of Rottál on behalf of the Holešov Jewish community. In his privilege, Jews were allowed to practice their religion freely and to erect their own school, synagogue, hospital, cemetery as well as administrative buildings and baths. Jewish houses in the town and suburbs were exempt from all taxes and payments. Along with Jewish trade, the feudal lord also supported selected Jewish crafts, especially butchers who had been awarded the right to sell their meat to both Jews and Christians. By envisioning the controversies between both groups, the charter explicitly stated that Jews could only be charged before their own judge. Finally, urban magistrates received no right to meddle into Jewish affairs as the Jews were directly subjected to the authority of the feudal lord.147 Though Jewish communities in private towns generally enjoyed broad autonomy, some feudal lords rather encouraged their closer integration into Christian urban society. Valuable evidence of such a strategy is provided by the register of new burghers in Velké Meziříčí, where in the 17th century Jews were accepted as fullright burghers though before they used to be excluded from this privileged status. During the first wave of Jewish immigration between 1636 and 1668, no less than nineteen Jews acquired citizenship in Velké Meziříčí.148 Attracted by favourable social conditions, the Jews quickly expanded and by 1700 they occupied 32 houses while fifty years earlier they had possessed just three.149 True, Jews enjoyed a similar social standing in some Polish urban centres such as Bochnia, and especially in Ruthenian and Lithuanian private towns, but in the Bohemian lands, their complete legal and social integration into the Christian community was a genuine anomaly.150 From a comparative perspective, however, the hypothesis of the rising importance of private residential towns for East-Central European Jewry is contested by the case of Habsburg Hungary, which still largely remains terra incognita in this respect. If many Polish, Bohemian or Moravian private urban centres accommodated more or less populous Jewish enclaves, why then is there no evidence of a similar trend in Royal Hungary? In part, this may be the result of a lack of systematic study of Royal Hungarian Jewry after 1526. Obviously, the paucity of sources is responsible for this P. Pálka, ‘Postavení holešovských Židů v polovině 17. století a Rottalovo “židovské privilegium”’, in Muzeum Kroměřížska (ed.), Židé a Morava (Kroměříž 1999), pp. 62–64. 148 Státní okresní archiv Žďár nad Sázavou, Archiv města Velké Meziříčí, no. 8, fols 3b–11b. 149 M. Štindl, ‘Usazování Židů ve Velkém Meziříčí ve druhé polovině 17. století’, in Muzeum Kroměřížska (ed.), Židé a Morava (Kroměříž 1995), p. 36. 150 Briefly M. Štindl, ‘K počátkům židovského osídlení ve Velkém Meziříčí’, in Muzeum Kroměřížska (ed.), Židé a Morava (Kroměříž 1997), p. 8. 147

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gap in historical scholarship. Even when a lack of research is considered, however, there were some other factors that might have caused the rather vestigial presence of a Jewish population in the feudal domains of Royal Hungarian magnates. The imminent Ottoman menace as well as recurrent uprisings by the Transylvanian princes aggravated the stability of living conditions in the country, and needless to say the Jews were usually the first victims of any social disturbances. In addition, the (semi)military life of many Hungarian nobles, high financial expenses for the country’s defence as well as uncertainty in long-term planning did not form favourable conditions for a large-scale boom of residential towns that served in neighbouring regions as the main foci of Jewish settlements. In 16th century Royal Hungary the residential urban structures remained rather underdeveloped except in a handful of towns, including György Thurso’s Bytča and later Sárospátak, owned by the Rákoczis. Jewish Autonomy and Urban Institutions In 1577, the Prague burgher Jan Folk bitterly bewailed the fact that Bohemia was swarming with Jews who ‘enjoy greater freedom than any Christian’.151 In his philippic he further concretized the nature of this freedom by stating that Jews occupied the most profitable sale places in urban markets, did not pay duties and customs and were not mobilized in the event of war.152 Many foreign visitors peregrinating through the region voiced the same opinion. In 1690s, the English traveller and renowned expert in Poland–Lithuania, Bernard Connor, depicted the social status of Polish Jewry in a following way: The Jews are every where to be found in Poland, and enjoy their religion, and other Privileges without Interruption, only they are restrain’d from trading within twelve Leagues of Warsaw, by the Constitutions. Their number is so great, that Mr. Patric Ogleby, who has travell’d all over these Countries, affirms, that there are above two millions of them in this Kingdom, and that they are so privileg’d, that all this vast Body pays not above a hundred and twenty thousand Tinfes or Florens a Year to the States, which amounts to no more than twenty thousand Dollars.153

The same judgment was passed by the German humanist Andreas Cellarius who, by commenting upon the social reality of the noble republic, noted that ‘Jews (...) possess vast Privileges and tax exemptions’.154 A contemporary image of Poland– Lithuania as an environment friendly to Jews has been investigated by the renowned Polish historian Stanisław Kot. In his meticulous study of (self)reflection of different segments of Polish society in early modern literature he paraphrases the contemporary

Folk, ‘Přípis psaní Hans Folka’, p. 554. Folk, ‘Přípis psaní Hans Folka’, pp. 554–555. 153 Connor, The History of Poland II, p. 49. 154 W. Zientara, Sarmatia Europiana oder Sarmatia Asiana? Polen in den deutschprachigen Druckwerken des 17. Jahrhunderts (Toruń 2001), p. 54. 151 152

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aphorism ‘Poland is a hell for peasants, paradise for Jews, purgatory for burghers, heaven for nobles and a gold mine for strangers’.155 Indeed, in a European-wide context the life of Polish Jews might have appeared almost idyllic to foreign observers. Astonished by the number of Jews and unparalleled level of their autonomy, they usually paid little attention to their legal and social segregation which was generally viewed as a normal and natural phenomenon. Officially, for example, Jews were not permitted to settle in cities with the privilege de non tolerandis Judaeis and normally they could not apply for citizenship. Various administrative measures restrained their contacts with the Christian population and in cities the Jewish enclaves lived in separate urban quarters or in ghettos. The specific status of Jews was also expressed by many regulatory and self-regulatory mechanisms demarcating their social rights and commercial activities. Everywhere, the early modern state and Church legislation possessed many acts concerning almost every single aspect of Jewish life. Diet resolutions as well as royal mandates referred to the mobility of Jewry, Jewish taxes, interests from loans provided by Jewish usurers or obligations of the Jews to wear yellow marks on their clothes. Another force that responded to the presence of Jews was the gentile population in general. In the urban context, the most controversial issues, apart from religious intolerance, were Jewish production and trade, the jurisdictional autonomy of Jews as well as their residential rights. In the eyes of city councillors, the exemption of Jews from municipal jurisdiction signified the legal disintegration of the urban space which threatened to subvert the idea of collectivism ingrained in medieval urban societies. Since, in most cities, municipal authorities had only a few legitimate instruments of intervention into Jewish affairs, their attempts to gain more authority over urban Jewry proved recurrent in the early modern age. By the end of the 15th century, Prague’s ghetto, for example, fell under the limited control of the Old Town council which took advantage of its momentary power and meddled in Jewish administration and economy.156 Urban magistrates also made efforts to confine the living space of Jews and their immobile property inside the city. As the number of Jewish residents in many cities steadily rose while their living space usually remained unchanged, ghettos or Jewish quarters soon became overpopulated. As a consequence, Jewish enclaves struggled for spatial expansion at the expense of Christian quarters and this provoked mutual animosities and continuous appeals to state authorities. The situation proved especially acute in large Jewish centres such as Prague, Poznań, Lublin and Lwów.157 In Prague, for instance, in 1623 the Jews acquired several dozen confiscated houses as a reward for their loyalty to the Habsburgs during the Protestant uprising. Another successful attempt to widen the living space of the Prague Jews was the rise of a new Jewish colony in Libeň. Such Jewish expansions, however, alarmed the gentile population of the city, which subsequently made every

S. Kot, ‘Polska rajem dla Źydów piekłem dla chłopów niebem dla szlachty’, Kultura i nauka (Warszawa 1937), pp. 1–28. 156 Pěkný, Historie Židů, p. 52. 157 E. Lederhendler, The Road to Modern Jewish Politics (New York – Oxford: Oxford University Press 1989), pp. 23–24; Bogucka – Samsonowicz, Dzieje miast, p. 470. 155

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effort to push the Jews back to the crowded space of the ghetto.158 However, Jewish communities struggled for the legal and social integrity of their Lebensraum with no less obstinacy. Armed with the privilege de non tolerandis Christianis, Jews in some Polish and Lithuanian cities pushed for the Christians to be moved out of the Jewish quarters and real-estates owned by non-Jews to be sold or pulled down.159 In many cities, the continuous collisions between the two groups eventually gave rise to written agreements regulating their mutual everyday relations. Heidemarie Petersen, who has studied these bilateral treaties in Polish urban environments, even regards them as symptoms of a qualitatively new phase in the Christian-Jewish coexistence, marked by partnership and a willingness to seek a compromise in disputed economic and social issues.160 Usually, the negotiated rules were far from fair, but they at least provided a stabilizing legal framework within which Jews and Christians could peacefully coexist. An illustrative example is the agreement between the Lublin Jews and urban authorities signed in 1555. Expectably, special care was devoted to the settlement of controversial economic issues. Jewish merchants were allowed to trade in cloth, spices and cattle, but at the same time their commercial activities were subject to many limitations. Jews were also to respect the city’s monopoly on the production of beverages. Other items of the agreement forbade joint ventures of Jewish and Christian butchers as well as the employment of Christian servants in houses owned by Jews. Finally, all controversial issues were to be reconciled by the municipal law court. In a later period, the Lublin case served as a norm by which Jewish–Christian relations were structured in other Polish towns. The Lwów agreement from 1581, for example, was visibly inspired by the Lublin model.161 Eventually, Christian–Jewish relations embarked upon a consensus and compromise, in some smaller cities such as Łask in 1715 and several decades later in Przemyśl, where a contract made it possible for Jews to leave the ghetto and purchase houses anywhere within the city.162 Yet what impressed Bernard Connor and other foreigners was not the heavy restrictions imposed upon the Jews, but their supposedly broad rights and privileges that were commonly viewed as a regional specificity. Most recently, the issue of Jewish autonomy has been raised by Heidemarie Petersen, whose scrutiny of the Communal Order of Cracow Jews (Taqanot Qraqa) indeed illustrates the high level of Jewish self-government in spheres of public finances, taxes, judicial, religious as well as social affairs.163 As some historians have pointed out, along with serving Ledvinka and Pešek, Praha, pp. 339, 404. Bałaban, Historja i literatura źydowska, p. 164. 160 H. Petersen, Judengemeinde und Stadtgemeinde in Polen–Lemberg 1356–1581 (Wiesbaden 2003), pp. 72–79. 161 R. Szczygieł, ‘Ugoda Źydów lubelskich z gminą miejską w spravie udziału w życiu gospodarczym miasta z 1555 roku’, in Kowalski, W. and J. Muszyńska (eds), Źydzi wśród chrześcijan w dobie szlachieckiej rzeczypospolitej (Kielce 1996), pp. 43–50. 162 J. Goldberg (ed.), Jewish Privileges in the Polish Commonwealth – Charters of Rights Granted to Jewish Communities in Poland–Lithuania in the Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries I (Jerusalem 1985), pp. 271–273; II (2001), pp. 124–126. 163 H. Petersen, ‘Jüdisches Selbstverständnis im städtischen Kontext: Die Gemeindeordnung der Krakauer Juden aus dem Jahr 1595’, in Dmitrieva, M. and K. Lambrecht (eds), Krakau, 158

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as organizational platforms of Jewish public life, communal orders were also seen by the Jews as protective instruments guarding the exclusiveness of their cultural institutions and models of social existence against the intrusive influence of the aggressive Christian civilization.164 Despite this, the structure of Jewish self-ruling bodies basically resembled that of Christian institutions. Jewish guilds in Poland and Bohemia, that began to proliferate in the early 17th century, may serve as conspicuous examples.165 Like their Christian counterparts, Jewish craft corporations were headed by Elders who were to act on behalf of all guild masters and apprentices. The same applied to the structure of Jewish political institutions. During the 16th–17th centuries, for example, the Council of Prague’s Jewish Town reformed itself according to a gentile pattern. While originally the self-ruling body was composed of Elders who took collective care of communal affairs, in the second half of the 17th century the Council was presided over by a Jewish primate assisted by six councillors.166 The autonomous organization of the Jewish life, no doubt, was one of the principal factors stimulating the influx of Jews into Polish–Lithuanian as well as Moravian and Bohemian urban centres. Most strikingly the institutionalization of Jewish otherness was emblematized by the rise of self-governing bodies with countrywide authority. In early modern Europe this was far from common practice and the regional atomization of Jewish life proved a reality in many European countries. The imperial Jewry, for example, failed to establish a supreme body whose authority would be recognized by all the Jewish communities inhabiting the German lands. After 1600 an attempt was made to institutionalize the concept of Judenschaft deutscher Nation, but the reluctance of territorial princes swept the idea away. As a result, the political and administrative self-government of German Jews remained confined to a regional level.167 The existence of supreme Jewish institutions, which served in Poland–Lithuania, Bohemia and Moravia as intermediary powers between Jewish communities and state authorities, was an anomaly from prior historical patterns since otherwise the juridical status of East-Central European Jews, their inner autonomy and the arrangement of their communal order followed models previously developed in the German lands. If the purpose of central Jewish institutions is considered, it is generally argued that their genesis was intimately linked with fiscal affairs as the early modern state, lacking instruments for the effective gathering of Jewish levies, passed the responsibility for this issue to Jewish countrywide bodies. Of all the Jewish central institutions in East-Central Europe, the Council of the Four Lands (Waad Arba Aracot) as the representative body of the Polish Jewry (Greater Poland, Little Poland, Ruthenia, Prag und Wien – Funktionen von Metropolen im frühmodernen Staat (Stuttgart 2000), pp. 131–141. 164 This theory may be found in J. Katz, Exclusiveness and Tolerance – Studies in JewishGentile Relations in Medieval and Modern Times (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1961). 165 M. Horn, ‘The Chronology and Distribution of Jewish Craft Guilds in Old Poland, 1613–1795’, in Polonsky, A. and J. Basista and A. Link-Lenczowski (eds), The Jews in Old Poland, 1000–1795 (London: I.B. Tauris 1993), pp. 249–266. 166 Pěkný, Historie Židů, pp. 328–329. 167 Rattenberg, Das Europäische Zeitalter, pp. 237–242.

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Volhynia) was the most salient. Its uniqueness, vis-à-vis other Jewish assemblies elsewhere in Europe, stemmed from the number of Jews it represented, its durability (1581–1764), countrywide authority (despite the creation of the autonomous Council of the Land of Lithuania in 1623) as well as from the periodicity of its sessions. Before the Council came into existence, the internal affairs of Polish Jewry were occasionally debated by rabbis and community heads during the great fairs in Lublin and Jaroslaw. The Council of the Four Lands enforced its authority on a wide range of issues, from protecting Jews against attacks by Christians to supervising their economic activities and regulating Jewish charities. Apart from its competencies in the sphere of religion, economy and law, the Council’s main task involved the coordination of tax policy and the just division of Jewish levies among regional communities. Also its abolishment in 1764 had much to do with the decision of the state to take over the collection of Jewish payments.168 In Moravia, the first trace of the central Jewish body, the Land Rabbinate in Mikulov (Nikolsburg), can be traced to the mid-16th century, though the embryonic form of the corporate political organ of Moravian Jewry emerged earlier, in 1490. In this year, an agreement on behalf of all Moravian Jews was concluded between Vilém of Pernštejn and several major Jewish communities in Ivančice, Pohořelice and Strážnice. Yet the rise of a countrywide Jewish constitution did not come until 1651 when the Statutes of Moravian Jewry (Šaj takanot) were published in 311 articles. According to them, all Jewish settlements in Moravian towns found themselves subject to the authority of the elected Jewish Council presided over by the land rabbi.169 The Moravian Jewish administrative and political organ might have emerged under the influence of a similar Polish body as several rabbis in Moravian towns were refugees from Red Ruthenia, at that time afflicted by the Chmielnicky rebellion. The land rabbi himself, Menachem Mendl Krochmal, served before its outset, as a member of the Council of the Four Lands.170 In Bohemia, the political and administrative organization of Jewry diverged considerably from the Moravian model. All Bohemian Jews were traditionally represented by Prague’s Jewish ghetto, which also took responsibility for the collection of the Jewish tax. Yet in 1659, permanent discord over the distribution of fiscal duties between Prague’s Jewish Council and the provincial Jewry led to the genesis of a rival central body that claimed authority over Jews living out of the Bohemian caput regni.171 S. Ettinger, ‘The Council of the Four Lands’, in Polonsky, A. and J. Basista and A. Link-Lenczowski (eds), The Jews in Old Poland 1000–1795 (London: I.B. Tauris 1993), pp. 93–109. 169 H. Teufel, ‘Juden im Ständestaat: Zur politischen, wirtschaftlichen und sozialen Geschichte der Juden in Mähren zwischen 1526–1620’, in Seibt, F. (ed.), Die Juden in den böhmischen Ländern, (München – Wien 1983), pp. 69–71; Lipscher, ‘Jüdische Gemeinden’, pp. 84–86. 170 R. Davis, ‘Myšlenka komunity ve světě plném násilí – 311 ustanovení’, in Petr Pálka (ed.), Židé a Morava (Kroměříž 2001), pp. 26–27. 171 B. Nosek, ‘Soziale Differenzierung und Streitigkeiten in jüdischen Kultusgemeinden der böhmischen Länder im 17. Jahrhundert und Entstehung der “Landjudenschaf”’, Judaica Bohemiae, 12 (2) (1976), pp. 61–67. 168

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Jacob Goldberg has recently discussed how the aggregation of Jewish selfgoverning institutions affected the status of a city as a Jewish metropolis. While Cracow and Lublin, due to the presence of central administrative (sessions of Jewish Diets in Lublin), judicial (the Jewish Tribunal in Lublin) and cultural (printing shop in Cracow, renowned Jewish schools in both cities) bodies, in the 16th century still played the role of countrywide Jewish metropoles, Lwów and Poznań formed centres of regional importance. The emergence of new Jewish settlements, especially in the Southeastern provinces of Poland, and the move of Jews to private towns, however, weakened the gravity of traditional Jewish centres as some focal administrative functions were shifted to smaller settlements. This refers, for example, to Tykocin (Podlasia), which acquired important jurisdictional rights over the Jewish enclaves in Lithuania, or Brześć with its renowned Jewish school. The growing polycentrism of Jewish regional administration, or Demetropolisierung as Goldberg has suggested, was visibly manifested in the 17th century sessions of the Council of the Four Lands, which most often took place in less sizeable towns such as Parczew or Jaroslaw.172 The same trend also occurred in Moravia where it was small towns, Boskovice, Ivančice, Prostějov and, above all, Mikulov that performed key administrative, cultural and economic functions.173 Along with the autonomy in the inner arrangement of Jewish life, it was its commercial and economic potentials that made Poland the ‘paradise of the Jews’. Not only did Polish Jewry profit from the sustained legislative offensive against gentile urban trade and craft production, but the economic activities of Jews were championed by magnates and nobles who capitalized on their financial and commercial services. Conspicuously, this was echoed in the resolutions of the Polish Sejm and regional assemblies supporting economic enterprises by Jews at the expense of their Christian competitors in cities. Because of persistent attempts by Christian guilds and merchants, especially in Lwów and Cracow, to curb Jewish local and regional trade, it was long-distance commerce that became the most expanding sphere of Jewish economic activities before 1648.174 Still another reason lay behind the impressive ascent of Jewish foreign trade, namely the Jewish hegemony in money-lending and financial transactions. As large-scale entrepreneurial activities required considerable investments and involved a high level of risk, it was the financial potential and the better access to credit that made the dynamic growth of the Jewish trade possible. Among other sources, Cracow customs registers from 1593–1683 indicate the major trends in the Jewish trade before and after the Chmielnicki uprising. The number of entries implies the orientation of Jewish foreign trade to the Silesian, Moravian, Bohemian and Saxon markets. What was strikingly high was the share of Cracow Jews involved in commercial exchanges with Prague. This was a natural outcome of the large population transfers between 172 Goldberg, ‘Metropolen und Zentren’, pp. 142–143; Lederhendler, The Road to Modern Jewish Politics, pp. 27–28. 173 Pěkný, Historie Židů, pp. 403–422. 174 M. Horn, ‘Rola gospodarcza Źydów w Polsce do końca XVIII wieku’, in Kowalski, W. and J. Muszyńska (eds), Źydzi wśród Chrześcijan w dobie szlacheckiej rzeczypospolitej (Kielce 1996), pp. 18–20.

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the two cities since many Prague Jews expelled in 1541 by Ferdinand I chose to settle in Kazimierz while keeping close ties with their Bohemian connections. At the same time, the Cracow Jews maintained close contacts with Royal Prussia, in particular with Danzig. By serving mostly as factors of Polish magnates and the wealthy nobility, Jewish merchants not only sold the agricultural output of feudal manors in exchange for imported luxury goods (cloth, quality wine, armours, spices, etc.), but they were also authorized to seek financial loans and credit on behalf of their noble patrons.175 A scrutiny of Danzig’s vice-mayoralty registers by Maria Bogucka suggests that in the first half of the 17th century as many as 75 per cent of all Jewish merchants in the city were in the service of the Polish nobility.176 Along with the territorial expansion of Jewish trade, Cracow customs records also indicate its volume. While the scope of commercial activities by Jews grew substantially by covering about 10 per cent of all Cracow trade in 1636, the Chmielnicki uprising and the long-term military conflict in the mid-17th century strangled both domestic and foreign Jewish trade, which was not resuscitated before 1700.177 In the context of the urban milieu, however, it was the Jewish craft production that most competed with the medieval city economy. It seems that the early modern age brought comparatively favourable conditions for the rise of Jewish crafts. The movement of Jews to private towns was a factor of importance since Jewish artisans in these urban centres, finding themselves under the aegis of town owners, were more immune against the animosity of their Christian counterparts. This is why Jewish crafts flourished especially in Poland and Moravia where a considerable number of Jews lived in private towns. Also in Bohemia, the collapse of the political power of urban guilds in 1547 allowed a boom in Jewish artisanship. In the second half of the 16th and early 17th century, there is evidence of a broad variety of Jewish crafts in Prague as many Jewish artisans worked on behalf of the resident Imperial Court.178 No wonder the first attempts to establish the organizational platform of Jewish craft appeared at this time. Initially, Prague Jewish producers chose to apply for membership of Christian guilds. At least Jewish tailors pursued this strategy in 1610. While the first Jewish guild emerged in the 1620s, in mid-17th century Prague, Jews had already several occupational fraternities that embraced for example butchers, tailors, barbers, shoemakers and furriers.179 It has been estimated that in 1680 there were about 350–400 Jewish artisans mostly organized in craft corporations.180 In Poland the Jewish guilds arose simultaneously as the first fraternities were established in 1613 by furriers in Kazimierz and butchers in Lwów. Until the mid17th century, Jewish guild organizations probably existed only in these two cities, but in the second half of the century guilds also appeared in Poznań, Grodno, Przemyśl J.M. Małecki (ed.), Handel żydowski w Krakowie w końcu XVI i w XVII wieku – wypisy z krakowskich rejestrów celnych z łat 1593–1683 (Kraków 1995). 176 Bogucka, ‘Jewish merchants in Gdańsk’, p. 55. 177 Małecki, Handel żydowski; Horn, ‘Rola gospodarcza’, pp. 18–20. 178 See Pěkný, Historie Židů, pp. 307–311. 179 T. Jakobovitz, ‘Die jüdischen Zünfte in Prag’, Ročenka společnosti pro dějiny Židů v Československé republice, 8 (1936), pp. 118–119. 180 Jakobovitz, ‘Die jüdischen Zünfte in Prag’, p. 127. 175

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and in four private towns: Leszno, Sokolów, Rzeszów and Kepno. All in all, there is evidence of more than 100 Jewish guilds between 1613 and 1795, of which about two-thirds emerged in private urban centres.181 According to Maurycy Horn, who studied the inner organization of Jewish craft in Polish towns, the gradual formation of Jewish occupational corporations was a side effect of the merciless struggle for markets between the Polish Jews and Christians as well as the expression of sustained attempts by kings and magnates to capitalize on the development of Jewish crafts.182 It also seems that in the highly competitive economic milieu of royal cities, creating a guild might have been an important protective measure as the corporation was better equipped to advance the interests of Jewish artisans against Christian producers and sometimes also against the kehilla oligarchy. The situation in private towns differed in the sense that Jews usually constituted a much larger segment of urban society while Christian guilds enjoyed less autonomy than their counterparts in royal cities. In this light, granting licences for the establishment of Jewish guilds in private towns served two purposes. Though its immediate goal was to increase the magnates’ profit from their latifundia by supporting Jewish craft, on a general level such a step was part of a whole range of deliberate strategies that supported the large-scale movement of Jews into noble feudal domains. To summarize, macro and case studies display a paradox of the Jewish urban experience in early modern East-Central Europe. Despite persistent anti-Jewish sentiments among Christian town dwellers, it was the urban environment that offered shelter and economic protection to the majority of East-Central European Jewry. While in the Middle Ages, most Jews still lived and worked in privileged royal cities, in the early modern period, it was the private town, especially in Poland and Moravia, that became the locus of Jewish settlements. By moving to the feudal domains of the nobility, the Jews responded to sustained economic and social pressures from the Christian population in royal cities while they searched for better legal protection and living conditions. The rise of new Jewish centres had some grave consequences for the general nature of the entire Jewish civilization in East-Central Europe. The first effect was decentralization, or in other words, administrative, economic and cultural polycentrism. Though typical for Moravia and Poland–Lithuania, the same trend also took place in Bohemia where in the 17th century the Prague Jewish community lost much of its authority over the provincial Jewry. The multiplicity of Jewish settlements as well as their territorial diffusion loosened ties between Jews and their rulers, though the former were still defined as servi camerae regiae. Secondly, the early modern state with an underdeveloped bureaucracy could hardly produce satisfactory financial profit from the dispersed Jewish population without the active participation of the Jews themselves. This was, arguably, the raison d’étre of countrywide Jewish institutions that proved competent enough to coordinate the collection of Jewish tax on behalf of the Royal Treasury. For example, it has been estimated that between 1588 and 1668 the average share of the Jewish capitation tax in relation to the total revenues of the Polish state slightly exceeded 2 per cent. Within these decades, however, this amount substantially differed. While 181 182

Horn, ‘The Chronology and Distribution’, pp. 260–265. Horn, ‘The Chronology and Distribution’, pp. 249–266.

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before the Chmielnicki uprising, the Jewish levies formed more than 6 per cent of state revenues, in the following ten-year period (1649–1658), which was marked by a large Jewish emigration from the country, the financial contribution sharply declined to 1.4 per cent.183 Yet in general, the Council of the Four Lands was relatively efficient in this sphere. This came to the fore after its abolition in 1764 when the amount of Jewish payments, henceforth collected by the state, fell considerably.184 Finally, in most cases large scale movements of Jewish communities to private towns had a positive effect on their social status and autonomy. Despite sporadic attempts by feudal lords to fully integrate the Jews into Christian urban societies, Jewish enclaves usually remained (semi)separated from the majority society. Neither of the two sides longed for social assimilation and the frontier was kept as a means of the mutual reluctance to a closer rapprochement. Admittedly, the adherence to otherness substantively contributed to the persistence of the marked Jewish (sub)culture that by far overshadowed the autonomy of communal life of other religious and ethnic urban minorities, namely that of the Armenians, Italians or Scots.185 Urban Society and Nobility Early modern law drew a conspicuous and unambiguous difference between nobles and burghers, but in practice, social and cultural frontiers between the two worlds were rather blurred and in the 16th–17th centuries mutual interaction was a growing tendency. Captivated by the grandeur of aristocratic culture and impressed by the extent of noble privileges, wealthy town dwellers everywhere endeavoured to live nobly and many of them proved ready to invest considerable funds in order to gain ennoblement de iure. In many cities, the formal barriers between burghers and nobles were further reduced by the feudalization of old patrician families and the wealthiest echelons of urban society. In 15th century Danzig, for example, only 8 per cent of patrician families that formed the political elite possessed landed estates, the token of noble status. In the 16th century, however, the percentage of landowning family clans occupying seats in urban government grew to 42 per cent, while over the next century it was already one-half of all council families.186 The possession of landed estates, however, was just one of several symbols indicating the gradual acculturation of Danzig’s patricians to a noble world. Political and property elite in Danzig also took over another noble privilege as they had their names and deeds celebrated through printed panegyrics, usually issued on the occasion of a marriage

D. Tollet, ‘Les Juifs et le trésor royal polonais sous les règnes des Wasa, de 1588 à 1668’, in Paluch, A.K. (ed.), The Jews in Poland, I (1992), pp. 62. 184 Ettinger, ‘The Council of the Four Lands’, p. 108. 185 See Janáček, ‘Italové v předbělohorské Praze’, pp. 77–118; Matwijowski, ‘Jews and Armenians’, pp. 63–72; Chowaniec, Ormianie. 186 M. Bogucka, ‘Miejsce mieszczanina w społeczeństwie szlacheckim: Atrakcyjność życia szlacheckiego w Polsce XVII wieku’, in Andrzej Wyczański (ed.), Społeczeństwo staropolskie (Warszawa 1976), p. 193. 183

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or funeral. The numerous grave stones in St. Mary’s Church embellished with a coat of arms render equally conspicuous evidence of the appeal of the noble culture.187 At the same time, early modern urban environments became scenes of a reverse social process that may be termed ‘the urbanization of the nobility’. This phenomenon was marked by both the rise of a new type of urban centres, namely residential towns, and the massive purchase of urban immobile property by the nobility. In general, a set of motives lay behind the urbanization of the nobles, including court service, affiliation with the state or land administration, and a general shift in lifestyle. Alongside Prague, Cracow, Pozsony and Breslau, the presence of noble officials was equally symptomatic for many provincial towns with countrywide or regional political and administrative functions. Thus the privileged status of Piotrków, which hosted many sessions of the Polish Diet between 1501 and 1567, gave rise to urban residences in the possession of royal officials and Polish magnates. Though after the Union of Lublin (1569), Piotrków lost much of its political importance in favour of Warsaw, the subsequent emergence of the Supreme Law Court (trybunal) for Greater Poland secured the continued presence of several dozen noble bureaucrats who were affiliated with this institution.188 Yet, cities also experienced an influx of a strikingly different group of nobles, namely that of impoverished noblemen, whose miserable social conditions forced them to seek their daily bread in urban centres, often hoping for a profitable marriage and potential career through a municipal office. This had much to do with the large-scale shift in the social and economic reality over the course of the 16th–17th centuries. The process of the gradual concentration of landed property in hands of the richest magnate families and the rise of economically self-sufficient feudal domains deprived thousands of petty nobles of their livelihood.189 Paradoxically, the same effect might occur in the case of long-term peace, leaving many representatives of the lesser nobility unemployed. The large-scale urbanization of the nobility was a new phenomenon to which urban society reacted sensitively in the spheres of culture, law, politics and economy. This subchapter, therefore, explores the nature of burgher/noble coexistence in the urban environment and the permeability of frontiers between the two social groups. It will be argued that dividing lines were more clearly demarcated in territories with a strong, self-conscious citizenry, as found in Royal Prussia and 16th century Bohemia, while in regions with a politically impotent burgher class, such as Poland, the urbanization of the nobility acquired the form of a large-scale infiltration into the administrative and economic institutions of cities and towns. In other words, self-defined as antithetic to the noble world, well-ordered burgher societies with A. Klemp, ‘Sarmatyzacja gdańskich rodzin mieszczańskich (schylek XVI–XVII wiek)’, in Jankowski, A. and A. Klonder (eds), Cywilizacja prowincji rzeczypospolitej szlacheckiej (Bydgoszcz 2004), pp. 245–261. 188 See H. Rutkowski, ‘Piotrków trybunałski w XVI i pierwszej połowie XVII wieku jako miejście zjazdów szłacheckich’, in Rosin, R. (ed.), 750 łat Piotrkówa Trybunałskiego, (Piotrków 1967), pp. 43–74. 189 See, for instance, P. Maťa, Svět české aristokracie (1500–1700) (Praha 2004), pp. 111–136. 187

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a developed communal sense and estate awareness made every effort to keep the resident nobility distant from any share in urban affairs, but subject to urban fiscal duties. In such a situation, the nobility, though otherwise a privileged group, remained juridically and socially rather an alien organism. Conversely, the absence of a strong urban republicanism to act as a counterweight to the attractiveness of social values of the noble world, produced what is termed in Polish historiography ‘the Sarmatization of towns’, that is a large-scale pervasion of noble cultural patterns and ways of life into urban societies.190 In terms of the relationship between the burghers and nobility, early modern Poland and Hungary show a certain congruity. In both countries, the nobility formed an exceptionally high percentage of the population. Though original estimates for Poland have been reduced by recent surveys from 8–10 per cent to 6–7.5 per cent in around 1700, the size of the noble class still secured the country’s primacy in Europe.191 Hungary did not lag far behind with about 3–4 per cent noblemen by the end of the 16th century.192 These impressive proportions of the nobility, together with relatively low urbanization rates and the political debility of burghers, created a breeding-ground for the rise of noble-dominated national cultures, social environments and constitutional systems. In Poland, the political monopoly of the noble rank engendered a peculiar identity-myth of Polish szlachta, the Sarmatism, whose attributes involved a heroic common past, insistence on the Polish language, specific noble fashion and affiliation with the Catholic faith. On the level of legislation, the predominance of the Polish nobility over cities was expressed by continuous attacks on medieval municipal rights and urban autonomy that often acquired the form of ostracizing anti-burgher laws. As early as 1496, Polish burghers were excluded from the right to possess landed estates while in 1565 a Diet resolution disqualified urban merchants from active participation in foreign trade. A Diet resolution in 1550 allowed nobles to buy houses and real estates in towns provided that their property were subject to the same fiscal burdens as those belonging to local burghers. Yet it remained relatively easy for nobles to receive exemptions (libertacje) from municipal law and in the 16th–18th centuries rising numbers of noble and Church possessions in cities were released from the duty to pay urban taxes. This practice also gave rise to juridically autonomous areas called jurydyki that were either located within the city walls or suburban areas. Jurydyki harmed Polish cities in two ways. They violated the legal integrity of the urban space and posed

Bogucka, ‘Miejsce mieszczanina’, pp. 185–199. See E. Rostworowski, ‘Ilu było w Rzeczypospolitej obywateli szlachty?’, Kwartalnik Historyczny, 94 (1987), pp. 3–39; R.I. Frost, ‘The Nobility of Poland–Lithuania, 1569–1795’, in Scott, H.M. (ed.), The European Nobilities in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries II (London: Longman 1995), pp. 183–222. 192 P. Schimert, ‘The Hungarian Nobility in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries’, in Scott, H.M. (ed.), The European Nobilities in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, II (London: Longman 1995), pp. 144–182. 190 191

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an imminent threat to the urban economy as their craft production was usually independent of local guild regulations.193 At the same time, anti-burgher sentiments were aired in numerous pamphlets written by the noble proponents of Sarmatism (J. Ostroróg, L. Górnicki, S. Zaremba, S. Orzechowski). These authors mostly considered towns to be nests of corruption and their merchants the embodiments of deceit and dishonesty.194 A manifestation of the Polish nobility’s attitudes towards the burghers was expressed by Jan Zamoyski in a public speech in 1575. In reference to flourishing Western European cities, he noted that their opulence and glory was acquired only at the expense of the nobility. Zamoyski repudiated such a model by pointing out that the ‘happiness of people cannot be measured with craftsman’s products, or with walls and large buildings (...)’, but with their liberty, virtue and good manners.195 The message of Zamoyski’s address was clear enough. The mean and ignoble nature of urban life and urban professions disqualified burghers from the elite club of genuine Sarmatians, that is Polish nobles. By describing the Polish Commonwealth, another noble writer, Stanislaw Orzechowski, developed an allegory of the household in which only family members possessed full freedom and property rights. The others, namely servants, could not claim the same rights as the owner of the house: ‘As a servant, doing his duties and menial work in the household, equals himself neither to the house owner nor to his children, also the craftsman and merchant, as labouring people, cannot be equalled in the context of Polish Crown to the clergyman, king and knights’.196 Orzechowski, like other Polish intellectuals and noble writers, voiced the opinion that only noblemen and clergymen were true citizens as they possessed innate civic virtues. This is why burghers and peasants, lacking these qualities, had to be excluded from polity en bloc.197 Surprisingly, a similar way of reasoning was also adopted by some intellectuals originating from the urban environment who identified themselves with the noble Sarmatism rather than with burgher culture and mentality. In the poem Flis by Sebastian Fabian Klonowic one finds a latent criticism of the lifestyle of burghers and at the same time an uncritical admiration for the noble world. Though occupying the post of Lublin Councillor and Burgomaster (1592), the

193 Volumina Legum, II, pp. 8, 34, 597–598; Ptaśnik, Miasta i mieszczaństwo, p. 308; Bogucka and Samsonowicz, Dzieje miast, pp. 494–500. 194 Ptaśnik, Miasta i mieszczaństwo, pp. 301–303; A. Wyrobisz, ‘Power and Towns in the Polish Gentry Commonwealth: The Polish – Lithuanian State in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries’, in Tilly, C. and W.P. Blockmans (eds), Cities and the Rise of States in Europe, A. D. 1000 to 1800, (San Francisco: Boulder – Oxford: Westview Press 1989), pp. 150–167. 195 Małecki (ed.), Wybór mów staropolskich, pp. 71–81. 196 S. Orzechowski, Ziemianin albo rozmowa ojca z synem o sprawie Polski r. 1565; Policya Królestwa polskiego, na ksztalt arystotelowych polityk wypisana r. 1566 (Kraków 1859), pp. 57–58. 197 More on the noble concept of republican citizenship E. Opaliński, ‘Civic Humanism and Republican Citizenship in the Polish Renaissance’, in Van Gelderen, M. and Q. Skinner (eds), Republicanism: A Shared European Heritage I (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2002), pp. 147–166.

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author eulogized the grandeur of the noble life in the countryside while denouncing the fraudulent and small-minded social milieu of the city.198 In terms of burgher/noble relations, their nature in Hungary followed a similar pattern, though perhaps less extreme. In the course of the 16th and 17th centuries the Hungarian royal cities saw many of their privileges curtailed in favour of the nobility. Because of increased noble immigration from Ottoman occupied provinces, the major controversies revolved around the social and legal status of the nobility seeking asylum in urban environments. Here, the privilege from 1492, which exempted the noble property in Pest from common taxation, might have easily served as a precedent for further encroachments on municipal law.199 The long-term dispute over this issue was temporarily resolved by a Diet agreement in 1563, according to which noblemen obtained the right to purchase a house in royal free cities provided they would share in the communal burden. In addition, the nobles were subject to other restrictions, including the import of wine exclusively for their own consumption, a step aimed at protecting urban producers and merchants.200 In practice, however, the execution of these measures remained always problematic and the Hungarian nobility strove increasingly for a change of status quo. Until 1600, the Hungarian royal towns could still rely on the rather ambiguous and inconsequential royal protection, but the Bocskai uprising in 1605–1606 and the dynastic split within the Habsburg family heavily undermined central power and urban centres were left more vulnerable to pressure from the outside.201 As a consequence, the legislation from the first half of the 17th century further circumscribed the autonomy of cities in favour of the economic and political interests of the Hungarian nobles. In 1625, for example, the Hungarian Diet bestowed the right to regulate prices of craft products upon county officials,202 while in 1647, urban houses in the possession of magnates and the rich nobility were released from both the municipal jurisdiction and taxation.203 In both countries, the power disequilibrium between the nobility and burghers, the pauperization of many nobles as well as the absence of strong urban republicanism allowed for growing numbers of resident nobility in urban space. Maria Bogucka has estimated that by 1600 the nobility in many Polish towns might have made up to 10– 15 per cent of the entire population.204 Early modern Cracow renders conspicuous evidence of this trend. M. Niwiński has shown us that by 1580, Cracow citizens 198 M. Bogucka, ‘Das Bild der Stadt im Poem “Flößerei” von Sebastian Fabian Klonowic’, in Edmund Kotarski (ed.), Literatur und Institutionen der literarischen Kommunikation in nordeuropäischen Städten (Gdańsk 1996), pp. 38–46. 199 Corpus Iuris Hungarici, 1000–1526, art. 105. 200 Corpus Iuris Hungarici, 1526–1608, art. 62. 201 J. Szűcs, ‘Das Städtewesen in Ungarn im 15.–17. Jahrhundert’, in Székely, G. and E. Fügedi (eds), La Renaissance et la Reformation en Pologne et en Hongrie (1450–1650), Budapest (1963), pp. 97–164. 202 V. Matula and J. Vozár, Dejiny Slovenska II (Bratislava 1987), p. 153. 203 Corpus Iuris Hungarici, 1608–1657, art. 78, 79, 80; also J. Bessenyei, ‘A szabad királyi városok jogainak csorbítása. Az 1647. évi 78. Törvény’, Történelmi Szemle, XXXII (1991), pp. 255–263. 204 Bogucka, ‘Die Städte Polens’, p. 276; J. Wiesiołowski, ‘The Nobility in Town. Movements and Migration of the Nobility between the Village and Town in Poland during

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controlled only 46 per cent of the inner town while Churches held 35 per cent and 18 per cent was in the hands of the nobility. In the following decades the size of noble property in Cracow stagnated, probably due to the gradual transfer of central state institutions to Warsaw. In 1667, nobles occupied about 17 per cent of the inner city, but the proportion of the burgher property further dwindled to 28 per cent, while Church ownership reached as much as 55 per cent.205 Unlike Cracow, the influx of the nobility into Warsaw had an impressive spatial dimension. Since the early 17th century, the new Polish capital, due to its humble size, saw the rapid rise of vast residential suburbs that affected the subsequent urban development of the city. A contemporary source, for example, enumerated more than 60 residences in 1643.206 Until the mid-17th century, 50–75 per cent of the land in Warsaw suburbs passed into the hands of Polish magnates and the nobility. Based on data from selected Polish and Hungarian urban centres, Table 4.4 illustrates the overall trends towards the accumulation of noble property in cities. Table 4.4 City

Approximate Number of Noble Real Estates in Selected Polish and Hungarian Cities Noble immobile property

Cracow

About 109 noble possessions in the town in 1578–1579 and 1593, about 250–290 noble possessions in Cracow agglomeration by 1600 (c. 10% of all houses).

Poznań

38 noble possessions in the town in 1590; 158 noble possessions in the town and its suburbs in 1618; 186 in 1653

Lublin

15 noble possessions in the town and its suburbs in 1564; 21 in 1570; 65 in 1602; 79 in 1616; 96 in 1660

Kalisz

26 noble possessions in 1629

Kassa

39 noble possessions in 1659; 68 in 1691

Pozsony

66–72 noble possessions in 1659

Sources: Belzyt, ‘Der Adel in den Metropolen Prag und Krakau’, p. 165; Belzyt, ‘Grupy etniczne w Krakowie’, p. 465–485; Niwiński, ‘Stanowy podzial wlasności nieruchomej w Krakowie’, p. 56; Topolski (ed.), Dzieje Poznania I, pp. 429–431, 437; Bogucka – Samsonowicz, Dzieje miast, p. 496; Dobrzański (ed.), Dzieje Lublina I, pp. 85, 97; Rusiński, Dzieje Kalisza, pp. 146–147, 154; Szűcs, ‘Das Städtewesen in Ungarn’, p. 158; Matula – Vozár, Dejiny Slovenska II , p. 239.

It has already been noted that the urbanization of nobility was a general phenomenon in the early modern period. What made the Polish and Hungarian cases special was the high degree of social, cultural and legal amalgamation of the noble and burgher the 15th century’, in Gąsiorowski, A. (ed.), The Polish Nobility in the Middle Ages (Wrocław – Warszawa – Kraków 1984), pp. 255–298. 205 M. Niwiński, ‘Stanowy podzial wlasności nieruchomej w Krakowie XVI i XVII stulecia’, Studia ku czci Stanislawa Kutrzeby II (Kraków 1938), pp. 559–573. 206 A.J. Jarzębski, Gościniec abo krótkie opisanie Warszawy z okolicznościami iey dla kompaniey dworskiey (Warszawa 1974), p. 180.

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strata as well as the unparalleled level of penetration of the nobility into urban institutions. Although the law insisted on a strict division between the two social groups, the reality differed strikingly from theoretical postulates. The numbers of noblemen applying for citizenship and making a career in urban governments persuasively demonstrate these trends. In Lwów, between 1527 and 1536, the nobility formed only 0.8 per cent of all new burghers, but in 1537–1570 it was already 1.7 per cent and in the period 1571–1604 the proportion of noblemen among new burghers grew to 2.8 per cent.207 Correspondingly, in Cracow nobles represented 2.7 per cent of all new citizens between 1507 and 1611.208 The massive influx of nobility was also channelled to Poznań in which the szlachta made up almost 7 per cent of applicants for the citizenship, while in Warsaw in 1550–1575, still before its dazzling upsurge to glory, 5 per cent of new citizens were nobles.209 Among Polish cities, the most impressive immigration of nobility was probably experienced by Gniezno, where in the second half of the 17th century nobles might have comprised almost 15 per cent of all new citizens.210 The gradual infiltration of the noble rank into urban societies may be observed also in lesser market and mining towns. In Bochnia, for instance, only seven noblemen were bestowed full burgher rights by the end of the 15th century, 34 in the first half of the 16th century and 44 between 1550–1600.211 In a strictly legal sense, when accepting citizenship, the nobleman subjected himself to the authority of municipal law, but still little is known regarding the extent of social and juridical barriers between ‘the noble burghers’ and the rest of the citizenry. Instrumental in this respect are urban registers which suggest that the theoretically forbidden noble/ burgher double identity was in practice perfectly feasible. Thus records like ‘nobilis ac civis Bochnensis or generosus ac famatus, civis Bochnensis’ abound in the records of urban provenance.212 Arguably the strongest impetus for petty nobles to integrate themselves into urban society was the imminent threat of pauperization. Confronted with a dismal financial situation, many of them willingly moved to towns in pursuit of a livelihood as merchants or even artisans while outwardly retaining their adherence to the privileged rank of the nobility. Mostly they achieved their goal through misalliances with well-to-do burgher families who longed for noble status regardless of legal prescriptions. The widespread habit of intermarriages did not escape the attention of Bernard Connor who informed English readers about this peculiar social reality in late 17th century Poland: Now I shall proceed to inform your Lordship how Nobility is acquir’d in Poland, which is first by Birth, where both the Parents were Noble: Nevertheless, now-a-days, by a long A. Giłewicz, Przyjęcia do prawa miejskiego we Lwowie w łatach 1405–1604 (Lwów 1931), p. 412. 208 Belzyt, ‘Grupy etniczne’, p. 470. 209 Wiesiołowski, ‘The Nobility in Town’, p. 264; Bogucka – Samsonowicz, Dzieje miast, p. 390; Topolski, Dzieje Poznania, I, p. 437. 210 S. Gierszewski, Obywatele miast Polski przedbiorowej (Warszawa 1973), p. 87. 211 F. Kiryk, ‘Szlachta v Bochni’, Społeczeństwo staropolskie, II (1979), p. 104. 212 Kiryk, ‘Szlachta v Bochni’, pp. 109–123. 207

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Track of Custom, not only such are reputed Noble, but likewise those whose Mothers were Plebeians, for nothing is at present more practis’d in Poland than for the Gentry to match with the Commonalty, especially with those that are rich.213

Though such intermarriages and engagements of petty nobles in commerce, craft and agriculture might have theoretically resulted in the official withdrawal of the nobility, these were rather exceptional cases because of the inefficiency of the judicial system and the common pursuit of such practices. There is considerable evidence, mostly based on case-studies, on how widespread these strategies in the social milieu of early modern Poland were. In his classical study on urbanized nobility in Polish cities, Wlodzimierz Dworzaczek disclosed that in Gniezno at least 30 intermarriages were concluded in the period from 1550–1650.214 Naturally, it was the relatively inexpensive milieu of regional urban centres with substantial economic potential, such as the salt-mining town of Bochnia, that were targeted by most petty nobles. The life story of Tomasz Cieszkowski typified the careers of many similar Bochnian nobles who secured themselves through marriage with daughters of well-to-do craftsmen and merchants, acquired citizenship and engaged themselves in the profitable salt industry. Having moved to Bochnia in the mid-16th century, Cieszkowski married, applied for citizenship and invested his capital in salt mining. Apparently, he integrated well into Bochnia’s society as his likely son Stanislaw Cieszkowski later made a career in municipal self-governing bodies.215 Naturally, immediate experience with the superiority of noble ranks also had a profound impact on the social strategies of the higher strata of the urban society. If the acceptance of citizenship by a nobleman might have been viewed as an omen of social decline, then upward movement on the contemporary social ladder proved the highest aspiration of many well-to-do burghers. No doubt, prestige linked with ennoblement was highly valued everywhere in early modern society. But in countries like Poland–Lithuania or Hungary, where the nobility almost completely usurped political and economic power at the expense of burghers, the acquisition of noble status was also a means by which individual town dwellers could obtain equality in terms of commerce, landownership or personal career. No wonder that the pressure for the acquisition of a noble title was enormous. Logically, the attractiveness of noble privileges as well as aristocratic cultural models brought about an inflation of ennoblements, both collectively and individually. Thus the city councillors of Cracow (1493), Wilno (1568) and Lwów (1658) enjoyed collective nobility with the right to purchase landed estates and sit on the countrywide Diet.216 Corporate noble privileges were also granted by Transylvanian Prince Bethlen Gábor to the reformed clergy in his territories.217 Quite Connor, The History of Poland, II, p. 188. W. Dworzaczek, ‘Przenikanie szlachty do stanu mieszczańskiego w Wielkopolsce w XVI i XVII w.’, Przeglad historyczny, XLVII (4) (1956), pp. 656–684. 215 F. Kiryk (ed.), Księga przyjeć do prawa miejskiego w Bochni, 1531–1656 (Wrocław – Warszawa – Kraków – Gdańsk 1979), p. 90. 216 T. Wasilewski, ‘Nobilitacje miast w dawnej Rzeczypospolitej Obojga Narodów’, Czas, Przestrzeń, Praca w dawnych miastach (Warszawa 1991), pp. 373–385. 217 Schimert, ‘The Hungarian Nobility’, pp. 144–182. 213

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often, the ennoblement of burghers and peasants turned into a considerable source of income for magnates and great noble landowners. For a financial reward, they advocated individuals in the Court or willingly intervened in their favour in the Diet. No wonder that in such circumstances the number of nobles proliferated. It has been estimated, for example, that in each Hungarian county about 500 new nobles were created between 1600 and 1700.218 Most of them were propertyless, but at every opportunity they bragged about their noble status as a letters patent was usually the only formal distinction between them and the rest of the village or urban community. In his book on literacy and written culture in early modern Central Europe, István György Tóth even argues that the general thirst for social elevation gave rise to a prosperous black market as faking letters of ennoblement, and selling them was a common practice and profitable business in 17th–18th century Hungary.219 As manifested by the impressive contrast between figures of official ennoblements by the Diet and the actual numbers of individuals boasting a noble title, the prospect of entering a noble rank in the Polish rzeczpospolita had been equally seductive since 1578, when the right to create nobles was removed from the Polish king. Before 1601 the Diet officially approved 334 new nobles and bestowed Polish indygenat onto six foreigners. In the later period, between 1601 and 1764, there were another 336 ennoblements and 183 indygenats.220 However, if one compares this data with the famous Liber chamorum (Liber generationis plebeanorum), penned in the first half of the 17th century by Walerian Nekanda Trepka, there arises some ambiguity. Though the book focused on a single Polish province, namely Little Poland, it enumerates more than 2,500 people who pretended to have been granted nobility – many times more than the number of officially ennobled individuals in the whole of the rzeczpospolita. By lampooning those who bragged of noble title and showed off their social supremacy, his book demonstrated the insatiable lust of burghers and peasants for social elevation and affiliation with the country elite: Bagiński (...) named himself the son of burgher in Dobczyca. His father was an organist (...) He served with His Grace Trepka Sieciechowski (anno 1632) stealing so much that everybody expelled him (...) This swine (...) calls himself nobleman. In 1632 he was 26, drinks terribly.221 Badowski (...) the son of a peasant from Kaszek, the village near Warsaw by town of Błonia. He was in service to Radziejowski, Palatine of Łęczyca, from 1620 to 1633. He served as his official in Kłodnia by Sochaczew and then he got the gratuity. In 1610 he married a noble woman and had several sons.222

Schimert, ‘The Hungarian Nobility’, pp. 144–182. I.G. Tóth, Literacy and Written Culture in Early Modern Central Europe (Budapest 2000), pp. 150–162. 220 J.K. Hoensch, Sozialverfassung und politische Reform. Polen im vorrevolutionären Zeitalter (Cologne – Vienna 1933), p. 68; Frost, ‘The Nobility of Poland–Lithuania’, pp. 183–222. 221 W.N. Trepka, Liber generationis plebeanorum (Liber Chamorum) I (Wrocław – Warszawa – Kraków 1963), p. 35. 222 Trepka, Liber generationis plebeanorum, I, p. 35. 218 219

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Kondrat, the burgher of Cracow. His brother, a clothmaker, is a Cracow councillor. He has a house made of stone there. Having left Cracow from 1619 he held the town of Wolbram from the Fierlej noble family. Later, in 1631, he held the village Uline a mile from Miechów. As a holder [of a landed estate] he considers himself a nobleman.223

Trepka’s sarcastic criticism of those who usurped noble title is instrumental also in terms of the dubious strategies of how nobility was acquired by commoners. Often it was through long-term service with a magnate that helped the burgher to elevate himself with the tacit or direct support of his patron. For financial payment, the summoned witnesses proved ready to affirm one’s nobility or letters of ennoblement were simply faked. Such strategies proved, in fact, beneficial for a magnate, as a person seeking a noble title remained closely tied to him and dependent on his goodwill. Similarly, it was common practice for moneyed burghers and patricians to buy landed estates and live nobly, usually without acquiring an official ennoblement. In Poland, the right of landownership had been de iure, reserved for the nobility and ecclesiastical feudals, since the late 15th century, but this legal restriction proved largely ineffective and burghers continued to purchase land both as a sound capital investment and as a symbol of their, in a juridical sense often non-existent, noble status.224 Early modern Polish legislation convincingly illustrates how extensive urban landownership actually was, as the proclamations stated, forbidding commoners to buy land. They were reissued, with little success, in 1538 and 1611. In the 16th–17th centuries, the process of the Sarmatization of Polish urban societies was subject to a lively debate in the Sejm that passed many resolutions with the objective of maintaining a clear dividing line between the noble and non-noble echelons of society. For example, the constitution of 1613 forbade commoners to wear silk clothes and luxury furs.225 The issue also provoked some intellectual reflections. Among contemporary noble writers, Krzysztof Opaliński, the Polish magnate and the Palatine of Poznań, distinguished himself as one of major participants in this debate. His work O sposobach pomnożenia miast (On the Ways of Multiplication of Cities, 1650) refers above all to the relationship between the nobility and burghers in Poland. According to the author, it was the permanent humiliation of cities by the nobility and their openly declared disdain towards urban society that deprived burghers of their own dignity and identity. In particular, Opaliński denounced the arbitrary behaviour of royal officials (starosta) towards towns, the large-scale violation of urban privileges as well as the encroachment of the nobility into municipal law and administration. In conclusion, Opaliński suggests that the pretentious manifestation of noble culture as well as arrogance towards the economic and social interests of town dwellers served as a motivation to burghers to acquire nobility at any price and join the privileged caste.226 Arguably the most conspicuous sign of the absence of strong burgher republicanism was the involvement of the Polish nobility in urban politics and its Trepka, Liber generationis plebeanorum, I, p. 250. Frost, ‘The Nobility of Poland–Lithuania’, pp. 183–222. 225 Volumina legum, III, pp. 180, 187, 297. 226 K. Opaliński, Satyry (Warszawa 1987), p. 261; Wyrobisz, ‘Attitude of the Polish Nobility towards Towns’, pp. 86–87. 223

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considerable share among municipal office-holders. Consider the well-documented case of Bochnia. During the 16th and the first half of the 17th centuries, no less than ten nobles (nobilis ac civis, consul Bochnensis) served as city councillors and in 1550, one, Zygmunt Kaczkowski, even occupied the seat of burgomaster. Many other nobles either served as urban scriveners and assessors in municipal law courts or they held important posts linked with salt mining.227 In Gniezno, between 1564 and 1622, at least five burgomasters held noble titles while in office.228 Correspondingly, in the 17th century several city councillors in Cracow enjoyed noble status.229 Again, one is stunned by the gap between the law and reality. Though an act from 1633 prohibited the nobility from holding municipal offices, the law was disregarded on a massive scale.230 The same destiny befell the constitution of 1677, warning all noblemen pursuing activities reserved to commoners, namely the personal involvement in trade or manual and menial labour, that such behaviour discredited the noble rank and would lead to their derogation.231 During the Enlightenment, when the economic and political uplift of Polish cities became a hotly debated issue, some intellectuals recognized the cause of their misery in the sarmatisation of urban society. One of them, Franciszek Salezy Jezierski voiced his criticism publicly: In what state will they find themselves cities whose councillors and the most distinguished burghers are ennobled? Who will occupy their deserted posts? Either propertyless individuals or persons lacking any qualification. Cities will fall into the same misery (...) if the newly created nobles stay in their municipal offices. What might be worse for town dwellers than an incompetent government? And to be governed by noblemen means to suffer under the same yoke in which those royal cities supervised by royal officials find themselves.232

It seems that in the Royal Hungarian urban environment one may identify similar trends. An increasing number of noble refugees from the Turkish countryside encouraged the process of social amalgamation within cities. What usually opened the nobles’ pathway to urban offices was the purchase of immobile property in the city and an affiliation with the urban political and economic elite through marriage.233 In Kassa, for instance, after 1600 part of the urban government consisted of nobles.234 Correspondingly, the nobility in Pozsony and Eperjes claimed, on the basis of its ownership of immobile property in the city, participation in urban government.235 Repeated conflicts between the nobles and the burghers in the small Hungarian town of Korpona resulted in 1651 in an agreement which entitled the former to Kiryk, Księga przyjęć, pp. 79, 109–123. J. Topolski (ed.), Dzieje Gniezna (Warszawa 1965), pp. 278–279. 229 Bieniarzówna, Mieszczaństwo krakowskie, pp. 155–172. 230 Frost, ‘The Nobility of Poland–Lithuania’, pp. 183–222. 231 Volumina legum, V, p. 227. 232 Z. Goliński (ed.), Abyśmy o ojczyźnie naszej radzili – Antologia publicystyki doby stanisławowskiej (Warszawa 1984), p. 200. 233 E. Mályusz, ‘Geschichte des Bürgertums in Ungarn’, Viertel für Sozial- und Wirtschafts Geschichte, 20 (1927), pp. 402–403. 234 Szűcs, ‘Das Städtewesen in Ungarn’, p. 159. 235 D. Lehotská, Dejiny Bratislavy (Bratislava 1978), p. 116; Sedlák, Dejiny Prešova, I, pp. 125, 165. 227 228

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take part in the election of the councillors, but they were denied the right to sit in the urban government. Nonetheless, after the mid-17th century an increasing number of noblemen occupied seats in the city council.236 Anxious to intensify its recatholicization policy, the Viennese Court soon set out to nominate mostly Catholic nobles to municipal offices in predominantly Protestant Hungarian royal cities. Occasionally, however, the well-to-do noblemen themselves resisted such an appointment by pointing out that an involvement in municipal administration would unavoidably cause their social degradation.237 When considering the massive intrusion of the noble world and noble cultural modes into Polish and Hungarian urban environments, one should stress three factors that might have been responsible for such a trend. Firstly, the unprecedented high percentage of the nobility in general and the high proportion of pauperized nobles in particular. Secondly, the striking inability of the legal and judicial system to execute ‘the rules of the game’ and maintain a clear demarcation line between the burgher and noble social strata. Thirdly, the failure of the politically weak Polish and Hungarian urban societies to safeguard the authority of municipal law and to create their own strong ideology and set of values that would counter the seductiveness of noble privileges, culture and living style. The specificity of Polish and Hungarian social development determined the nature of the 19th century national revival which was entirely monopolized by the nobility. On the contrary, in the Czech Lands it was rather the nascent bourgeois society which carried the flag of modern nationalism. In the early modern Bohemian and Royal Prussian environment these factors either did not exist or they proved less acute. In both, according to East-Central European standards, highly urbanized regions, the nobility represented a smaller segment of the population than in Hungary and the Polish heartland. It has been estimated that in the pre-White Mountain Bohemia (before 1620) the nobility comprised perhaps less than 1 per cent of all inhabitants living in the country.238 Moreover, the Bohemian and Royal Prussian burgher estates accomplished full integration into their respective constitutional systems and despite their steadily declining political authority, the burgher communities managed to define and protect their interests and priorities more efficiently than their Polish and Hungarian counterparts. In both provinces, the self-confidence of the burghers accrued from traditions of independent military and political action (the Hussite revolution in Bohemia, the armed resistance against the Teutonic Order in Royal Prussia), from a set of burgher values and also from the existence of strong urban institutions. In Royal Prussia, for example, it was adherence to Lutheranism, the German language and the autonomous Culm law that marked

Matula and Vozár, Dějiny Slovenska, p. 239. Špiesz, Slobodné král’ovské mestá, pp. 203–205. 238 V. Bůžek, Nižší šlechta v politickém systému a kultuře předbělohorských Čech (Praha 1996), p. 7. According to Kazimierz Popiołek the nobility in Silesia formed no more than 1.6 per cent of the entire population by 1600. K. Popiołek, Historia Śląska od pradziejów do 1945 roku (Katowice 1972), p. 74. 236 237

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burgher identity and a strong urban republicanism vis-à-vis the predominantly noble and Catholic environment of the Polish rzeczpospolita.239 This is not to suggest that in Royal Prussia and the Bohemian lands the urbanization of the nobility was less intensive than elsewhere. In Olomouc, for instance, the number of houses owned by nobles steadily grew from about twenty after the mid16th century to 40–50 by 1600. A similar trend occurred in Brno, while in the preWhite Mountain Prague the number of noble houses and residences reached several hundreds.240 In addition, everywhere the urban space hosted many pauperized and petty nobles who either sought inexpensive accommodation in burgher houses or found themselves in the service of magnates while staying in their urban residences. Of course, the coexistence of noble and burgher worlds generated manifold frontiers. Judicial books are the chief sources providing us with valuable evidence of interestate conflicts between town dwellers and nobles residing in cities. The Olomouc register of lawsuits, in which the city and its burghers were involved, lists dozens noblemen residing or staying, for whatever reasons, in the urban environment. Records mostly cover violent crimes committed by nobles, their debts, offensive behaviour towards burghers and conflicts over property.241 Like Polish town dwellers, the Royal Prussian and Bohemian citizenry also found itself under increasing pressure from noble values and culture. In Danzig, for example, some of the richest burghers, after having purchased landed estates in the countryside, gradually alienated themselves from the urban environment. Between 1457 and 1793 no less than 85 patricians of Danzig received a polish noble title usually after serving as burgomasters, councillors or royal officials.242 In general, however, it appears that the nature of the burgher/noble relationship in Bohemian, Moravian or Royal Prussian cities substantially differed from that of Polish towns. The former did everything to avoid the deplorable destiny of their Polish counterparts that were deprived of legal and fiscal control over much of their own territories and had to withstand the economic competition of jurydyki within the urban space and suburban areas. After long-term negotiations, the Royal Prussian cities allowed the nobility to buy urban real estates, under strict regulations, as late as 1633, almost a century after similar rights were granted to szlachta in Polish towns. Symptomatic 239 See K. Friedrich, The Other Prussia – Royal Prussia, Poland and Liberty, 1569–1772 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2000), pp. 71–95. 240 K. Müller, Olomoucká společnost a její proměny v předbělohorském období, (Palacký University Olomouc 1981), pp. 96–101, the unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Palacký University Olomouc; H. Jordánková and L. Sulitková, ‘Šlechta v královském městě Brně v předbělohorském období’, in Muzeum Prostějovska (ed.), Měšťané, šlechta a duchovenstvo v rezidenčních městech raného novověku (16.–18. století) (Prostějov 1997), pp. 166–184; for Prague see F. Dvorský, ‘O počtu domů v Praze a v královských městech v Čechách v 16.–19. století’, Časopis muzea království českého, LV (1881), pp. 478–494. 241 J. Miller (ed.), Konfliktní soužití: Královské město – šlechta – duchovenstvo v raném novověku. Knihy půhonné a nálezové královského města Olomouce (1516–1616), (Olomouc 1998) 242 J. Muhl, ‘Danziger Bürgergeschlechter im ländlichen Besitz’, Zeitschrift des Westpreußischen Geschichtsvereins, 71 (1934), pp. 89–91; Friedrich, The Other Prussia, pp. 36–37, 53–55; Klemp, ‘Sarmatyzacja’, p. 246.

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from this viewpoint seems also the fate of the royal residence in Danzig, whose erection was obstructed by the city for several decades.243 In Moravia, the nobles were entitled to buy immobile property in royal towns as early as 1486, provided that its owners shared all communal charges and that cities, as corporate bodies, could purchase landed estates.244 The principle of superiority of the municipal law over noble property in cities remained untouched even after the radical reform of the Land Constitution (Verneuerte Landesordnung) in 1628.245 Numerous studies exploring the social background of urban political élites also suggest that in the Bohemian lands noble status was less compatible with citizenship than in Poland, not to speak of the direct affiliation of nobles with urban governments. True, it was common practice for rich burghers and municipal councillors in Bohemia and Moravia to be granted their own coat of arms and some minor noble privileges by the ruler. In the 16th century, however, this social advancement still had to be approved by the Diet and most candidates either renounced their claims or were rejected. Erbovní měšťané, as they were called, did not belong to the noble rank and in the legal and social sense they remained adherent to the urban environment.246 For example, in Hradec Králové, one of the major Bohemian towns, about 50 burgher families received their own coats of arms and other lesser privileges during the 16th century, but only a minority were conferred with full nobility and de iure accepted among the knights.247 The scrutiny of the social composition of the city council in Prague’s Old Town showed that between 1547 and 1648 more than 50 per cent (127) of municipal councillors enjoyed the same privilege and several were later ennobled, which, however, juridically disqualified them from a career in urban government.248 It might have happened that some individuals acquired full-right noble status while still in office as a councillor, but unlike Polish cities this happened rather exceptionally.249 A similar picture is rendered by the Prussian urban milieu in which the holding of municipal offices by nobility remained far less habitual than in Poland. Only a few of Danzig’s patrician families, the Ferbers and the Bodecks among them, continued to keep their posts in the city council following their ennoblement.250 Generally speaking, the social, political and juridical reality of the Bohemian lands, if compared to Poland and Hungary, supported the existence of a sharper dividing line Bogucka, ‘Die Städte Polens’, p. 277; Bogucka – Samsonowicz, Dzieje miast, p. 497. F. Čáda (ed.), Zemské zřízení moravské z roku 1535 spolu s tiskem z roku 1562 nově vydaným (Praha 1937), pp. 161–168, art. 135. 245 Codex Juris Bohemici, V/3, pp. 47–49, art. 20. 246 More on this category of burghers Z. Winter, Kulturní obraz českých měst I (Praha 1890),pp. 129–135. 247 J. Mikulka, Dějiny Hradce Králové I/2 (Hradec Králové 1997), p. 261. 248 M. Přikrylová, ‘Podíl nobilitovaných měšťanů na staroměstské samosprávě v letech 1547–1648’, Documenta Pragensia, IX (1) (1991), pp. 135–177. 249 See L. Szabó, ‘Sociální skladba olomoucké městské rady v letech 1524–1600’, Okresní archiv v Olomouci (1983). pp. 63–77; J. Douša, ‘Městské rady v Plzni a na Starém Městě pražském v letech 1550–1650: Sociální složení rad v letech 1560–1590’, Sborník archivních prací, 32 (1982), pp. 321–418; Z. Vybíral, ‘Mocenské elity v táborské obci doby předbělohorské’, Táborský archiv, 9 (1999), pp. 151–184. 250 Klemp, ‘Sarmatyzacja’, pp. 247, 254. 243

244

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between the citizenry and nobility in urban space. Those burghers aspiring to full-right noble status were often expected to make a painful choice between their economic interests and social elevation. Once ennobled, they de iure lost the rights to enjoy economic privileges and pursue an urban craft and trade as the members of urban community and urban guilds. A comparatively consistent execution of these rules of the game would explain the strategy by the Prostějov (Moravia) burgher Jan Pavlát of Olšany, who for two years concealed his ennoblement while seeking to resume his lucrative rights to brew and sell beer in the urban territory.251 Arguably, it was this rationale that discouraged some burghers from attempting to achieve full ennoblement. Reluctant to abandon their profitable commercial ventures, the urban political elite and wealthy town dwellers usually aspired only to outward symbols of noble rank, such as a coat of arms, without being formally ennobled. It has been estimated that in Bohemia between 1541 and 1620, slightly over 200 town dwellers with a coat of arms and noble predicate were admitted to the knighthood while the majority remained socially and juridically tied to the urban society.252 The question of the involvement of nobility in urban administration after the Thirty Years War still remains, due to the lack of systematic research, largely unanswered. One may at least tentatively conclude that the disciplining of Bohemian cities and the weakening of their autonomy made it possible for nobles to take a more active part in urban politics than before. To sum up, everywhere the co-existence of burghers and nobles was marked by the clash of social, juridical, cultural and economic issues. The modus vivendi, however, depended upon the political strength of a city, the level of its autonomy and the corporative awareness it had developed. Though research in this field is rather unsystematic, it appears that the invasion of the noble world into the urban environment was particularly strong in those regions where the citizenry lacked efficient political instruments to defend and retain its identity.

Müller, Olomoucká společnost, p. 29, note 25. V. Klecanda, ‘Tři kapitoly o českomoravských erbovnících’, Zápisky Českého zemského archivu, 7 (1932), pp. 69–96; V. Klecanda, ‘Přijímání do rytířského stavu v zemích českých a rakouských na počátku novověku’, Časopis archivní školy, 6 (1928), pp. 1–125. 251 252

CHAPTER FIVE

Integrity of Urban Society Challenged II: Urban Conflicts and City Autonomy in the Context of Reformation The previous chapters have suggested that the integrity of early modern urban society was increasingly challenged by its growing ethnic, religious, cultural and social diversity. Closely associated with immigration, such potentially destabilizing factors emerged from outside the urban environment. Yet there were also other sources of conflict inherently embedded in any form of collective settlement, namely the ever increasing gap between propertied and non-propertied social classes, collisions between individual ambitions and communal interests as well as tensions between the principles of order and long-term planning and the short-term needs of masses. All these tensions usually came into play during periods of inner instability within medieval and early modern urban societies. For any city such tumults were indeed highly critical moments, but not only because of potential shifts in power relations. The sources also found it embarrassing that these social conflicts signalled a crisis of concord within urban society as for most burghers prosperity and advancement were conditioned by the preservation of inner unity. Conversely, any disharmony might have envisaged city’s fall. Not only did panegyrics stress the need for social order and concord but the vision of the well-ordered and harmonious community was also inherently present in urban historiography. Chronicles as well as essays on city constitutions mostly inclined to the description of the wishful and utopian state of affairs and idealized construction of the past should have served as an instruction for future town dwellers. As an instrument of intergenerational communication the urban historiography thus pursued a double goal – to preserve the values of the past and inculcate them in the new generation of burghers responsible for the prosperity and sustained development of the city. In order to meet this task the authors resorted to the selective choice of historical facts and interpreted them in ‘a politically correct’ way. In the case of urban tumults, examples par excellence of the breach of social and political concord, the urban chroniclers and historians basically used to follow one of two strategies. Occasionally, they simply ignored periods of inner instability or provided merely a very concise overview of the events. If they opted for a comprehensive analysis of the conflict they usually passed a negative judgment with the aim of stressing the harmfulness and potentially detrimental effect of discords within the urban community. In an emphatic way, such an anxiety was expressed by the chronicler of the stormy events in Prague in the 1520s who clamoured for ‘good love and concord’ and warned that ‘old histories and chronicles reveal what effect is had by love and harmony, and hostility and disharmony. Because of disagreements,

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the large, mighty and opulent cities and realms fell into misery and destitution’.1 Similarly, in contemplating the causes of social unrests in Danzig, Stenzel Bornbach voiced his firm belief that disunity in its results engenders nothing but harm and destruction.2 This chapter is concerned, above all, with the remarkable series of social disturbances and conflicts between the city governments and commonalty that occurred at the very dawn of the 16th century, between the 1510s and 1530s. For an urban historian the crucial importance of these upheavals lies with several basic facts. It is noteworthy that a series of urban disturbances from the first half of the 16th century was by far the most dramatic among those that took place in the cities of East-Central Europe between 1500 and 1700. In addition, social struggles in cities were collateral to European Reformation and scholars, therefore, cannot avoid considering the potential causal links between the diffusion of reform teachings and urban disorders. Along with exploring the nature and initial motives of these unrests the chapter also endeavours to suggest an explanatory model that would place the Reformation into the context of urban social upheavals. To be more precise, the focus is on social strife in cities and the Reformation in relation to urban republicanism and to the urban concept of political order. Therefore, the major questions to be discussed are as follows: What were the motives behind city council/community discords? What were the general and specific features of these struggles? How did the Reformation apply in a traditional scheme of conflict between city authorities and the rest of the urban residents? And finally, what effect did the Reformation have on city autonomy? As burgher uprisings mostly took place in urban centres with expansive corporate privileges and with a high level of self-government, attention is drawn exclusively to royal free cities. The Reformation issue, therefore, is discussed in the context of this elite category of urban centres. The main purpose of this chapter leads me largely to ignore not only the purely religious factors that hindered or sparked the advance of Protestantism in urban milieu, but also the ramification of Protestant confessions in the 16th–17th centuries. In other words, theological arguments on behalf of religious change will not be examined and the Reformation will instead be treated rather as a sociopolitical movement within early modern urban societies. Finally, the understanding of the term ‘urban political elite’, which is used abundantly in this chapter, should be elucidated. True, political elite might have covered a relatively large group of people, including those who influenced city politics through their social status and personal wealth but also those who found themselves outside the official structures of city government. Yet in the following text the term is treated in a much stricter sense by referring only to a narrow circle of men who governed the community on the basis of their membership of the city council and the chief municipal offices. 1 K.J. Erben (ed.), Bartošova kronika pražská od léta páně 1524 až do konce léta 1530, (Praha 1851), p. 299. 2 Johann Gotfried Herder Institut, Marburg, S. Bornbach, Historia, Vom Auffruhr zu Dantzigk, welcher sich angefangen hat, Anno 1522. Und ist durch Königliche Maiestat von Polen, Anno 1526, gestillet, mit allem Fleiss beschrieben (Danzig 1587), fol. 1a, microfilm nr. FK 179.

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City Constitution and Council/Community Conflicts in the First Half of the 16th Century Several dozen cities in East-Central Europe were scenes of conflict between urban authorities and the rest of urban society in the first half of the 16th century. This wave of urban riots was neither an accidental phenomenon isolated in time nor a regional curiosity. All medieval and early modern cities underwent recurrent periods of inner instability which occasionally provoked a shift in power relations and prompted the regrouping of the urban political elite. In addition, city council/community conflicts between 1500 and 1550 did not remain confined within the boundaries of EastCentral Europe but struck virtually the whole of the Holy Roman Empire. Frankfurt am Main, Köln, Osnabrück, Minden, Münster, Mainz, Limburg, Speyer, Worms, Goslar, Mühlhausen, Schweinfurt, Erfurt and Schwäbisch-Gmünd, to name at least a few examples, saw bitter urban tumults and most of them, as German scholars pointed out, had no direct association with the devastating peasant war.3 By no means it is suggested, therefore, that Table 5.1 covers all the settlements in which social turmoil took place, but even this selection shows the territorial dimensions of urban riots. It would be justifiable, for example, also to include the dramatic series of social struggles in Prague between 1483 and 1528 or the miners’ riots in Hungarian Besztercebánya (1516–1517 and 1525–1526), though neither case represented the classical model of city council/community conflict.4 Table 5.1

Conflicts between Councils and Citizenry in the First Half of the 16th Century, Selected Cities

City (geographical location) Bautzen (Lusatia) Olomouc (Moravia) Znojmo (Moravia) Jauer (Silesia) Nymburk (Bohemia) Breslau (Silesia) Danzig (Poland) Bunzlau (Silesia) Wieliczka (Poland) Poznań (Poland) Lwów (Poland)

Beginning of the conflict 1508 1513 1516 1516 1517 1517 1517 1517 1518 1518 1519

O. Rammstedt, ‘Stadtunruhen 1525’, in Hans-Ulrich Wehler (ed.), Der Deutsche Bauernkrieg (Göttingen 1975), pp. 239–276; H. Schilling, ‘Aufstandsbewegungen in der Stadtbürgerlichen Gesellschaft des Alten Reiches: Die Vorgeschichte des Münsteraner Täuferreichs, 1525–1534’, in Hans-Ulrich Wehler (ed.), Der Deutsche Bauernkrieg (Göttingen 1975), pp. 193–238; B. Moeller, Reichsstadt und Reformation (Berlin 1987), pp. 20–21; R.W. Scribner, ‘Civic Unity and the Reformation in Erfurt’, Past and Present, 66 (1975), pp. 29–60. 4 On Besztercebánya P. Ratkoš, ‘Banskobystrické baníctvo za feudalizmu’, in Kováč, J. (ed.), Banská Bystrica (Martin 1955), p. 34; On Prague J. Macek, Jagellonský věk 3 (Praha 1998), pp. 300–321. 3

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URBAN SOCIETIES IN EAST-CENTRAL EUROPE, 1500–1700 Kołomyja (Poland) Pilsen (Bohemia) Przemyśl (Poland) Bochnia (Poland) Jihlava (Moravia) Brno (Moravia) Schweidnitz (Silesia) Cracow (Poland) Lublin (Poland) Krasnystaw (Poland) Drohobycz (Poland) Wschówa (Poland) Thorn (Poland) Sambor (Poland) Wilno (Lithuania) Warsaw (Poland) Elbing (Poland) Braunsberg (Poland) Olkusz (Poland) Königsberg (Ducal Prussia) Kadaň (Bohemia) Žatec (Bohemia) Louny (Bohemia) Görlitz (Lusatia) Cheb (Bohemia) Striegau (Silesia) Hradec Králové (Bohemia)

1519 1519 1519 1520 1520 1520 1520 1521 1522 1523 1523 1523 1523 1524 1524 1525 1525 1525 1525 1525 1520s 1520s 1520s 1520s 1525 1526, 1532 1534

Sources: Multiple sources, see notes.5

The courses and outcomes of these social struggles differed. For example, in some towns the conflicts between city councils and the rest of the urban inhabitants resulted 5 Data for Polish towns mostly from M. Bogucka and H. Samsonowicz, Dzieje miast i mieszczaństwa w Polsce przedrozbiorowej, (Wrocław – Warszawa – Kraków – Gdańsk – Łódź 1986), p. 479; J. Buława, Walki spoleczno-ustrojowe w Toruniu w I połowie XVI wieku (Toruń 1971); R. Szczygieł, Konflikty społeczne w Lublinie w pierwszej połowie XVI wieku (Warszawa 1977); J. Dworzaczkowa, ‘O genezie i skutkach rewolty gdańskiej 1525/1526 roku’, Roczniki historyczne, XXVIII (1962), pp. 97–109. On urban conflicts in Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia J. Dřímal, ‘Sociální boje v moravských královských městech ve 20. letech 16. století’, Brno v minulosti a dnes, V (1963), pp. 114–167; M. Bělohlávek, Dějiny Plzně I (Plzeň 1965), p. 110; J. Mikulka, Dějiny Hradce Králové I/2 (Hradec Králové 1997), pp. 182–191; K. Kaiserová, ‘Sociální konflikty v českých a moravských městech v první třetině 16. století’, Ústecký sborník historický, (1985) pp. 119–141; Macek, Jagellonský věk 3, pp. 47–66, 300–321; J. Halbsguth, ‘Bericht des Stadtschreibers Christoff Hertwigk über den Aufstand des gemeinen Mannes in Jauer im Jahre 1516’, Zeitschrift des Vereins für Geschichte Schlesiens, 70 (1936), pp. 207–223; K. Matwijowski (ed.), Strzegom – Zarys monografii miasta i regionu (Wrocław – Strzegom 1998), p. 86.

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in structural reforms of self-governing institutions and in the (quasi)democratization of power structures, while in others they passed without any visible modifications of urban political systems. No less varied is their interpretation offered by scholars. In historical literature these conflicts are viewed as signs of the social and economic distress of the urban population, as popular calls for the democratization of utterly oligarchic systems of city government, as expressions of the political ambitions of urban guilds and artisans, as national struggles between the ‘domestic’ majority and the German political leadership in cities, and finally as the first harbingers of the Reformation.6 While Marxist historians mostly view medieval and early modern city council/community conflicts as progressive movements and occasionally term them class struggles and urban revolutions, others speak about the ‘reactionary and selfish effort of urban guilds to take over the political power in cities’.7 It is evident that East-Central European historical scholarship lacks a coherent theoretical conception that would allow urban struggles to be studied in a comparative perspective. This seems rather surprising if one considers the long-term and systematic study of the issue in Western European and especially German historiography. Since the 1960s many scholars have been discussing the concept according to which the appeal and success of the Reformation rested upon its providing new arguments for the defence of medieval republican values in the face of the centralizing and illegitimate tendencies of city councils and external powers. Advanced by Bernd Moeller in his pioneering book Reichsstadt und Reformation, the theory was further developed and revised by such authors as Gottfried Schramm, Robert W. Scribner and Steven E. Ozment, to mention just a few.8 Most recently, in his monograph on early modern social and religious change in German cities, Heinz Schilling stressed that early 16th century urban struggles over reformed religion were closely connected with late medieval communal unrests in the sense that they represented the qualitatively higher phase of traditional burgher movements.9 Schilling’s message is twofold. Firstly, movements for religious change in cities might be interpreted with the help of the same explanatory model as medieval urban struggles over constitutional, economic and social issues. Secondly, in the age of the Reformation traditional controversies over both the economic conditions of the commonalty and the transformation of the urban political system did not cease to occupy a significant 6 On the urban government/community conflict as a national clash J. Ptaśnik, Miasta i mieszczaństwo w dawnej Polsce (Warszawa 1949), pp. 267–268. 7 E. Maur, ‘K programu lidových hnutí v Čechách a na Moravě roku 1525’, Československý časopis historický, (2) (1976), pp. 209–243; Kaiserová, ‘Sociální konflikty’, pp. 119–141; J. Janáček, ‘K problému sociálních zápasů ve městech v první polovině 16. století’, Československý časopis historický, (4) (1964), pp. 516–519. 8 Moeller, Reichsstadt und Reformation; G. Schramm, ‘Danzig, Elbink und Thorn als Beispiele städtischer Reformation (1517 bis 1558)’, in Fenske, H. and W. Reinhard and E. Schulin (eds), Historia Integra (Berlin 1977), pp. 125–154; S. Ozment, The Reformation in the Cities – The Appeal of Protestantism to Sixteenth-Century Germany and Switzerland (New Haven – London: Yale University Press 1980); Scribner, ‘Civic Unity and the Reformation in Erfurt’, pp. 29–60. 9 H. Schilling, Religion, Political Culture and the Emergence of early modern Society (Leiden – New York – Köln: Brill 1992), pp. 61–71.

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place in early modern urban movements, but they often formed struggles related to religious issues. To put it in Schilling’s words: A linkage easily occurred between religious and ecclesiastical claims and the general demands of the citizenry, based upon communal and corporate norms, which in turn brought about stronger demands for political participation as well as greater consideration of the social and economic concerns of the common people, i.e. those not eligible for the city council.10

The potential link between the Reformation and early 16th century urban unrest has also been repeatedly explored by East-Central European historical scholarship. In general, there is a consensus among historians that religious issues were not the initial causes of these conflicts and that the Reformation did not become the unifying ideology of the revolting masses. Some of them, such as Jaroslav Dřímal in his minute investigation of social struggles in Moravian cities, denied the existence of any association between popular pressures for religious change and the economic and political claims of the discontented citizenry. And indeed, religious demands can hardly be found in the lists of public grievances in any Moravian city.11 At the same time, it has been stressed by some other, mostly Polish, scholars that both the struggle for Reformation in cities and urban turmoil had common underlying motives, namely the widely shared dissatisfaction of the middle and lower strata of the urban population with their economic and social conditions as well as the community’s effort to play a more decisive role in the political and administrative structures of the city. These historians argue that the first repercussions of the Lutheran Reformation might have escalated the ongoing urban conflicts without, however, being their major cause.12 While most East-Central European scholars did not see an immediate causal bond between the Reformation and the series of social unrests in towns during the first half of the 16th century, they failed to pay systematic attention to the potential typological affinity of both phenomena. Once again, let us draw upon the inspiring arguments put forward by Heinz Schilling. By describing the medieval and early modern urban polity in Germany he suggests that its most distinctive feature was the existence of a constitution – or Willkür as it was called in Prussia – drawn up on the basis of custom and statute law which shaped the contours of the political system and community life within a city.13 To this another and equally important element not stressed enough in Schilling’s definition should be added, namely the tacit but widely shared public consensus that the edifice of political rights and Schilling, Religion, Political Culture, p. 65. J. Dřímal, ‘Sociální boje v Brně ve 20. letech 16. století’, Brno v minulosti a dnes, I (1959), pp. 221–286; Dřímal, ‘Sociální boje v moravských královských městech’, pp. 114–167. Critical review of Dřímal’s approach in Janáček, ‘K problému sociálních zápasů’, pp. 516–519. 12 M. Bogucka, ‘Towns in Poland and the Reformation, Analogies and Differences with other Countries’, Acta Poloniae Historica XL (1979), pp. 55–74; J. Dworzaczkowa, Reformacja i kontrareformacja w Wiekopolsce (Poznań 1995), pp. 52–87. 13 Schilling, Religion, Political Culture, pp. 4–5. 10 11

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legal relations together with unwritten historical customs and specific rituals were designed for the welfare of the entire community, from the urban political elite to ordinary town dwellers. It was this elementary concordia within urban society that sanctioned the legitimacy and validity of the city constitution and made it entirely republican in nature. This is not to say that all urban centres had identical political and administrative systems. On the contrary, individual cities usually bragged about the uniqueness of their constitution and for this purpose numerous panegyrics and tracts were penned by urban scriveners and humanist writers. Notwithstanding these variations, the communal order rested, Schilling says, upon four major principles:14 a) The existence of fundamental rights and personal liberties; b) Equal division of civic obligations and duties; c) The legal claim of the community to share political power; d) The oligarchic and egalitarian structure of the urban government. The investigation of communal movements in European cities suggests that most conflicts between urban authorities and town dwellers arose either as a collective response to the violation of these fundamental rules or as a collective demand for their extension in unison with the city constitution. This unavoidably implies that the late medieval and early modern burgher movements were, by their nature, conservative as they mostly incarnated struggles for the restoration of the original republican constitution that was based upon these four pillars. In a series of discords between burgher communities and urban governments in the early 16th century the conservative character of communal demands was manifestly expressed by recurrent popular calls for public readings of the city constitution, that is of the historical charters, rights and liberties the city possessed. Everywhere, such a request accrued from the burghers’ anxiety that the republican nature of the urban political order, anchored in ancient documents, would otherwise be lost in favour of the council’s oligarchic and eventually despotic rule. The public display of urban constitution aimed both to remind city fathers of the communal sources of their power and to reinforce the burghers’ awareness of their rights. In city council/community conflicts a communal appeal to the original state of affairs therefore usually served to remedy deficiencies in the political system and novelties seen by burghers as illegitimate. For all other cases, one may demonstrate this by the demands raised in 1520 by the burghers of Brno in Moravia. Here the method used to recruit new councillors, who used to be appointed by the old city council, was severely criticized by the citizenry as unlawful and a violation of historical rights. By appealing to a royal privilege from 1292, the burghers argued that the city council had to be chosen collectively by the councillors, community Elders and all the citizens.15 As references to the past carried substantial legal weight in medieval and early modern culture, the historical argument usually served to legitimize the armed resistance of estates against their rulers as well as communal movements against urban governments. In the case of Brno, we have an excellent source providing us with a valuable insight into the legal and political mentality of early modern urban society. 14 15

Schilling, Religion, Political Culture, pp. 6–30. J. Dřímal and V. Peša (eds), Dějiny města Brna I (Brno 1969), p. 125.

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The urban scrivener Jan Munka of Ivančice, who witnessed the conflict, informs us in his memoirs about the nature of a debate between the urban fathers and malcontent burghers which revolved around old customs (alte Gewohnheit). It is apparent from his text that the citizenry insisted that the burghers should see ‘our liberties and rights’ and repeatedly demanded that ‘all privileges should be read’.16 An appeal to the ancient state of affairs and the original republican constitution played an indispensable role in the burghers’ arguments and it figured, in some form or another, in any communal movement. It should come, therefore, as no surprise that the same form of reasoning was also pursued in other Moravian cities. In Olomouc, for example, the burghers insisted on their right to choose the fojt (municipal judge and police officer) by referring to their privilege from 1351.17 Elsewhere, the reluctance of urban fathers to display urban freedoms might have incited violence. The Prussian chronicler Simon Grunau left us a minute description of the course of events in Danzig. Having examined the city privileges, the indignant burghers accused the government of denying them many of their rights, including free fishing, and displaced several corrupted councillors (Ubelltheter) while choosing a body of representatives henceforth to supervise the council.18 In another Prussian city, Thorn, social unrest forced the urban government to have all privileges translated into German and Latin and have them annually read aloud in a public place.19 In many cities, the urban constitutions themselves contained an article referring to the duty of the councillors to keep the burghers informed about their corporative and individual rights and freedoms. The city constitution of Dirschau (Royal Prussia), for example, expressly stated that burgomasters were bound annually to present its text to the assembled burghers.20 Let us look first at how the model of civic republicanism proposed by Schilling applies to urban government/community controversies in East-Central Europe after 1500. In the subsequent part of the chapter we will suggest how the issue of Reformation may fit into it. Fundamental Rights and Personal Liberties Threatened: Financial Affairs and Communal Control A comparative analysis of the principal causes of communal unrest reveals that public criticism usually centred on the wanton fiscal and financial policies of city councils. Consider, for instance, a list of grievances delivered in 1522 by the Lublin burghers to the urban government. Out of nineteen items, four referred 16 Archiv města Brna, Rukopisy, Knihy, Staré paměti brněnské Jana Munky z Ivančic, no. 7329, fols 44a–45b, 59a–62b. 17 Dřímal, ‘Sociální boje v moravských královských městech’, p. 135. 18 S. Grunau, ‘Preussische Chronik’ in: Die Preussischen Geschichtschreiber des XVI. und XVII. Jahrhunderts (Leipzig 1896), vol. III, pp. 20–21. 19 J.H. Zernecke, Thornische Chronica in welcher die Geschichte dieser Stadt von MCCXXXI. bis MDCCXXVI. aus bewehrten Scribenten und glaubwürdigen Documentis zusamen getragen worden (Berlin 1727), p. 117. 20 Johann Gottfried Herder Institut, Marburg, Willkühr der Stadt Dirschau 1582, fols 31–32, microfilm nr. 2380.

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directly to financial and economic issues. The most significant among them was the clamour, justified by an appeal to old communal rights, for regular public control of municipal revenues and expenses. Contrary to this claim raised by the community, the Lublin magistrates argued that urban accounts were traditionally checked by only two guildmasters.21 A year before the conflict in Lublin, public dissatisfaction about the same issue arose in Cracow.22 Prussian cities did not escape controversies over financial matters either and in Danzig, Königsberg and Elbing the burghers denounced the council’s mishandling of public revenues.23 The situation became critical above all in Danzig where the anger of the citizens was aroused after the bankruptcy of the municipal budget in 1517.24 The result is well known. Subject to public hostility and charged with careless treatment of public revenues, the burgomaster Eberhard Ferber had to flee the city while his property was confiscated.25 Numerous surveys of council/community conflicts in the Bohemian Lands suggest that their motives generally coincided with those in Polish cities. The public supervision of municipal finances occupied a key place among communal demands in major Moravian cities, Olomouc, Brno, Znojmo and Jihlava.26 In 1519, malcontent burghers in Pilsen bitterly complained that councillors were wasting public funds in lieu of utilizing them for communal benefit.27 Moreover, in all the cities in question, citizens charged the urban fathers with misusing the property of orphans and widows. A statistical scrutiny of communal demands made by Kristina Kaiserová, though lacking methodological coherence, discovers that in Bohemian and Moravian cities financial affairs were by far the largest bone of contention.28 As for Silesian urban centres, a valuable description of the course of events in Jauer was left to us by the municipal scrivener Christoff Hertwig. According to his evidence the immediate cause of the urban turmoil in 1516 was the public discontent with the strange behaviour of councillors who collected annual contributions on behalf of the military alliance between the royal towns in Schweidnitz–Jauer principality and Frederick II of Liegnitz. Some councillors were repeatedly seen sitting in pubs and drinking beer with the collected money in their pockets, a fact which naturally aroused the suspicions of the community.29 Correspondingly, commenting upon social strife in Schweidnitz (1520–1524), the chronicler Michael Steinberg left us

Szczygieł, Konflikty społeczne w Lublinie, p. 65. Szczygieł, Konflikty społeczne w Lublinie, p. 56; J. Bieniarzówna and J.M. Małecki, Dzieje Krakowa II (Krków 1994), p. 58. 23 F. Gause, Die Geschichte der Stadt Königsberg in Preussen I (Köln – Weimar – Wien 1996), p. 220; A. Groth (ed.), Historia Elbląga II/1 (Gdańsk 1996), pp. 34–39; E. Cieślak (ed.), Historia Gdańska II (Gdańsk 1982), pp. 224–248. 24 Cieślak (ed.), Historia Gdańska, II, p., 225. 25 Cieślak (ed.), Historia Gdańska, II, p. 225. The exhaustive description of events in Bornbach, Historia, Vom Auffruhr zu Dantzigk. 26 Dřímal, ‘Sociální boje v moravských královských městech’, pp. 114–167; Dřímal, ‘Sociální boje v Brně’, pp. 221–286. 27 Bělohlávek, Dějiny Plzně, I, p. 110. 28 Kaiserová, ‘Sociální konflikty’, pp. 130–133. 29 Halbsguth, ‘Bericht des Stadtschreibers Christoff Hertwigk’, pp. 209, 217–223. 21

22

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a laconic note that the debate largely revolved around financial affairs.30 The sole example of urban conflict in the Hungarian towns on our list, namely the quarrels between miners and the urban government in Besztercebánya from 1516–1517, bears the same symptoms of public frustration over money. Here, the miners insisted on their participation in the management of public funds deposited in the charitable Confraternity of Corpus Dei.31 Occasionally, it was the lust of the state authorities for additional income that incited the fierce opposition of the burghers. For example, after the accession of Ferdinand I the Bohemian cities were more frequently confronted with financial claims by the Crown. In such cases the urban governments, as intermediary powers between the voracious ruler and reluctant communities, found themselves in a thankless situation. In Hradec Králové, similarly to other cities, Ferdinand’s attempts to introduce a new turnover tax triggered bitter friction between the citizens and city fathers. The community took advantage of the situation and also attacked the putatively fraudulent financial policy of the city council.32 Sixt of Ottersdorf, the councillor of Prague and an experienced urban politician, once gave way to bitter lamentations over the thankless job of city governors subject to simultaneous pressures from above and below: ‘[they are] so poor, in each Diet between the upper and nether millstones, the king, estates and burghers; no matter what you do, troubles all around; if you do not consent you fall foul of the royal wrath, if you agree then the common folk threaten’.33 In no way was the significance of individual financial contributions for the purpose of communal welfare questioned in these conflicts but everywhere communities argued that the unchecked fiscal and financial policies of urban governments heavily undermined the fundamental rights and personal liberties of the burghers and, therefore, the city constitution. As we have seen, public anger was aroused either by the deceitful and clandestine conduct of councillors in financial matters or by arbitrary new taxes against the will of the taxpayers. In the eyes of the burghers it was the republican nature of the urban community that entitled their resistance against the illicit policies pursued by the city fathers. By voicing their protest in these matters, the burghers were insisting on their fundamental property rights that were at the very core of the civic concept of personal liberties and urban citizenship. As there was a direct link between taxation and individual property, all government actions referring to fiscal and financial aspects had to be sanctioned by the entire body of citizens or at least by their representatives. Indeed, urban legal experts almost unanimously agreed that in these issues it was mandatory for city governments to seek a broader consensus with the rest of burghers. This belief was unambiguously expressed by the Danzig historiographer Reinhold Curicke (1610– 1667) who categorically stated that in all fiscal matters as well as extraordinary 30 A. Schimmelpfennig and T. Schönborn (eds), Schweidnitzer Chronisten des XVI. Jahrhunderts (Breslau 1878), p. 136. 31 Ratkoš, ‘Banskobystrické baníctvo’, p. 34. 32 Mikulka, Dějiny Hradce Králové, I/2, pp. 182–191. 33 J. Teige (ed.), Sixta z Ottersdorfu knihy památné o nepokojných letech 1546 a 1547 II (Praha 1920), p. 20.

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financial payments the community had to be consulted.34 Two principal motivations, therefore, lay behind the community’s claim for the approval of financial measures adopted by magistrates and checks upon municipal incomes and spendings, namely to prevent city fathers from misusing public finances and also to defend citizens against new arbitrary taxes without their consent. The protracted and dramatic history of quarrels between urban fathers and communities over public finances had an interesting dénouement. While until the late 17th century it was mainly burghers who pressed for more consistent and efficient control of financial issues, in the subsequent period the initiative was taken by the increasingly bureaucratized pre-modern state attempting to consolidate urban economies and enhance the fiscal potential of cities. The Bohemian milieu renders an example par excellence. At the dawn of the 18th century the Committee for City Revitalization (Komise pro povznesení měst) designed long overdue reforms that would make the financial policy of urban governments more open and transparent. Paradoxically, the state reformers proposed the introduction of exactly those measures that were, for centuries, demanded by ordinary citizens, namely the supervisory role of the community which should have been granted the right to choose independent officials with access to municipal account books.35 Urban Community and its Call for Participation in Political Power By vindicating their individual liberties citizens had to resort to communal action. As these liberties and rights formed the pillar of medieval city constitutions, the grievances against the financial practices of urban governments were inseparably linked with the defence of the republican and communal spirit of urban political order. In most city council/community conflicts, however, also other constitutional principles were at stake, namely the legal claim of burghers to share political power and the oligarchic/egalitarian character of urban government. Schilling rightly says that the nature of late medieval and early modern communal movements was rather traditional in the sense that burghers basically did not question the principle of political elitism and oligarchy.36 In the post-war period this crucial fact passed largely unnoticed by Marxist scholarship, which tended to define the urban power system one-sidedly in terms of social and property antagonism rather than in terms of consensus and tradition. As a consequence scholars have often credited late medieval and early modern conflicts between the citizenry and urban magistrates with a progressive and, in the modern sense of the word, a revolutionary spirit.37 By referring to the social compositions of city councils and occupational structures of urban population they have sought to prove two major arguments. 34 R. Curicke, Der Stadt Danzig historische Beschreibung (Amsterdam – Danzig 1687). A new facsimile edition (Hamburg 1979), p. 125. 35 J. Klepl, ‘Královská města česká počátkem 18. stol.’ (Reformy hospodářské a správní)‘, Český časopis historický, 38 (1932), pp. 260–284, 489–521; 39 (1933), pp. 57–71. 36 Schilling, Religion, Political Culture, p. 28. 37 For instance Dřímal, ‘Sociální boje v moravských královských městech’, pp. 114–167; Dřímal, ‘Sociální boje v Brně’, pp. 221–286; Macek, Jagellonský věk, 3, pp. 47–65, 312–321.

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Firstly, the relationships between urban oligarchies usurping political power and the rest of the community were marked with a latent tension as the economic and social interests of both groups (or classes in the Marxist terminology) were inherently contradictory. Secondly, such a premise has naturally implied that communal movements primarily aspired to democratize the system by making it more open to lower strata (or classes) of urban population. Yet this view is biased in the sense that it does not consider the ingrained respect of medieval and early modern civilization for hierarchical social settlement. The idea of natural inequality and a hierarchical society dominated men’s thinking on political, legal and social issues and it was also embedded in the theoretical works of urban provenance. In the first half of the 16th century the Bohemian jurist Brikcí of Licko writes: ‘to maintain order, any nation should and must be administered by a chosen elite (...), even pagans recognized, with common sense, the need for administrators and social distinctions and they voluntarily subjected themselves to those who appeared more sensible and gifted’.38 In his Respublica Bohemiae, the burgher, humanist writer and later religious émigré Pavel Stránský voiced the same opinion: In any human society one observes certain signs of inequality among men. Someone excels in physical vigour, another in his noble descent and yet another in the size of his property (...). According to such principles, certain degrees of honour and dignity perhaps emerged in public and in the political settlement of states of any kind.39

Finally, consider the early 16th century description of Breslau by Bartholomeus Stein. When referring to rights of participation in urban government, Stein informed the reader that ‘The city council consists of nineteen members whose selection is conditioned by their property and legitimate birth’.40 All three authors agreed that only specific competencies qualified individuals to govern and make political decisions. Everywhere citizenry accepted the principle according to which the combination of wealth, age, personal qualities, life-long experience, historical custom and, increasingly, also education were the best prerequisites for occupying seats in an urban government. Such criteria naturally engendered a relatively narrow social stratum among urban inhabitants. Citizens, therefore, never sought to suppress the rule of a privileged group and they willingly consented to a certain level of oligarchy. And indeed, one can hardly find the very principle of oligarchic rule attacked by urban communities in late medieval and early modern urban conflicts. Some contemporary urban intellectuals even voiced the idea that the qualified and moderate rule of respected individuals forestalls the B. z Licka, Tytulové Stavu Duchovního a Světského. Totiž Papeže, Císaře, Králuov, Knížat, Hrabat, Kardynáluov, Kurfirštuov, Arcibiskupuov, Biskupuov, Opatuov, Proboštuov, Administrátoruov etc. Pánuov, Rytířuo, Vládyk, Měst některých, kdo jse jak a odkud píší v Království Českém, v Markrabství Moravském, V Knížetství Slezském, a což jse jich shledati odjinud z jiných přísedících zemí na tento čas mohlo, (Praha 1534). 39 P. Stránský, O státě českém (Praha 1946), p. 229. 40 ‘Rath besteht aus neunzehn Bürgern, für deren Wahl Vermögen und freie Geburt maßgebend sind’. B. Stein, Descripcio tocius Silesie et Civitatis Regie Vratislaviensis, ed. H. Markgraf, (Breslau 1902), p. 65. 38

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wantonness and tyranny of the multitude that would unavoidably emerge should the unqualified and easily manipulated crowd usurp power.41 The anonymous author of the tract about temporal political power argued that democracy would sooner or later degenerate into anarchy and voiced his belief that ‘after some time only a few good, learned and enlightened men would remain in municipal offices while the government would fall into obscurity and chaos’.42 The widely shared public consensus that only certain competencies qualified men to govern the city also legitimized the long-term tenure of many individuals in city councils. Being entitled to hold political power, however, just signified that magistrates occupied the most responsible posts in the structure of municipal government but sovereignty remained vested in the body of citizens. The oligarchic features of urban political order, therefore, did not subvert the republican spirit of the city constitution best expressed by the citizen’s oath making all burghers equal in terms of their legal status, rights and obligations. In this respect, the Aristotelian definition of state power, so influential in medieval and early modern political thought, would probably help us to better understand the nature of urban political system. If the Aristotelian theory is applied to the early modern city then the republican constitution would correspond to a mixed aristocratic (rule of the few) and democratic (rule by many) government.43 In the search for verification of such a thesis, one may have to resort to contemporary evidence. Once again let us appeal to the Silesian humanist and urban writer Bartholomeus Stein. Lamenting the growing political power of Breslau’s citizenry, he noted that ‘the original aristocratic republic converted itself into a plebeian one’.44 Similarly, the Aristotelian concept of power was employed by Brikcí of Licko for the definition of a city in the prologue of his famous work on the Bohemian municipal law.45 An elaborate and sophisticated theory of the aristocratic-democratic nature of the urban political order was left to us by the Prussian urban historiographer. By describing the urban polity, Reinhold Curicke questioned the well-known argument by Jean Bodin about the indivisibility of power and considered statum mixtum the chief principle of the government in Danzig.46 A century later, the same tradition of political thought was epitomized by the Gottfried Lengnich’s (1689–1774) monumental work Ius publicum civitatis Gedanensis. Though aware of the subordinate status of the city vis-á-vis the Polish king, Lengnich, nevertheless treated Danzig’s polity as entirely republican with well-balanced aristocratic and democratic components of power: ‘There is a mixed government in Danzig (...). It has some aristocratic features as many issues are treated by the Council alone. But it is also democratic as the entire community or citizenry (...) takes part in discussions over the most important questions’.47 See Fontes rerum bohemicarum VI, pp. 295–296. Daniel Adam z Veleslavína (ed.), Politia Historica, O Wrchnostech a spráwcých swětských knihy patery (Praha 1584), p. 538. 43 Aristoteles, Politika (Praha 1895), pp. 64, 132–158. 44 Stein, Descripcio tocius Silesie, p. 65. 45 B. z Licka, Práva městská (Praha 1880), p. 7. 46 Curicke, Der Stadt Danzig, p. 126. 47 ‘Die Regierungsart in Danzig ist gemischt (...). Es ist etwas Aristokratisches, dass von dem Rath als den Vornehmsten der Stadt verschiedene Angelegenheiten allein besorget werden; 41 42

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Yet there is still another argument that makes the Marxist theory of inherent antagonism between oligarchic and democratic principles of urban power awkward. The complicated edifice of municipal administration, consisting of several dozen more or less important offices and appointments, employed a surprisingly large segment of the citizenry. No doubt, the exuberance of municipal bureaucracy was a consequence and hallmark of the overstructured and overregulated nature of medieval and early modern urban society, but the number of people involved psychologically and optically democratized the political system. Instrumental, in this respect, may be the composition of self-government in early 16th century Kutná Hora, which was perhaps inhabited by slightly less than 10,000 town dwellers (Table 5.2).48 Table 5.2

Municipal Administration in Kutná Hora, 1525

City council Communal councillors (consules communi) Community Elders (seniores civitatis) Special offices (officia privata) Minor communal offices Quarter captains and Fire checkers Sextons Mining offices Municipal Judge (Richter) Councillors in suburbs (consules suburbani) Guild masters

18 persons 6 71 14 15 22 11 30 1 39 65

Source: Státní okresní archiv Kutná Hora, Archiv města Kutná Hora, Liber memorabilium, no. 10, fols 26b–28a.

True, the structure of administration in Kutná Hora was somewhat specific as it involved also the management of mining. But everywhere the system mirrored, at least formally, the republican mentality of the citizenry and the concept of the diffusion of sovereignty among many. In Litoměřice, a provincial Bohemian city with hardly 4,000–5,000 inhabitants, more than one hundred burghers occupied less significant posts in 33 municipal committees.49 Yet another dimension of urban administration was exemplified by the Prague’s Old Town which in 1579 embraced 357 offices and posts to be held by burghers.50 It appears that the quasi-democratic principles were und es hat das Ansehen einer Demokratie, wenn die ganze Gemeine oder Bürgerschaft (...) an den wichtigsten Geschäften Theil nimmt’. G. Lengnich, Ius publicum civitatis Gedanensis oder der Stadt Danzig Verfassung und Rechte (Danzig 1900), p. 28. 48 On the Kuttenberg’s administrative system M. Kapavíková, ‘Kutnohorské radní knihy z let 1462–1527 a městská správa v tomto období’, Sborník archivních prací, (1973), pp. 128–152; M. Bisingerová and L. Vaněk, ‘Agenda kutnohorské městské správy v 16. století ve světle radních manuálů’, Práce z okresního archivu v Kutné Hoře (1984), pp. 1–28. 49 O. Kotyza and J. Smetana and J. Tomas, (eds), Dějiny města Litoměřic (Litoměřice 1997), p. 175. 50 J. Douša, ‘Staroměstští konšelé v jiných funkcích městské samosprávy v letech 1571– 1602 a 1630–1650’, Documenta pragensia, 15 (1997), p. 47.

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implemented in a most extreme way in rather small, parochial and modestly populated Royal Hungarian towns. Consider Eperjes with its oversized outer council. In 1496 this assembly was composed of an incredible 80 deputies but their numbers, as everywhere, fluctuated. While in 1532 the outer council had just 55 representatives, in 1686 it was comprised of 71 members.51 Correspondingly, in Bártfa the outer council, centumviri, numbered about 70–86 burghers before 1500 and in the first half of the 16th century this communal body still had about 50 members.52 If also other municipal offices are taken into account, then the entire administration of these towns must have symbolically employed a particularly high percentage of the citizenry. Earlier in the text it has been argued that democratic features within urban political system were counterbalanced and complemented by inbuilt oligarchic principles. As grievances aired by burghers in Bohemian, Moravian, Polish, Lusatian and Silesian cities seem to suggest, the opposition against the urban political elite grew because of the conscious attempt of councillors to violate the constitutional balance by reinforcing oligarchic principles at the expense of democratic ones. These tendencies proved most apparent in the widespread practice of the accumulation of political competencies and in deliberate efforts to monopolize power by inhibiting the rise of a new political elite. In various ways the city councils also made constant efforts to secure the loyalty of communal institutions that were originally established to supervise them. This is why communal movements in some Bohemian cities were directed not only against the city councils but also against Community Elders (obecní starší), considered by the burghers to be adherents to urban governments rather than defenders of the collective will.53 The preceding paragraphs have implied that, contrary to Marxist theory, the controversial issue was not so much the oligarchy itself but rather its tendency to expand. This uncontrolled and illegitimate extension of oligarchic principles was to be checked through the active participation of burghers in the election of urban governments and also through complementary and autonomous institutions. This is why burgher communities defended their right to choose the holders of minor urban offices, assessors of municipal law courts and, above all, they clamoured for the emergence of representative corporate bodies parallel to the city councils.54 Early modern burgher literature renders an abundance of testimonies that the public fear of the urban political system degenerating into the tyranny of a few or a single man was a recurrent theme. Political takeover in Prague in 1524 and the subsequent terror by Pašek of Vrat directed against Lutherans and his personal opponents seemed fully to justify these anxieties. In his chronicle of Prague’s events between 1524 and 1530 the urban scrivener Bartoš intended to show how easily the republican order may be subverted and how devastating the consequences of tyrannical governments might be. I. Sedlák, Dejiny Prešova 1 (Košice 1965), pp. 81, 164–168. L. Holotík, Dejiny Bardejova (Košice 1975), pp. 55–56. 53 Macek, Jagellonský věk, 3, pp. 50, 312–321. 54 In Lublin and Cracow, for instance, burgher communities defended their right to choose the members of the municipal law court. See Szczygieł, Konflikty społeczne w Lublinie, p. 56. The citizenry in Olomouc and Znojmo sought to participate in the election of Stadtrichter. See Dřímal, ‘Sociální boje v moravských královských městech’, pp. 135, 144. 51 52

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One is tempted to read the chronicle as a moral tale since in its last chapters the author gave much attention to the sad and woeful lot of Pašek and other plotters. His point was clear enough: Those who usurp power at the expense of the burgher community and trample the fundamental principles of urban political system will not escape their just punishment performed either by human justice or God.55 Fears of the corruption of political order were also behind public pressures for the social openness of executive offices which aimed at preventing the perpetual rule of a single group of men and family clans that could potentially turn the urban republican polity into a tyranny. This is why in most cities, in Danzig, Thorn as well as Moravian urban centres, nepotism in city councils found itself under harsh assault from the burghers.56 The chronicler of Thorn, Jacob Heinrich Zernecke, even recorded that after stormy events in the city the burgomaster Franz Esken found himself under pressure to abdicate because of his kinship to other councillors.57 The categorical imperative expressed by the Jihlava community that sons-in-law, brothers and uncles of related blood should not sit on the council was raised in most cities.58 By criticizing the concentration of power in the hands of several families or within a socially closed club of burghers, the revolting citizenry endeavoured either to change or reconstruct the urban government without, however, questioning its oligarchic character. In each city the level of social openness of the urban political elite differed in relation to the strength of the community and the urban guilds as well as to the existence of public needs and interests that would enforce the change. An illustrative example of an external factor that pressed, in the long run, for the social regrouping of the political elite was the gradual bureaucratization of the state administration and the reception of the Roman law. As a consequence, the role of a juridical education steadily increased and professional jurists began to appear in the 16th–17th centuries more frequently among city councillors. The social fluctuations within the urban political elite and the degree of communal influence on the composition of city councils varied considerably from city to city. An extreme example, yet not uncommon in the early modern age, was the lack of sustained communal interest in taking part in governing combined with the reluctance of the upper urban strata to involve themselves in city politics. Mostly this happened in parochial and rather agricultural towns with an underdeveloped civic and republican mentality within the burgher community. Consider the small town of Vodňany in Southern Bohemia in which chronic difficulties in filling all the seats of the Community Elders (obecní starší) eventually forced the urban fathers to solicit for their reduction from twelve to six.59 In Kostelec nad Černými lesy, a small Erben (ed.), Bartošova kronika pražská, pp. 326–329. Dřímal, ‘Sociální boje v moravských královských městech’, pp. 135, 144, 150. The elimination of nepotism in the city council was also one of four major demands raised by the community in Danzig. See Cieślak, Historia Gdańska, II, p. 227. 57 Zernecke, Thornische Chronica, p. 117. 58 M.L. von Löwenthal, ‘Chronik der königlichen Stadt Iglau (1402–1607)’, in D’Elvert, C. (ed.), Mährische und Schlesische Chroniken, 1 (Brünn 1861), p. 34. 59 P. Slavíčková, Měšťanská společnost ve Vodňanech v druhé polovině 16. století na základě rozboru civilněprávních pramenů (Olomouc 2003), p. 67. The unpublished MA thesis, Palacký University Olomouc. 55 56

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provincial town in Central Bohemia, the municipal self-government enduringly found itself on the verge of total collapse due to the chronic apathy of burghers to a public and political career in the local power system. Because of the enormous depopulation after the Thirty Years War the crisis peaked when the urban fathers themselves proposed to reduce the number of councillors from twelve to eight.60 Perhaps due to the backward evolution of communal control bodies, the situation in many Polish cities appeared differently. By 1500, the executive power in major urban centres such as Danzig, Cracow, Lwów and Elbing was firmly held by a small and rather close-knit group of patrician families who jealously guarded their privileged status.61 In a way, the markedly elitist and oligarchic political system of these cities much resembled that of Nuremberg, whose distinctive features were the aristocratic urban government, the numerus clausus of councillors, life-long tenure and the hereditary claim of ratfähig Familien on the seat in the council.62 In most cities of East-Central Europe, however, the power system was marked by more or less limited social openness that perfectly echoed both the demand for continuity of power and public pressures for natural change within the political elite. As already suggested, the city fathers, no matter how socially closed or open the club they formed, were supposed to rule in unison with the common will of the burghers which was usually embodied in communal institutions claiming rights to sanction the council’s policies. The absence of such bodies or their functional collapse (either due to their excessive loyalty to urban governments or because of their declining political authority) was everywhere interpreted by the citizenry as a violation of its collective constitutional right to take part in decisions concerning crucial issues, above all fiscal and military matters and the external policy of the city. The nature of demands voiced by burgher communities in cities in Bohemia, Moravia, Lusatia, Silesia and Poland discloses that the communal participation in urban power, one of the most fundamental constitutional principles, was always at stake. Nevertheless, a comparative inquiry into early 16th century urban conflicts suggests significant differences in terms of the institutionalization of communal power. When examining the communal movements in Polish cities around 1500, one concludes that the classical structure of urban governments in most urban centres was still evolving. By this time, for example, only a handful of the largest cities (Cracow 1475, Lublin 1504) had succeeded in buying out the office of a municipal judge (wójtostwo sadowe), while many other urban centres took it over in a later period (Warsaw 1609). In some royal cities, however, this influential post was gained on behalf of the king, which placed the urban judicial system under the immediate

Státní okresní archiv Kolín, AM Kostelec nad Černými lesy, Kniha kontraktní I (1622–1815), no. 3, fol. 7, 281. 61 Bogucka and Samsonowicz, Dzieje miast, pp. 455–456; N. Davies, God’s Playground – A History of Poland I (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1981), pp. 300–301; Cieślak, Historia Gdańska, II, pp. 215–233; Groth (ed.), Historia Elbląga, II/1, pp. 34–39. 62 G. Strauss, Nuremberg in the Sixteenth Century – City Politics and Life between Middle-Ages and Modern Times (Bloomington & London: Indiana University Press 1976), pp. 57–115. 60

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control of the royal representative (starosta).63 Furthermore, by 1500 many Polish and Lithuanian cities still had no representative communal institutions and the citizenry thus lacked its own power base through which the autocratic tendencies of the magistrates would be checked and counterbalanced. Consequently, in Poland– Lithuania the struggle of the burghers for a share in power was inherently tied to demands for structural reform of the urban government. Following the early 16th century city council/community conflicts, most Polish cities saw the rise of new organs of communal control, the Third Order (trzeci ordynek). By taking part in the decision-making process and claiming the right to inspect urban revenues and expenditures these institutions were supposed to act as intermediaries between the community and city councils. In Cracow, the right to supervise urban magistrates had, since 1521, been vested in a body consisting of several dozens of elected representatives. In its classical form, however, the Third Order in Cracow appeared as late as 1548 when the number of its members was fixed at 40. The electoral system of Quadragintaviratus aimed at manifesting the communal roots of its power as twenty guild Elders possessed the right to choose twenty merchants and vice versa.64 In various modifications the Cracow model served as a paradigm for other cities, including Lwów, where the Third Order emerged in 1578.65 In Danzig, the social conflict between the citizenry and magistrates in 1520s gave rise to the Council of the Hundred Men, while in Warsaw the organ of communal control originally comprised just twelve and later twenty members. Even smaller were new communal institutions in lesser towns like Kulm in which the number of burgher representatives did not exceed ten. Correspondingly, the representative bodies of the community (pospólstwo) emerged in many other cities such as Lublin (1530) and Elbing (1526).66 In Lithuanian urban centres the democratization process was apparently more retarded as Wilno, for instance, did not see the rise of Sexagintaviratus (the Council of Sixty Men) until after 1600.67 The degree of autonomy of these communal institutions, however, differed. Unlike Cracow, where the method of choosing community Elders made the Third Order more or less independent from the council, in Danzig as well as Warsaw and Kulm magistrates retained a decisive influence on the social composition of this supervisory body which heavily undermined its capacity to safeguard communal interests.68 While in Polish urban centres the early 16th century council/community conflicts generated important structural shifts in urban political systems, in the Bohemian Lands no such reforms occurred as in most cities communal bodies already existed. Some specific features, in terms of communal institutions in major Moravian cities, have recently been disclosed by Hana Jordánková and Ludmila Sulitková. Ptaśnik, Miasta i mieszczaństwo, pp. 36–58; Bogucka and Samsonowicz, Dzieje miast, p. 324. 64 Bogucka and Samsonowicz, Dzieje miast, p. 463; Davies, God’s Playground, I, p. 301. 65 Bogucka and Samsonowicz, Dzieje miast, p. 463; Ptaśnik, Miasta i mieszczaństwo, p. 165. 66 Groth, Historia Elbląga, II/1, 31; Szczygieł, Konflikty społeczne w Lublinie, 116. 67 Bogucka and Samsonowicz, Dzieje miast, 464. 68 Bogucka and Samsonowicz, Dzieje miast, 463; M. Biskup (ed.), Dzieje Chełmna i jego regionu (Toruń 1968), p. 156. 63

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Their investigations seem to suggest that the role of community representatives was mostly played by wealthy burghers (Ringsleute) with multiple ties to city governments.69 The authors, therefore, made a tentative conclusion that Moravian cities ‘lacked control mechanisms of community Elders which resulted in a higher degree of autocracy of urban governments’.70 The suppressed democratic element in the execution of political power in Moravian cities would probably explain the generally more dramatic course of urban commotions in Olomouc, Brno, Jihlava and Znojmo as compared to conflicts in Bohemian cities. Arguably the most radical steps were adopted by burghers in Jihlava, where magistrates were completely deprived of power in the city and the whole conflict was eventually resolved by the king.71 The dysfunction of communal organs or their excessive loyalty to the urban political elite in Bohemian cities and the seizure of control competencies by the crust of well-to-do citizens in Moravian urban centres had similar outcomes, namely the growth of political ambitions of the community. The late fifteenth and early sixteenth century burgher movements in Bohemian and Moravian towns were, therefore, marked by legal claims raised by the entire citizenry (velká obec, veškerá obec) to participate in urban decision-making along with the city councils and Community Elders. Especially in Bohemian cities this was a natural outcome of the Hussite revolution during which burgher communities began to play a decisive role in urban politics. In subsequent decades, the political self-consciousness of the citizenry resulted in calls for the direct involvement of the burghers in urban affairs independently of the Community Elders.72 It has been argued in this subchapter that early 16th century city council/community struggles may be interpreted as primarily constitutional conflicts over historical principles that incarnated the foundation stones of the urban republican polity. These principles included collective demands for public control of municipal finances as well as requests by the citizenry to participate in urban government as they touched at least two aspects of medieval city constitutions, the existence of fundamental rights and personal liberties and the legal claim of the community to share political power. Though medieval and early modern communal movements were certainly not devoid of popular radicalism, especially if the lower social strata and urban mob were involved, the appeal to the past served to legitimize disobedience to the urban fathers, who were charged by the burghers with wanton unconstitutional novelties and moral corruption. The enraged burghers, therefore, mostly argued in the same H. Jordánková and L. Sulitková, ‘Kompetence brněnských radních v předbělohorské době. Porovnání se situací v dalších moravských královských městech’, Documenta pragensia, XXI (2002), pp. 39–54; H. Jordánková and L. Sulitková, ‘Brněnská městská kancelář v předbělohorském období (Diplomatická a prosopografická studie)’, Sborník archivních prací, 45 (1995), pp. 451–469; L. Sulitková, ‘Měšťané, jejich společenství a elity v Brně v předbělohorském období’, in Jurok, J. (ed.), Královská a podanská města od své geneze k protoindustrializaci a industrializaci (Ostrava – Příbor – Nový Jičín 2002), pp. 115–123. 70 Jordánková and Sulitková, ‘Kompetence brněnských radních’, p. 52. 71 More on the stormy situation in Iglau A. Mayer (ed.), ‘Die älteste uns erhaltene Iglauer Chronik (1547)’, Zeitschrift des Deutschen Vereines für die Geschichte Mährens und Schlesiens, 40 (1938), pp. 3–22, 41–56. 72 Dřímal, ‘Sociální boje v moravských královských městech’, pp. 114–167. 69

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way as the community in the Silesian city of Bunzlau: ‘We are doing nothing unjust and unlawful. It is our desire to keep our old rights and communal liberties once bestowed upon us by the Royal Majesty’.73 In this light, the Marxist theory of the revolutionary nature of medieval and early modern communal movements, quite paradoxically, seems to make sense. The paradox of such a thesis owes much to the semantic difference between the medieval and modern perceptions of revolution. The Marxist historians (or scholars influenced by Marxist historiography) tended to recognize aspects of class struggle in conflicts between burghers and city councils by viewing them as popular efforts to fundamentally change the political system of medieval and early modern cities in favour of urban democracy. Investigating historical processes in terms of class struggle forced many Czech, Slovakian, Hungarian and Polish scholars to credit communal movements with progressive nature in the 1950s–1980s. In other words, the Marxist historiography applied to city council/community conflicts the modern understanding of revolution as a progressive social and political change. In medieval and early modern society, however, revolution was commonly perceived as a restoration of original state and a return to the starting point in the past. If one, therefore, labels communal movements as revolutions, then in the context of early modern social mentality and political thought the term would refer to a recovery of the past rather than to the creation of a genuinely new order. Of course, popular radicalism and demands not anchored in the past remained inherently present in any social unrest, especially when lower social strata were involved. Yet in general, an appeal to the hypothetical historical state always formed a pillar of the argumentation as it legitimated the resistance of burghers against the lawfully installed city council. The same way of reasoning, I believe, applies to struggles between cities and early modern states over medieval urban autonomy. The fact that the external political force claimed its right to intervene in urban affairs highlights those dimensions of urban power that have not yet been examined, namely its dependence on a higher authority. In scholarly literature one finds a teleological theory that served to vindicate the Marxist argument about the inherently antagonistic nature of relations between urban magistrates and urban communities. By overlooking the communal foundations of magistrates’ power, some Marxist historians have suggested that urban governments derived their legitimacy exclusively from above, either from a king or from a feudal lord of the city, while the authority of other communal institutions stemmed from below, that is from the burghers.74 Such a simplistic view would consequently imply that magistrates were rather representatives of the feudal lord, which would entitle them to act autonomously upon the communal will. True, with the process of proto-modern state building much of medieval urban autonomy succumbed to the centralization and unification policy of rulers, which significantly ‘wir nichts Unbilliges vornehmen, und, was wider Recht ist, nicht begehren, verhoffen alleine bei unserm alten Stadtrechte und Bürgerrechte, wie die von kgl. Majestät uns zugelassen sind, zu verbleiben’. E. Wernicke (ed.), Chronik der Stadt Bunzlau von den ältesten Zeiten bis zur Gegenwart (Bunzlau 1884), p. 158. 74 Macek, Jagellonský věk, 3, p. 50. 73

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changed the traditional concepts of internal civic order in cities. In our case, however, the rise of the early modern bureaucratic state administration had not yet taken place and by 1500 the status of cities as juridical and political entities with their own set of historical rules and privileges was still not at stake. Such a theory, therefore, deforms the picture of urban society in the early 16th century that still continued to adhere to the communal ideas of civic order. In fact, urban government in the medieval and early modern city derived its authority from both citizens themselves and from a feudal overlord who pursued influence over cities mainly through his rights to confer urban privileges and formally install new councillors. In the eyes of magistrates the consequences of their double responsibility were rather ambiguous. In their conflicts with the citizenry, city councils usually found their overlords to be powerful allies who naturally preferred to support a traditional political elite as guarantors of stability and the continuity of urban policy. Considering the early 16th century burgher movements in cities in Poland, Silesia, Bohemia and Moravia cities, this policy was pursued by rulers and their representatives almost invariably. On the other hand, during the city council/ community conflicts feudal overlords and their representatives claimed their right to interfere in urban affairs and as a rule they utilized the situation to undermine the urban autonomy and weaken the excessively self-confident and the independent urban political elite. Moreover, these interventions made the council’s position delicate whenever communal interests and historical freedoms were touched upon. Once the overlord’s demands were seen by the citizenry as incompatible with their rights, magistrates found themselves subject to pressures from above and below which forced them either to delay and manoeuvre or to make uneasy and risky decisions in favour of one side, with potentially fatal consequences. In my view, an example par excellence of such a situation were the discussions over urban religion in the 16th century as they concerned both the fundamental principles of civic republicanism and the authority of the feudal overlord. Urban Autonomy in the Context of the Reformation By exploring some aspects of city council/community conflicts in the early 16th century, I pointed out that the clamour for the restoration of republican and communal principles of internal civic order was an important rationale that stood behind the community movements. The debates over religious reform in cities had much to do with struggles for basically the same principles. This makes it possible to explain the urban Reformation as the ‘higher stage of burgher movements’ which was, however, in the East-Central European urban environment still inseparably intertwined with traditional demands for legal, institutional and economic reforms on behalf of the citizenry. To analyze the urban Reformation from a comparative perspective poses two major problems that make the whole issue difficult to handle. First, the huge variety of local specifics, from the ethnic composition of the urban population to the relationship between the city and external forces, made the fate of the Reformation in each particular town a unique story. In addition, we still know little about the

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local power relations and confessional structure of the urban population and the urban political elite in a number of cities. True, the Reformation, producing a crucial change in the life of town dwellers, sparked the historiographical output of the 16th century which, however, rather obfuscated the issue. By analyzing the rhetorical and political background of urban chronicles from the Reformation era the German historian Susanne Rau has recently pointed out that these texts mostly strove to vindicate the new confessional identity of the city and legitimate religious change or continuity. As their authors, in most cases, had close ties with the urban political elite, if they were not its members, the chronicles usually bore a double ideological message – confessional (Protestant or Catholic) and political (a narrative of events adjusted to the concerns of local power holders.75 This is why an attempt to discuss the general nature of relations between the city autonomy and the Reformation can hardly be more than an introduction to the subject. This naturally implies that the outcome of future investigations might revise the models and theses debated in this subchapter. Great potential, in this respect, is rendered by the theoretical concept of confessionalization introduced in the late 1970s by Wolfgang Reinhard and Heinz Schilling which is still applied rather sparingly to the early modern East-Central European urban environment.76 In general, the Reformation disturbed the social climate in cities in several ways. Firstly, it created a new dimension of conflict situations between the urban governments and town dwellers. This might take the form of massive popular pressure on reluctant city councils to institutionalize a new confession. Alternatively, conflicts may have arisen because of repressive policies from above against urban religious minorities, no matter whether they were Catholic or Lutheran. Secondly, the Reformation contributed to the rise of confessional frontiers within the urban society itself. In many cities, Catholic/Lutheran/Utraquist (in Bohemia) disunity was further enhanced by the appearance of other confessional groups such as Calvinists, Bohemian Brethren and Anabaptists. Thirdly, religious matters soon became a pretext for interventions into urban affairs from outside, either from local magnates and the Catholic Church or from central power. By analyzing the triangular interrelationship amongst the forces that responded to the Reformation, namely the burgher communities, urban governments and external powers, one concludes that in East-Central Europe the conundrum was mostly S. Rau, Geschichte und Konfession – Städtische Geschichtsschreibung und Erinnerungskultur im Zeitalter der Reformation und Konfessionalisierung in Bremen, Breslau, Hamburg und Köln (Hamburg – München 2002). 76 The process of confessionalization in East-Central European cities has been investigated more systematically in the case of Royal Prussia. See M.G. Müller, ‘Protestant confessionalization in the towns of Royal Prussia and the practice of religious toleration in Poland–Lithuania’, in Grell, O.P. and B. Scribner (eds), Tolerance and Intolerance in the European Reformation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1996), pp. 262–267; M.G. Müller, ‘Unionsstaat und Region in der Konfessionalisierung: Polen–Litauen und die grossen Städte des Königlichen Preussen’, in Bahlcke, J. and A. Strohmeyer, (eds), Konfessionalisierung in Ostmitteleuropa (Stuttgart 1999), pp. 123–137; On the Catholic confessionalization J. Deventer, Gegenreformation in Schlesien: die habsburgische Rekatholisierungspolitik in Glogau und Schweidnitz 1526–1707 (Köln – Weimar – Wien 2003). 75

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resolved in three ways. Arguably, the dominant model was the Protestant initiative of the citizenry (or its decisive part) against the Catholic city councils and Catholic rulers. Providing that the popular support for Reformation ideas was massive enough and external forces (Church institutions, local magnates and nobility) proved weak, indecisive or sympathetic to the Reformation, the urban political elite (or their decisive parts) sooner or later, voluntarily or under pressure, eventually joined the community against the ruler. This was the case in most Royal Prussian, Silesian, Lusatian and Upper Hungarian cities as well as some urban centres of Moravia and Bohemia. The nature and pace of religious change, however, differed significantly. While the city magistrates in Upper Lusatian cities, under pressure from below, were quickly lutheranized, in other urban centres the confessional gap between urban authorities and most inhabitants persisted for several decades.77 For example city councils in the small Bohemian city of Kadaň remained mostly Catholic even after 1550 while the majority of urban inhabitants opted for Lutheranism.78 Though feudal overlords, that is the Habsburgs and Polish kings, remained loyal to the Roman Church, as a rule the triumphal march of Protestantism in cities was largely assisted by the adoption of Reformation ideas by territorial princes and significant political powers in the area. In Silesia, for instance, Protestantism found influential political sponsors in Frederick II of Liegnitz and George of Ansbach– Jägerndorf.79 Correspondingly, Lusatian Sechsstädte could seek political backing in the quickly lutheranized Saxony and the Royal Prussian cities in Ducal Prussia. This turned out to be of vital importance for the future fate of the Protestant faith in Silesian, Lusatian and Prussian urban centres as the Counter Reformation strategies by the Crown and the Catholic Church always had to consider potential political alliances, tacit or openly declared, among Protestant cities, Protestant territorial princes and Protestant nobility. The persistent adherence of the urban political elite (or its decisive part) to Catholicism was the alternative scenario that took place in a number of cities, especially in Poland. As a rule, this was made possible either because of the rather weak impact of the Reformation ideals upon the citizenry or because of the perpetual support (or pressure) from the external Catholic force. Such a constellation seems to have appeared mainly in cities with German-speaking minorities as well as in cities that hosted Catholic institutions and central offices of state power. Of the major East-Central European cities, Pilsen and České Budějovice in Bohemia, Warsaw and Lwów in Poland or Nagyszombat and Szakolca in Hungary retained their mostly Catholic character. Particularly instructive among them were the cases of Warsaw and Lwów. According to Gottfried Schramm’s investigations, German immigration Most recently on the nature of the Lutheran Reformation in Upper Lusatian cities K. Blaschke and S. Seifert, ‘Reformation und Konfessionalisierung in der Oberlausitz’, in Bahlcke, J. and V. Dudeck (eds), Welt – Macht – Geist. Das Haus Habsburg und die Oberlausitz 1526–1635 (Görlitz – Zittau 2002), pp. 121–127. 78 Z. Winter, Život církevní v Čechách I (Praha 1895), p. 119. 79 See, for example, F. Machilek, ‘Reformation und Gegenreformation in Schlesien unter besonderer Berücksichtigung Oberschlesiens. Eine Einführung’, in Wünsch, T. (ed.), Reformation und Gegenreformation in Oberschlesien (Berlin 1994), pp. 9–29. 77

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into both cities remained comparatively low in the whole period under discussion. Furthermore, while the Catholic city council in Warsaw after the mid-16th century found emphatic support with the chief state and Church representatives residing in the city, in Lwów the urban fathers could rely on fervent Catholic royal officials (Starosta).80 With reference to Hungary, Nagyszombat remained one of the few cities that remained a stronghold of Catholicism. In this particular case it was the relocation of the Esztergom archbishopric and the Chapter to the city that effectively hindered the spread of Lutheranism and Calvinism.81 In the two previous models it was the option of the urban political elite, or of their majority, in favour of the new or old Church that predestined the further course of religious affairs in the city and opened the door to either Protestant confessionalization or Catholic stabilization. Apart from these two scenarios, one cannot ignore the unique case of Utraquist Bohemia. While elsewhere urban societies faced the dilemma of choosing between Catholicism and Protestantism, most Bohemian cities resolved the issue after the Hussite Reformation in the 15th century. On the threshold of the European Reformation process the confessional milieu of many cities in Bohemia, especially in central and Eastern parts of the country, was Utraquist. In Prague and many other cities the ideas of Lutheranism, therefore, were initially confronted not with Catholicism, but rather with the Hussite Church. By this time, however, the existence of different spiritual streams within the Utraquist Reformation threatened its division. Though in 1436 the Compactates of Jihlava sanctioned the duality of the creed and both Catholicism and Utraquism enjoyed formal equality, by 1500 the solidity of the latter had already started to erode because of an increasing religious split between the conservative (Old Utraquism) and more radical (Neo-Utraquism) wing.82 In the course of the 16th century the conservative Utraquism found itself on the path leading to its re-unification with Catholicism, while the Neo-Utraquists were drawn closer to Lutheranism. As a consequence, in many Bohemian cities tension between both groups of Utraquists almost duplicated the Catholic/Protestant opposition in other East-Central European urban centres. Particularly dramatic, but exemplary, proved the early fate of Lutheranism in Prague, in which religious issues were intertwined with a power struggle within the urban political elite. Here in 1524, the conservative wing of the Utraquists, backed by the Catholic Church and the Catholic aristocracy, seized power in the city and immediately launched an oppressive policy against the Lutherans and lutheranizing Utraquists.83 In the long-term, however, this could not inhibit the spread of Lutheranism in the city or its invasion into Prague’s political circles. A historian mapping the religious profile of pre-White Mountain Bohemian urban societies often G. Schramm, ‘Problem Reformacji w Warszawie w XVI wieku’, Przegląd historyczny, LIV (1963), pp. 557–571; G. Schramm, ‘Lemberg und die Reformation’, Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, XI (3) (1963), pp. 343–350. 81 J. Šimončič, Dejiny Trnavy (Bratislava 1988), pp. 77–80. 82 On the fate of Bohemian Utraquism in the 16th century in W. Eberhard, Konfessionsbildung und Stände in Böhmen, 1478–1530 (Münich 1981); Z.V. David, ‘Bohemian Utraquism in the Sixteenth Century: The Distinction and Tribulation of a Religious Via Media’, Folia Historica Bohemica, 17 (1984), pp. 29–58; Janáček, České Dějiny, I/1, pp. 197–206. 83 Macek, Jagellonský věk 3, pp. 315–321. 80

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deals with a bewildering and obscure picture of reality as considerable segments of the non-Catholic population (above all the Lutherans and Bohemian Brethren) who were outside the official confessional duality, often declared themselves Utraquists to assure their safety. Therefore, it is only with the risk of simplification that one may suggest that despite the energetic support of the Habsburg rulers and the Catholic Church, the Old Utraquism almost succumbed in the 16th century to a Lutheran/NeoUtraquist offensive. Arguably, on the eve of the Thirty Years War this also occurred in Hradec Králové, one of the last bastions of Old Utraquism.84 With regard to external authority/urban political elite/citizenry relations, certain uniformities in the course of the urban Reformation are implied by this schematic overview as well as by a series of books and journal studies on religious issues in 16th century East-Central European towns. General features may be defined by two postulates. Firstly, in most cases the Reformation ideas were first grasped by the citizenry, intellectual circles, clergy and lower echelons of urban society rather than by the urban political elite.85 The alternative model, namely the Reformation teachings initially supported by the urban magistrates against the persistently proCatholic (pro-Utraquist) citizenry, either did not take place or was extremely rare. In this sense, the urban Reformation may be viewed as a popular movement since initially it was supported from below. Secondly, during the Reformation debate, city councils found their manoeuvring space and autonomy in decision-making substantially limited, vis-à-vis the burghers and external powers who acted more independently. Exposed to simultaneous pressures from below and from above, the urban political elite had to consider all risks in their reaction to the Reformation issue. It is arguable that, despite local variables, such as the different ethnic composition of urban societies and dominance of the reformed Utraquist faith in many Bohemian cities, these two axioms basically applied to the entire territory under review. As the attitude of the urban political elite proved crucial for the future lot of the Reformation in the city, let us explore their uneasy position between the two sides. In so doing, I seek to demonstrate that the issue of the Reformation was in its essence a debate over the urban autonomy and city constitution. It has been suggested that at least in its initial stage the urban Reformation was rather a popular movement. However, in different cities the intensity of pressure from below varied considerably. In general, Luther’s ideas won wide social support in cities with a marked Germanspeaking population and with close cultural, academic and economic contacts with lutheranized Saxony and Wittenberg. This is why the popular call for the Reformation proved particularly strong in Lusatian, Royal Prussian, Silesian and many Moravian, Northern Bohemian, Upper Hungarian and Western Polish urban settlements.86 Mikulka, Dějiny Hradce Králové I/2, pp. 301–328. Schramm, ‘Problem Reformacji w Warszawie’, pp. 557–571; Dworzackowa, Reformacja i kontrareformacja, pp. 52–87; Bogucka, ‘Towns in Poland and the Reformation’, pp. 55–74. 86 Blaschke and Seifert, ‘Reformation und Konfessionalisierung in der Oberlausitz’, pp. 121–127; Bogucka, ‘Towns in Poland and the Reformation’, pp. 55–74; M. Bucsay, Der Protestantismus in Ungarn, 1521–1978 (Wien – Köln – Graz 1977), pp. 42–82; Dworzaczkowa, Reformacja i kontrareformacja, pp. 52–87. 84

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By exploring the course and nature of urban Reformation in Danzig, Elbing and Thorn Gottfried Schramm argues that many initiators of early religious and social tumults in these cities had previously studied at Wittenberg University and they turned out the most zealous advocates of Luther’s ideas.87 On the other hand, in the predominantly Utraquist and Czech-speaking environments of most Bohemian cities Lutheranism initially provoked only a limited social response. It was the renaissance of the German immigration into Bohemia as well as the gradual rapprochement of both Protestant confessions that created in subsequent decades better preconditions for the expansion of the Lutheran faith. As suggested by Gottfried Schramm, the intensity of pressure from below in favour of the Reformation in cities situated in the heartland of Poland–Lithuania, namely in Warsaw, Lwów and Wilna, evoked certain analogies with Bohemia. He considered the polonized social milieu of these cities responsible for the rather weak popular support for the Reformation ideas.88 Though other scholars, such as Maria Bogucka, did not principally oppose Schramm’s conclusions they stressed the significance of additional factors which might have blunted popular calls for religious change, namely underdeveloped civic republicanism and the restrained autonomy of Polish cities.89 As urban societies in Poland–Lithuania did not enjoy enough economic, military and political power to pursue an autonomous religious policy, the fate of the Reformation in cities was inextricably linked with potential support from outside. Yet unlike the Upper Hungarian urban centres, in which the advance of the Reformation was made possible by the total collapse of the Catholic Church after the Mohács catastrophe and by the massive spread of new religious doctrines among the Hungarian nobility, neither of these factors fully applied to the Polish context. This is to suggest that the expansion of the Reformation in Polish cities was hindered by generally more emphatic resistance from external forces. Therefore, Protestant communities in many Polish urban settlements could only survive if they found protection with their coreligionists among local magnates and royal officials.90 The rather popular nature of the Lutheran Reformation added, in its early phase, a new element to traditional disputes between magistrates and citizenry since initially the Catholic and in Bohemia Utraquist city councils either opposed Luther’s religious doctrine or they at least vacillated. Such a reaction was characteristic for the urban political elite in most cities, from Bautzen and Görlitz in Lusatia to Lwów in Ruthenia and from Danzig in Royal Prussia to Lőcse in Hungary.91 Particularly Schramm, ‘Danzig, Elbing und Thorn als Beispiele städtischer Reformation’, pp. 134–136. 88 Schramm, ‘Problem Reformacji w Warszawie’, pp. 557–571; Schramm, ‘Lemberg und die Reformation’, pp. 343–350; G. Schramm, ‘Protestantismus und städtische Gesellschaft in Wilna (16.–17. Jahrhundert)’, Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, XVII (1969), pp. 187–214. 89 Bogucka, ‘Towns in Poland and the Reformation’, pp. 55–74. 90 Müller, ‘Protestant confessionalization in the towns of Royal Prussia’, pp. 262–267. 91 N. Kersken, ‘Die Oberlausitz von der Gründung des Sechstädtebundes bis zum Übergang an das Kurfürstentum Sachsen (1346–1635)’, in Bahlcke, J. (ed.), Geschichte der Oberlausitz – Herrschaft, Gesellschaft und Kultur vom Mittelalter bis zum Ende des 20. Jahrhundert (Leipzig 2001), pp. 128–131; Blaschke and Seifert, ‘Reformation und 87

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dramatic proved the early fate of Lutheranism in Danzig in which religious issues were intertwined with the political and social struggles of the commonalty against the ruling patriciate. The radicalism of the urban mob and citizenry led to the overthrow of the city council and despite harsh repressions ordered by the king, the Danzig political elite eventually succumbed to popular calls for the institutionalization of a new confession.92 If the events in Danzig typified an example of the magistrates’ primordial hostility towards Lutheranism, then in Breslau the urban government left its cautious policy relatively early and proved ready to meet the religious demands of the citizenry.93 A similar scenario took place in those Hungarian cities in which the urban political elite was predominantly German. What then were the links between popular calls for the Reformation and urban constitution? Debates over religious issues within urban societies reactivated the republican and communal principles of civic order in several ways. In the section about the conflicts between city councils and the citizenry we have analyzed how the ruling oligarchies, by treating public affairs secretly, were harshly criticized by the commune for disregarding the fundamental rights and personal liberties of citizens. The same principles were at stake after the Reformation teachings reached the urban areas since religious issues often served to city magistrates as pretexts for the persecution of their most active political opponents, who were usually either arrested or publicly punished. The dictatorship of Jan Pašek of Vrat in Prague offers an extreme example of tyrannical strategies adopted by the ruling elite against radical Utraquists and (quasi)Lutherans who found themselves subject to torture, many of them were arrested and subsequently expelled from the city.94 Nonetheless, in terms of the relationship between the city constitution and the Reformation a discussion over equality in bearing collective duties and obligations proved far more important. Though this egalitarianism referred above all to the burgher stratum, the republican nature of the city constitution implied that in order to keep the urban autonomy untouched, virtually all inhabitants, regardless of their social and juridical status, should have conformed to the principle of equal participation in the fulfilment of municipal burdens. The very nature of civic order thus operated as a strong instrument for the assimilation and integration of immigrants and minorities. Commonly this argument was used against alien social groups settled in cities, such as the nobility and Jews, who demanded some kind of exemption from civic duties and municipal law. Another stratum of urban inhabitants traditionally claiming fiscal and juridical immunity was the Catholic clergy and Church institutions that also enjoyed vast economic privileges. Since everywhere churchmen represented a relatively large segment of the urban population, their social, juridical and fiscal exclusiveness was Konfessionalisierung in der Oberlausitz’, pp. 121–127; Schramm, ‘Lemberg und die Reformation’, pp. 343–350; M. Suchý (ed.) Dejiny Levoče I (Košice 1974), pp. 149–164; Cieślak, Historia Gdańska, II, pp. 233–248. 92 Cieślak, Historia Gdańska, II, pp. 233–248, Cieślak – Biernat, History of Gdańsk, pp. 130–142; Schramm, ‘Danzig, Elbing and Thorn’, pp. 125–154. 93 C. Buśko and M. Goliński and M. Kaczmarek, M. and L. Źiątkowski, Historia Wrocławia I (Wrocław 2001), pp. 262–273. 94 Macek, Jagellonský věk, 3, pp. 316–321; J. Pešek, ‘Některé problémy bádání o spojené Praze let 1518–1528’, Documenta Pragensia, 4 (1984), pp. 188–191.

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hotly debated long before the Reformation period. In 1512, Bartholomeus Stein estimated that one in fifty of the people of Breslau was a clergyman and he counted almost 40 Churches and about a dozen monasteries situated in the city.95 To better illustrate the roots of urban anti-clericalism, consider the case study of Olomouc. Libri citationum et sententiarum cover the entire spectrum of conflicts between the city and Moravian Estates. The major causes of discords with the clergy referred to the unclear boundaries between the authority of the municipal and ecclesiastical law as well as the status of Church properties in the city and financial payments on behalf of the Church.96 By investigating the relationships between the burghers and the Catholic Church in Greater Poland, Jolanta Dworzackowa identifies basically the same sources of urban anti-clericalism, namely discords over ecclesiastical jurydyki within the city walls as well as patronage rights over Church beneficies and endowments donated by pious citizens.97 There was still another aspect of the Reformation that corresponded to civic republicanism and city constitution. In general, the idea of the communal Protestant Church was definitely much closer to the republican mentality of town dwellers. This had serious implications in the context of traditional community struggles for a share in urban power. By seeing the Church as an urban institution, the citizenry could claim the right of broad communal control over its internal affairs. The Reformation, therefore, perfectly suited urban republicanism as it made it possible to abolish clerical privileges and place the clergymen on a par with the rest of the citizenry by subordinating them to the council’s authority. Apart from integrating the clergy into urban society, the citizenry in general and urban governments in particular capitalized on accepting the Reformation also in another sense. By subjecting religious institutions and the clergy to secular control, city councils could supervise or even attain access to large financial resources since Churches and monasteries were not only large property owners but also revenuegenerating organizations. In addition, the Kommunalisierung of the Church and the secular patronage over municipal priests gave urban governments a powerful tool through which ‘public opinion’ and attitudes of the citizenry could be shaped for the benefit of city council policy. All in all, by claiming authority over the municipal Church, urban magistrates substantially broadened their powers in a wide variety of areas, from school education and the welfare system to the discretionary right of appointment to parishes. The subordination of the Church to municipal control was arguably the most general feature in the entire history of the urban Reformation and the social integration of clergy into urban society, or the Verbürgerlichung in Bernd Moeller’s words, was one of its most visible outcomes.98 In this respect the Lutheran and Calvinist Stein, Beschreibung von Schlesien und seiner Haupstadt Breslau. J. Miller (ed.), Konfliktní soužití: Královské město – šlechta – duchovenstvo v raném novověku. Knihy půhonné a nálezové královského města Olomouce (1516–1616), (Olomouc 1998). 97 Dworzackowa, Reformacja i kontrareformacja, pp. 58–64. 98 B. Moeller, ‘Kleriker als Bürger’, Festschrift für Hermann Heimpel zum 70. Geburtstag, 2 (Göttingen 1972), p. 198. 95 96

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Reformation further developed the legacy of the Hussite Reformation in Bohemia, whose major results were the secularization of Church property on behalf of cities and the considerably higher dependence of the Utraquist Church and Utraquist priests upon urban magistrates. Seen from the perspective of city council/community conflicts, the institutionalization of the Reformation generated a paradox. Though pressures for religious innovations mostly came from below, it was the urban political elite that eventually profited most from the change. By extending their authority into the above-mentioned spheres of urban life, city councils in fact reinforced their position vis-à-vis the burghers who initially associated the Reformation with a struggle for the enlargement of communal and republican principles of civic order. More precisely, the Protestant urban magistrates could utilize their newly acquired power to tighten the social control of the citizenry. One should be aware that models of urban Reformation debated in the preceding paragraphs refer to the ideal case and in many cities the religious change either was not fully accomplished or the process took several decades. Consider the fate of the urban Reformation in Pozsony, which typifies a deviation from the theoretical model. Here, the proximity of the Viennese court as well as the presence of royal officials and Catholic dignitaries in the city substantially hindered the organization of the municipal Church. Despite the fact that by 1600 all the city councillors and perhaps most of the inhabitants of the city were Protestants, they still had to attend services in the countryside as all urban Churches remained in Catholic hands and the Protestant liturgy was officially banned. Only the Toleration Act in 1608 allowed for the emergence of a Protestant Church organization in Pozsony de iure.99 In Glogau (Silesia), to cite one more example, the full institutionalization of the Lutheran Reformation was effectively hindered for several decades by the urban magistrates themselves. Though the overwhelming majority of urban inhabitants opted for the new denomination, the city council in Glogau remained mostly Catholic until the second half of the 16th century. This was only possible because of the secular power of the Breslau bishop who, as Silesian Oberlandeshauptmann, claimed the right to confirm the proposed candidates to urban government and made every effort to prevent Lutherans from occupying posts in municipal administration. Several Lutherans appeared as councillors as late as the 1570s and though their representation tended to grow the Catholics were never completely ousted from the council.100 Both cases well illustrate the complexity of the relationship between the urban Reformation and the external world. Theoretically, the triumph of the Reformation and its subsequent institutionalization reinforced the autonomy of the city in relation to both the king and Catholic Church dignitaries. By suspending the interference of the Catholic Church in municipal affairs, cities in which Protestantism had triumphed also won a great deal of independence from the Catholic ruler. If the relationship between cities and their feudal overlords is considered, the message of M. Kamenický, ‘Náboženský zákon z roku 1608 a Bratislava’, Historické štúdie, 40 (1999), pp. 159–168; F. Federmayer, ‘Póvod, etnická a náboženská štruktúra prešporského patriciátu v 17. storočí’, Historické štúdie, 40 (1999), pp. 177–185. 100 Deventer, Gegenreformation in Schlesien, pp. 53–123. 99

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the Reformation was clear. Though the formal subordination of the city to the feudal overlord was not questioned, the Reformation greatly restrained the latter’s means of intervention into urban affairs as in many spheres of public life city councils began to act as supreme and autonomous bodies. Yet the idea of a long-term modus vivendi between the Catholic ruler and non-Catholic cities was accepted by state authorities only in exceptional cases. In East-Central Europe this applied above all to Royal Prussian cities that capitalized on their economic, financial and military strength as well as on their irreplaceable role as Poland’s commercial gates into Europe. In 1557, for the enormous sum of 100,000 Polish złoty, Danzig obtained the ius reformandi while Elbing and Thorn gained the same privilege a year later. For the future this made the three Royal Prussian cities the juridically acknowledged foci of Lutheranism in mostly Catholic Poland.101 Since in all three urban centres adherence to the Lutheran faith also became a major pillar of their broad political autonomy vis-à-vis the rest of the country, the Royal Prussian cities represented a unique example of a successful protestant confessionalization in the East-Central European urban environment. True, also in Hungary moderate Lutheranism, institutionalized in Confessio Pentapolitana (1549), Confessio Heptapolitana (1559) and Confessio Scepusiana (1569), was reluctantly acknowledged by the monarch and the Act from 1608 further secured the social and juridical position of Protestants in royal cities by granting them extensive religious freedoms. However, this state of affairs, which hindered the birth of a proto-modern centralized state bureaucracy, was viewed by both the Habsburgs and the Catholic Church only as a provisional modus vivendi and the large-scale energetic recatholicization campaign was launched as soon as political conditions permitted.102 As a rule, neither the Habsburg rulers in the Bohemian Lands and Hungary nor Polish kings in rzeczpospolita szlachecka gave up their efforts to resume their control over royal cities, which unavoidably implied a struggle against the urban Reformation. This leads us to the last question to be discussed in this chapter. Until now, the Reformation was mostly treated as an outcome of internal development within urban societies. Insights into the ethnic structure of the urban population and into the relationship between the citizenry and political elite, however, do not satisfactorily explain all the circumstances under which city councils made their decisions in the early phase of the Reformation. It has already been noted that when faced with Reformation ideas, the urban political elite initially either refused them or sought to temporize. There were several reasons for such a strategy, namely the fear of the radicalization of the masses, the justified anxiety that the call for religious reform would invigorate the communal principles of city constitution, the firm adherence of Bogucka, ‘Towns in Poland and the Reformation’, p. 57; Cieślak and Biernat, History of Gdańsk, pp. 133–142; Groth (ed.), Historia Elbląga, II/1, pp. 173–190; M. Biskup, ‘Stadt und Reformation am Beispiel von zwei königlich-preußischen Städten – Elbing und Thorn – am Anfang des 16. Jahrhunderts’, in Engel, E. and K. Fritze and J. Schildhauer (eds), Hansische Stadtgeschichte – Brandenburgische Landesgeschichte (Weimar 1989), pp. 203–216. 102 I. Chalupecký, ‘Protireformácia alebo rekatolizácia?’, Historické štúdie 40 (1999), pp. 131–140; M. Marečková, ‘K náboženským poměrům a mentalitám východoslovenského měšťanstva v 17. a 18. století’, Historické štúdie, 40 (1999), pp. 169–176. 101

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the city fathers to the Catholic faith or close economic, social and family ties between the urban political elite and Catholic clergy. Yet a no less important factor was the awareness of urban governments that the Reformation would necessarily change the more or less settled nature of links between the city and the external world. In any case, religious disturbances within urban societies provoked interventions from outside that aimed either at suffocating the Reformation movement or promoting it. Though Polish and Habsburg Catholic rulers opposed the Reformation, in its initial stage the unfavourable stance of the Crown was of little importance. As the Reformation was a large-scale and spontaneous process that occurred in a great number of urban centres and addressed all social ranks, neither the Polish kings nor the Habsburgs had effective means at hand to forestall the acceptance of Lutheranism and later Calvinism by large segments of society. Moreover, there were additional factors that might have paralyzed central power such as the imminence of an Ottoman attack and the embroilment of Ferdinand I in the Hungarian civil war. This is why the effect of pressure from above remained rather limited until the central power could lean on the Counter Reformation program of the modernized post-Tridentine Catholic Church and on influential Catholic factions within the aristocracy.103 At the same time, discussions over religious issues in cities opened a large space for the intrusion into municipal affairs of local power groups, namely magnates, the nobility and royal officials who used to act more or less autonomously from the centre. Arguably the most illustrative example of how external forces might have affected the fate of the Reformation in cities is found in Poland. Since Polish royal towns fell under the authority of the starosta, religious debates within urban societies were considerably influenced by the confessional orientation of these royal officials. Under the aegis of the starosta, the Augsburg confession was introduced, for example, in several cities in Greater Poland. While Maciej Górski provided emphatic support for the Lutheran Reformation in Wschówa, Mikołaj Myszkowski acted in favour of the Protestants in Międzyrzecz and Andrzej Górka the Younger in Wałcz. Due to the sympathetic attitude of local royal officials, Lutheranism in these towns successfully resisted the Counter Reformation campaign by Janusz Kościelecki, who held the office of Starosta General after the mid-16th century.104 By politically sponsoring the Protestant cause in royal cities, starostas as well as local magnates benefited at least twice. Apart from the unscrupulous sequestration of Church property on their behalf, the patronage over Lutherans also considerably increased their influence on urban affairs which substantially harmed city autonomy. As an ideal case consider Poznań, in which emphatic opposition from the Starosta General and Church institutions within the city effectively hindered the advance of the Lutheran Reformation and its official adoption by urban magistrates. At the same time, however, the Catholic side was not strong enough to uproot Protestantism in the city entirely as, for a long time, groups of Lutherans as well as the Bohemian Brethren found themselves under the auspices of the magnates Stanislaw Górka, On the spread of Reformation in Hungary see M. Fata, Ungarn, das Reich der Stephanskrone, im Zeitalter der Reformation und Konfessionalisierung (Münster 2000), esp. pp. 65–186. 104 Dworzackowa, Reformacja i kontrareformacja, pp. 73–79. 103

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Jakub and Stanislaw Ostroróg and Jan Tomicki. Their patronage also outlived royal Counter Reformation decrees from the mid-16th century. In order to safeguard the position of the Protestant minority in Poznań, these magnates sought to attain the exemption of their urban and suburban houses from the municipal jurisdiction which largely affected the authority of city councils over urban space. As a result, the noble jurydyki turned into Protestant enclaves within the city or in its immediate vicinity. The encroachment of magnates into urban affairs further escalated after the appointment of Jakub Ostroróg as Starosta General in 1566. Because of his direct involvement in urban politics, the Catholic majority in the city council was temporarily overturned in favour of the Protestants.105 In another Polish city, Warsaw, the attack on urban autonomy followed a similar path. Here public sympathy with Protestant teachings grew after the mid-16th century due to increased immigration from the German lands. In order to resist Protestantism, the Catholic urban government made an alliance with Queen Anne and the papal nuncio. Though the city retained its predominantly Catholic character, the Protestant minority utilized patronage from the Warsaw Starostas Zygmunt Wolski and Jerzy Niemsta and the Rawa Voievode Anzelm Gostomski.106 Let us recapitulate now on how the Reformation was linked to city autonomy and the medieval city constitution. Once Reformation teachings had triumphed and been accepted by a decisive part of urban society and by city governments, a dual paradox emerged. Despite its potential to reactivate the republican principles of civic order and traditional communal values, it was eventually the urban political elite who most benefited from the institutionalization of the new confession as they gained control over the new Municipal Church and, therefore, over a broader sphere of public life in the city. The second paradox refers to the relationship between urban self-government and external powers. Historians mostly argue that by adopting Protestantism, cities enhanced their internal autonomy in religious, administrative and political affairs vis-à-vis rulers and the Catholic Church. Yet the situation was far from unambiguous. In the long run, this was a Pyrrhic victory as in most cases the triumph of the Reformation placed further strain on the uneasy relationship with these two powers and cities mostly found themselves in a defensive position. By supporting Catholic minorities or by establishing Jesuit colleges, the Catholic external forces destabilized the social environment in mostly Protestant cities and they immediately encroached onto internal urban affairs. Much the same was the situation in predominantly Catholic urban societies with more or less sizeable Protestant enclaves that sought protection with their religious adherents among the local nobility and magnates. To suggest that the institutionalization of the Reformation invigorated the city autonomy means, therefore, considering the whole issue in rather simplistic terms. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that the struggle over the religious issues was inextricably linked with the struggle over city autonomy vis-à-vis the state. Once Protestantism had been suppressed, the Municipal Church annihilated and the Catholic political elite restored, the cities lost much of their self-governing rights in 105 106

Dworzackowa, Reformacja i kontrareformacja, pp. 71–72, 84. Schramm, ‘Problem Reformacji w Warszawie’, pp. 557–571.

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favour of the central power. This is to suggest that until cities kept their control over urban religious affairs, they retained much of their internal autonomy untouched. Until the last decades of the 17th century this was the case with Hungarian cities. As soon as political circumstances and growing military strength let the Habsburgs suppress urban Protestantism and subvert the fundaments of the Protestant Church organization, cities in Hungary found themselves on a one-way path to full subjugation to the hobbesian Leviathan. In East-Central Europe, the only exceptions to the general rule (if we discount Saxon Lusatia) were the Royal Prussian cities whose vast political autonomy depended to a large extent on the successful defence of their Lutheran Church in the mostly Catholic environment of the Polish state.

CHAPTER SIX

Building a Leviathan: The Early Modern City and Early Modern State In one of his celebrated narrative poems, The Bronze Horseman (1833), Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin depicted a truly horrific scene. In fear for his fiancee, the main figure Yevgeny roams the flooded Petersburg and comes to the famous equestrian statue of Peter the Great, the founder of the city. A dialogue between the two, a central part of the tale, might be viewed as an allegory of the clash between the ‘little’ and ‘great’ history, as a conflict of an individual longing for safety and personal happiness with the powerful absolutist state turning a blind eye to the desires and dreams of the ordinary man. Whoever has read the poem should know that Yevgeny’s hatred of the Tzar was well-founded and the object of their dispute was the CITY itself. Enraged by the catastrophic consequences of the deluge Yevgeny curses the Tzar and condemns his decision to build Petersburg by the swampy mouth of the river Neva. Historians usually explain this strategy with reference to the Russian-Swedish conflict over the economic and power dominance in the Eastern Baltic. Yet such an answer by no means explains the motives behind Peter’s decision to make Petersburg the imperial residence and new capital of the state. The main reason for doing so was the Tzar’s vision of the utterly new and modern Russian empire with a centralized and efficient bureaucracy and strong, well-trained army. Erecting the future capital of Russia on the green meadow was a spectacular symbolical act demonstrating Peter’s devotion to this idea. Petersburg, the grandiose evidence of the renascent state power, was designed as an imperial city whose economy, administration, population structure and layout were to be completely subject to the needs of the court and its representation. At the same time, the rise of Petersburg was seen by Peter as an escape from Moscow, the incarnation of the medieval past, ancient privileges, persistent old customs and obsolete manners. In the European context, Peter’s resolution to build a completely new centre of state was an extreme project. In other cases of capital relocation, be it Warsaw or Madrid, the court opted for long pre-existent cities equipped with their own municipal administration and autonomy since the Middle Ages. Disciplining the city and subordinating it to the full control of the ruler thus became the task of the day. Sooner or later, this scenario came true in many European countries. Hindered in its expansion by urban particularism and medieval urban freedoms the premodern state had to resort to open confrontation with self-asserting cities. Most historians would probably consider the growing power of the state the most typical attribute of the early modern age.1 Between 1500 and 1700 this process 1 An inspiring approach towards the issue in W. Reinhard (ed.), Power Elite and State Building (Oxford – New York: Clarendon Press 1996).

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embraced practically all European countries, but in most cases it was completed as late as the 18th century. Its outcomes, however, were uneven. While some large European countries like France or Spain as well as small territorial states and principalities in the Holy Roman Empire were moving towards political integration and absolute state power, the rulers in the Habsburg monarchy always had to seek an elementary consensus with the estate representations of their numerous lands. Yet everywhere the process was marked with the unprecedented expansion of state administration and the bureaucratization of the mechanisms of state which were, however, conditioned by religious unification and the suppression of autonomous power structures. The story of the protomodern state, therefore, was a story of the concentration and monopolization of power previously dispersed among many holders of power – individuals and privileged social groups who usually resisted change. In many European countries, it was cities as self-governing entities, armed with numerous medieval rights, that fell first victims to voracious early modern states. But every rule has its exceptions. In some highly urbanized regions with populous and opulent urban societies and enfeebled central power, cities managed to defend their medieval constitution and relative independence well into the 19th century and their political and economic particularism substantially delayed the building of the nationstate. This is exactly what happened in the German lands with several dozen imperial cities making small but persistently autonomous enclaves within expanding territorial states and principalities. Their historical freedoms mostly came to an end during the unification of Germany, but in several cases the vestiges of medieval autonomy survived. Yet this anomaly also occurred in East-Central Europe – in the case of Royal Prussian cities, taking advantage of their impressive financial resources and significant role in Baltic trade. In the environment of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, they succeeded in retaining much of their medieval autonomy until the bitter end of the noble republic and in the case of Danzig the tradition of self-governing rights continued well into the 20th century. But in general, the balanced power relationship between cities and the state in early modern East-Central Europe clearly shifted in favour of the latter, and urban centres, deprived of many of their medieval rights and privileges, found themselves integrated into larger political structures. When speaking of the expansion of the early modern state at the expense of the political and administrative autonomy of cities, it should be noted that only the minority of urban centres, namely royal free cities with the king as their immediate overlord, was affected by this process. The number of these privileged urban settlements was never entirely fixed as private towns, if wealthy and ambitious enough, could hope to be elevated to the élite category, while royal cities could fall under the control of the private holder. After the mid-16th century, several private towns in Bohemia achieved the advancement and the same honour was granted in 1607 to Hungarian Modor and in 1647 to Szentgyörgy.2 The Upper Hungarian city of Késmárk experienced just the opposite. Deprived of its privileged status, it remained See E. Maur, ‘Nová královská města ve druhé polovině 16. století’, in Malý, K. (ed.), Městské právo v 16.–18. století v Evropě (Praha 1982), pp. 19–25. For Hungarian cities I. Felhö, ‘A szabad királyi városok és a magyar kamara a XVII. században’, Leveltári Közlemények (1946), pp. 209–210. 2

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under the rule of noble owners for almost two centuries and it was only as late as 1655 that Késmárk resumed its rights as a royal free city.3 It is not easy, however, for an historian to recognize what cities actually formed the elite club of urban settlements. What distinguished the royal cities from other urban centres, at least theoretically, was their direct dependence on the king, the wide scope of their juridical and administrative autonomy, the personal freedom of their town dwellers and their ambitions to play a part in state politics. Though these criteria for securing the affiliation of an urban settlement to a league of ‘free’ cities remained indisputable, in practice other factors might also have mattered. Consider, for instance, Hungary, where royal free cities were defined rather nebulously. A famous codification of Hungarian customary law by István Werbőczy made a clear distinction between the upper caste of fortified cities and other royal towns without walls such as, for instance, Szeged.4 In addition, only deputies from the most important Hungarian cities (Kassa, Bártfa, Sopron, Eperjes, Nagyszombat, Pozsony, Buda and later Pest) served as assessors in the court of appeal, presided over by the magister tavernicorum (tárnokmester, Tarnackmeister).5 The right to send assessors to the court of tavernicus was expressly linked with free city status in the scholarly work of the Esztergom archbishop Miklós Oláh on the history, geography and population of Hungary, in which the author referred to Sopron as ‘una ex septem civitatibus Hungariae liberis’.6 Also the list of royal possessions from 1514, which referred to the same group of urban centres as ‘octo in primis civitates liberae’, overtly recognized their formal superiority.7 Yet according to Werbőczy’s Tripartitum (Harmáskönyv) urban centres subjected to the jurisdiction of another royal official, personalis, were also counted as free cities.8 In addition, major Hungarian mining towns would certainly aspire to the privileged status as well.9 Before exploring the nature of state interventions into urban affairs in the Bohemian lands, Hungary and Poland, some basic explanatory notes must be made. Firstly, the expansion of the premodern state and the full incorporation of cities into its structures was a lengthy process which was far from being accomplished between M. Marečková, ‘Politická autonomie a vnitřní samospráva východoslovenských svobodných královských měst v 17. století’, Historický časopis, 41 (5–6) (1993), p. 546. 4 I. Werbőczy, ‘Hármaskönyv’, in Corpus Iuris Hungarici (Budapest 1897), p. 388. On the juridical and political standing of Hungarian cities A. Kubinyi, ‘Zur Frage der Vertretung der Städte im ungarischen Reichstag bis 1526’, in Topfer, B. (ed.), Städte und Ständestaat (Berlin 1980), pp. 215–246. 5 Kubinyi, ‘Zur Frage der Vertretung’, pp. 215–246. 6 N. Olah, Hungaria et Atila sive de originibus gentis, Regni Hungariae situ, habitu, opportunitatibus et rebus bello paceque ab Atila gestis libri duo (Vienna 1763), p. 35. 7 Corpus Juris Hungarici, I, p. 708, art. 3. 8 Werbőczy, ‘Harmáskönyve’, p. 390. 9 Körmöcbánya, Besztercebánya, Selmecbánya, Libetbánya, Újbánya, Bélabánya and Bakabánya had the status of dowry cities until 1548 when supervision of them was taken over by Ferdinand I. For details see G. Probszt, ‘Königin Maria und die niederungarischen Bergstädte’, Zeitschrift für Ostforschung, 15 (1966), pp. 621–703; J. Vozár, ‘Habsburský panovnický dvór a slovenské baníctvo v 16.–18. storočí’, Historický časopis, 38 (6) (1990), pp. 819–843. 3

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1500 and 1650, that is in the period which this book particularly covers. For example, the mostly Protestant Upper Hungarian cities retained much of their autonomy in religious affairs until the second half of the 17th century. Only the collapse of the Wesselenyi’s plot in the early 1670s provoked both a series of repressive measures against Protestant Church organizations in cities and royal encroachments into urban self-governing rights. The chapter is therefore concerned rather with the initial phases of early modern state building which, however, proved crucial in terms of the subordination of cities to a superior power. Secondly, due to the existence of different political concepts of government, cities in East-Central Europe were confronted with different state-building powers. While Bohemian and Moravian urban centres were eventually integrated into the structures of centralized state, their Polish counterparts saw their medieval autonomy and political ambitions subverted on behalf of the concept of a highly decentralized noble republic. Thirdly, outwardly the impact of the state-building process on the medieval institutional structures of cities remained almost invisible but the purpose of urban institutions changed considerably. While by 1500 the complicated system of municipal offices still primarily served to defend the freedoms and collective interests of citizens against external forces, two centuries later the same system instead functioned as a medium through which state power administered the city. This raises the central question as to what particular aspects of the medieval urban autonomy hindered the rise of the early modern state and, therefore, challenged central institutions. It was basically the political independence of cities that in many European countries built powerful corporations and formed integral parts of the constitutional structures of the Ständestaat, the nature of which was rather antagonistic to the idea of a centralized state. The same applied to many historical freedoms and privileges that were the foundation stones of medieval city constitutions and urban republican polity. As these constitutions secured vast self-governing rights in internal administrative, economic, juridical and sometimes also religious matters, they ipso facto made cities agents of particularism. A strong sense of collective exclusiveness vis-à-vis the external world was inherent in contemporary sources of urban provenance. While stressing the local identity of the town dweller most chronicles and panegyrics at the same time rather understated the affiliation of a city and its burghers to the state. In an extreme case, urban patriotism might have even opposed the identity of a burgher as a state subject. Such was the stance of some intellectuals in Danzig, Elbing and Thorn in the protracted polemics about the nature of constitutional bonds between Royal Prussia and Poland–Lithuania. The urban patriotism and particularism as well as the high political self-confidence of the Prussian burgher societies are overtly expressed in two tracts about Danzig’s constitution by Reinhold Curicke (1610– 1667) and Gottfried Lengnich (1689–1774). By examining the legal and political relations between Danzig and Poland–Lithuania the former saw sovereignty over the city vested only in the Polish king, to whom the urban government was bound by obedience and loyalty. The legal fiction of a contract between the city and the personage of the king enabled Curicke to treat Danzig as an entirely autonomous political entity on a par with other estates of Poland and Lithuania. According to his interpretation ‘is the city of Danzig, like entire Prussia and Lithuania, the free member

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of the Polish Crown’.10 Gottfried Lengnich later went far beyond this construction of Curicke’s. According to him, Danzig with its historical freedoms, well-balanced constitution, political rituals and rampant administration formed a world of its own over which the Polish state had no direct authority. The urban government, Lengnich deduced, was subordinated solely to the king and not to the state. This implied that the Polish Diet had absolutely no competencies over the city.11 The expansion of state power was therefore only possible provided that the city constitution was either uprooted or drastically curbed. Moreover, these constitutions epitomized the republican political system of cities which was ex definitio antithetical to the concept of a monarchic government. On the other hand, for centralizing state bureaucracy the social and political microcosmos of a medieval city rendered an example worth following. The efficient, developed and ramified urban government as well as strictly organized urban life might have served as models to be applied in the higher stages of administration. Also, disciplining mechanisms and instruments traditionally used in urban environments were, sooner or later, taken over by state power. The humanists of the age produced a vast body of tracts depicting cities and urban communities as paragons of well-ordered, well-managed and well-disciplined social organisms that differed from the state only by their size. Szymon Starowolski (1588–1656), the canon in Wawel and noted Polish intellectual, used precisely this argument. In despair at the chaos in the country and the unlimited rule of the mostly illiterate and wanton nobility, Starowolski proposed a project to profoundly reform state power and the administration. To him, the political systems of the German imperial cities, Geneva, Lucca and Raguza (Dubrovnik), would guarantee order and prosperity, even if applied to large and confessionally, ethnically and socially heterogeneous Poland– Lithuania.12 Urban historians mostly agree that medieval contractual bonds between cities and sovereigns were revoked as soon as the state military power began to expand. It was mainly the lack of effective instruments of power that in 15th–16th centuries still forced rulers to negotiate with cities over their financial and fiscal subsidies. In return, overlords were expected to expand on city privileges and keep the urban autonomy intact. Indeed, until the 17th century cases of the forced subjugation of cities to princely power were still relatively few and mostly reflected the momentary rather then permanent military strength of the rulers. Instead, overlords had to resort to more subtle means of pressure, from providing political support to loyal urban politicians and capitalizing on city council/community discords to blackmail and mere demonstrations of military force. In the context of East-Central Europe, arguably the most conspicuous example of the relative weakness of central power was the religious issue. Confronted with the massive spread of the Reformation and with the institutionalization of the Protestant denomination in cities, the Habsburg and Polish Catholic rulers had to employ rather cautious counter Reformation R. Curicke, Der Stadt Danzig historische Beschreibung (Amsterdam – Danzig 1687). A new facsimile edition (Hamburg 1979), p. 76. 11 G. Lengnich, Ius publicum civitatis Gedanensis oder der Stadt Danzig Verfassung und Rechte (Danzig 1900), pp. 44–47. 12 S. Starowolski, Wybór z pism (Wrocław – Warszawa – Kraków 1991), pp. 306–307, 314. 10

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strategies that mostly covered issuing mandates against heretics or supporting the establishment of Jesuit colleges. No doubt, the theory of the rising military power of the state has its place. Most historians agree that the early modern period saw a military revolution whose consequences went far beyond the sphere of warcraft. One of them was the emergence of standing armies and their considerable growth in size. While by 1500, European rulers could mobilize on average 15,000–20,000 soldiers, during the Thirty Years War some European powers, namely France and the Habsburgs, kept armies of more than 100,000 men who stayed out in the field for the whole year. Such an imposing military might have made it possible for rulers to challenge political opposition from the estates and change the balance of power. Cities, scattered around the country, usually had little chance of resisting their powerful sovereigns.13 Another potential cause of the declining autonomy of cities, namely the internal disintegration of urban societies has been studied, however, much less. Previous chapters have implicitly suggested that the increasing cultural, social, ethnical and religious diversity of burgher communities and urban societies may have paralyzed their capacity to defend their medieval freedoms and rights against external forces. For example, historical scholarship in East-Central Europe still draws little attention to the potential links between the urban Reformation and the integration of cities into systems of national or supra-national power. True, by opting for the Protestant faith, cities demonstrated their emancipation from the Catholic Church and Catholic rulers. In the long run, however, this was a Pyrrhic victory in terms of urban autonomy and the political vigour of the burgher estate. If internal municipal affairs are considered, the Reformation and disputes over religious matters destabilized urban societies for decades. Not only because city magistrates, whether Catholic or Protestant, were preoccupied with the renewal of internal order, but the coexistence of two or several denominations, which became a matter of fact in most urban centres, made cities vulnerable to various interventions from outside. Moreover, the confessional issue also began to obstruct political collaboration among cities. The situation in Bohemia well exemplifies this. While in 1502 the Utraquist and Catholic cities still proved able to declare their political unity by forming a powerful military alliance against the nobility, in 1547 the Catholic cities abstained from taking part in the anti-Habsburg revolt.14 Most distinct were the common political interests of the burgher estate outweighed by confessional factors in 1618–1620 when the armies of the noble–burgher Protestant coalition laid siege to towns loyal to Ferdinand II and eventually captured Catholic Pilsen. Also many contemporary tracts and political pamphlets considered the confessional divergences between cities to be the chief cause of the collapse of their corporative unity. Such a view was most overtly articulated by a panegyric upon Pilsen from the early 18th century. In recollecting the past, the tract identified the source of misery in See G. Parker, The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West 1500–1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1988); F. Tallet, War and Society in Early Modern Europe, 1495–1715 (London: Routledge 1992); J. Black (ed.), European Warfare 1453–1815 (Basingstoke: Macmillan 1999). 14 More on the military alliance J. Macek, Jagellonský věk 3 (Praha 1998), pp. 338–343. 13

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the unchecked spread of non-Catholic denominations in the urban milieu and made readers believe that ‘the prophecy came true when other cities in the Kingdom of Bohemia, except Pilsen, dissented from the old Catholic faith and began to speak the faithless, heretical and cursed language’.15 In order to understand how EastCentral European cities were embedded in superior political systems, it is therefore necessary to consider not only the growing military power of the state, whose armies were growing in size considerably, but also what may be perceived as a crisis of integrity of early modern urban societies. Despite analogous trends observed in all countries under discussion, by 1500 the actual political weight of royal cities and the scope of their autonomy were geographically uneven. While in Bohemia the alliance of cities, with its standing army, represented an imposing military power and the Bohemian burgher estate overtly aspired to political leadership in the country, the Polish citizenry found itself on the verge of its complete ejection from the institutionalized decision-making process on behalf of the nobility and magnates. With reference to the transforming relationship between the city and state I pose two basic questions: What could have been the major causes of the strikingly diverse political gravity and autonomy of cities in different regions of late medieval East-Central Europe? Why did the diverse constitutional structures of the Bohemian lands, Hungary and Poland–Lithuania in the early modern age respond rather identically to the political and administrative freedoms of urban societies? Cities and the Genesis of the Early Modern Ständestaat Since everywhere in East-Central Europe the contours of early modern political systems were shaped in preceding periods, by 1500 the power potential of cities and the scope of urban autonomy in the Bohemian lands, Poland and Hungary were conditioned by the existence of socioeconomic, political and religious factors that came into play in the 15th century. In the last decades of the 15th century, royal authority in East-Central Europe was generally on the decline, a fact which opened the door for the political rise of the estates. In terms of the formation of early modern political systems, this period was of crucial significance since several alternatives of future development were still at stake, namely the revitalization of central power, the evolution of a corporative state and the emergence of a highly decentralized political order dominated by one estate and regional power groups. Neither was the status of the citizenry in the emerging political systems firmly fixed. In the mid-15th century, cities still enjoyed their medieval rights and freedoms but the continuity of their vast autonomy largely depended on the level of their integration into the early modern political order. It was certainly not by chance that political self-confidence and the power ambitions of the burghers proved higher in the most urbanized territories, namely in the Bohemian lands and Royal Prussia. Considering first the structure of society 15 Anonymous, Staro=katolické, Bohu, cýsařům a králům wždy wěrné město Plzeň od Izayáše proroka dáwno předpowěděnému a CIVITAS SOLIS, město slunce nazwanému, připodobněné (Praha 1716), p. A3.

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in 15th–16th century Bohemia, Moravia, Lusatia and most Silesian principalities, one should not disregard the parallel existence of some idiosyncratic features that had a major impact on the formation of early modern political systems in these regions. Of these, the relatively high percentage of the urban population over the numerical paucity of the nobility, were of great importance. Compared to Poland and Hungary, the proportion of nobles in the total number of inhabitants remained particularly low in all the provinces of the Bohemian Crown and hardly anywhere did the noble rank exceed 1 per cent of the population.16 Conversely, royal free cities were some of the most populous urban centres and by 1500 their share in the overall urbanization rate was considerable. Moreover, in the case of Bohemia and Upper Lusatia, the high concentration of royal free cities in these spatially rather modest provinces created favourable preconditions for their better mutual communication and coordination of common policy in relation to the Crown and noble estates. In Bohemia proper, some 40 royal cities comprised a compact web of settlements with Prague as its natural nucleus and the chief advocate of the political ambitions of the burgher estate. Prague’s central role in Bohemia was largely paralleled by Breslau in politically fragmented Silesia. Somewhat peculiar was the situation in two minor provinces of the Bohemian Crown, Upper and Lower Lusatia. While six major cities were aggregated into the former, the urban centres in the latter belonged to middle-ranked and small settlements with parochial economies and limited political potential. In terms of the political weight of the burgher estate, the preconditions seemed less favourable in Moravia in which royal domains were essentially reduced during the late Middle Ages.17 As a consequence, the number of free cities dwindled to six at the dawn of the 16th century, but their size and economic strength entitled them to pursue an autonomous political course in Moravian politics. If the level of urbanization is considered, Royal Prussia offered striking structural similarities with the Bohemian lands since the significantly lower percentage of the nobility in the province, when compared to the Polish heartland, was outweighed by the numerous and affluent urban population mainly living in three large Prussian cities – Danzig, Thorn and Elbing.18 In Hungary and Poland, however, the situation looked much different as in both countries the citizenry lived under the shadow of a strongly represented nobility. In Royal Hungary the noble rank constituted approximately 3 per cent of the entire population, which was in sharp contrast with the quantitative insignificance of the Hungarian burghers. By 1500, the royal free cities comprised a small group of about 30–35 settlements. Only Buda could be classified as a large city, while the other leading urban centres, including Kassa, Pozsony, Eperjes and Lőcse, did not exceed

16 V. Bůžek, Nižší šlechta v politickém systému a kultuře předbělohorských Čech (Praha 1996), p. 7. 17 On the distribution of the feudal property in the post-Hussite Moravia J. Válka, Dějiny Moravy I (Brno 1991), pp. 171–175. 18 R.I. Frost, ‘The Nobility of Poland–Lithuania, 1569–1795’, in Scott, H.M. (ed.), The European Nobilities in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries II (London: Longman 1995), pp. 183–222.

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the category of medium-sized urban centres.19 Not fully consonant to the Hungarian model was the case of Poland. Though the Polish nobility might have composed around 6 per cent of the entire population, the quantity of royal cities was impressive as well. By 1500, almost 300 royal towns represented slightly less than half of all urban settlements in Poland while they hosted the majority of the Polish urban population.20 Even though many new towns were founded in the subsequent period and the focus of urban settlement shifted to private urban centres, in the mid-17th century royal cities still hosted a considerable portion of Polish town dwellers.21 No matter how important demographic factors might have been, their relevance should not be given too much weight. For example, a mere reference to a number of royal free cities is apparently insufficient to explain the comparatively wide political autonomy enjoyed by the burghers of only six such urban centres in early modern Moravia. Nor does it provide an explanatory model for Poland, where the numerous and populous royal cities failed to integrate themselves into the political system. This is to say that demographic aspects as well as the urbanization rate formed hardly more than preconditions which might or might not have affected the political status of burghers and the autonomy of cities within the constitutional settlement of the country. In the context of city/state relations, therefore, some other factors must also be considered, namely the tradition of estate awareness and political leadership, the specificity of constitutional development and the economic strength of cities and the citizenry. Generally, one may argue that a high degree of political and administrative autonomy of cities became institutionalized in those provinces in which the stabilization of social and political conditions required a broad consensus of different segments of society or in which cities aspired to political hegemony. Around 1500, the corporate model of government with the active participation of the burgher estate emerged in Royal Prussia and in all the provinces of the Bohemian Crown. By contrast, in Hungary and Poland, burgher communities failed to play any significant role in the formation of the early modern constitutional system and in both countries cities found themselves pushed to the margins of political life. In my view, the causes of this divergence lay in the specificities of the late medieval social and political development in the Bohemian Crown and Royal Prussia, and in the key role the cities played in the processes that gave rise to the early modern Ständestaat. In order to identify the foundation stones of the unprecedented political upsurge of the Bohemian burgher estate, the major outcomes of the Hussite revolution must be explored. The period of inner instability, marked by fierce social, political and religious conflict, generated significant shifts in country’s power structures. The Given the Ottoman occupation after 1526, the number of royal free cities dwindled further. For the first half of the 16th century, Juraj Žudel counted 19 royal towns in the territory of what is now Slovakia. In fact Késmárk must be excluded as in this period the city was under the jurisdiction of noble owners. See J. Žudel, ‘Hlavné znaky vývoja osídlenia Slovenska v 16. storočí’, Historický časopis 45 (4) (1997), p. 570. For the later period Felhö, ‘A szabad királyi városok’, pp. 209–210. 20 M. Bogucka and H. Samsonowicz, Dzieje miast i mieszczaństwa w Polsce przedrozbiorowej (Wrocław – Warszawa – Kraków – Gdańsk – Łódź 1986), pp. 396–400. 21 Bogucka and Samsonowicz, Dzieje miast, p. 400. 19

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formative impact of the Hussite revolution upon posterior political order has also been stressed by that part of historical scholarship which tends to explain the entire period as a revolution of estates. Of particular importance among these changes proved the dazzling political ascent of royal free cities. They capitalized on the event in several ways. When the conflict broke out, the important changes within many Bohemian urban societies, such as the democratization of power and the political ascent of the Czech-speaking population, were already underway. Both the greater impact of the citizenry on internal political affairs at the expense of the local patriciate and visible shifts in the national composition of Bohemian urban societies were recognized by historians as key factors in making cities the hotbeds of reform ideas and the driving forces of revolution.22 The crucial role of cities in the Hussite revolution contributed to the rise of urban republicanism and corporative feelings within the citizenry. The existence of these attributes was a sine qua non for the transformation of Bohemian burgher communities into a political nation. The revolution also made Prague, the advocate of moderate reform ideas and head of the burgher–noble coalition, the undisputed leader of Bohemian citizenry. The immediate significance of Prague’s political and ideological leadership, expressed by its key role in the formation of the military union, was at least twofold. For burghers, it brought new experience in high-level politics and, at the same time, it stimulated the evolution of efficient means of communication among cities. From a retrospective view, the Hussite period tested the capacity of the Bohemian citizenry to mobilize its military potential and cooperate on behalf of corporative interests. Formed in the Hussite revolution, the collective estate awareness was later utilized during the internal constitutional and military conflicts under the Jagellonian kings, which forced cities to conclude alliances and coordinate political strategies. A sixyear treaty of alliance signed by three Bohemian cities, Louny, Žatec and Slaný exemplifies the high level of inter-city communication. Concluded in 1482, the union sought to defend the Hussite Church, resist exorbitant fiscal demands and, above all, protect town dwellers against the mischievous and criminal conduct of the nobles.23 This programme illustrates that a well-organized club of royal cities, as one of the most powerful forces in the post-Hussite period, became de facto the co-founder of the early modern Ständestaat in Bohemia next to the lower and upper nobility. In 1517, the power potential of the burghers was reflected in the fundamental constitutional document of Bohemian Ständestaat, the St. Wenceslas Treaty, which de iure acknowledged the right of burgher estate to form the third curia in the Bohemian Diet and thus actively participate in country’s politics. In addition, significant shifts in the composition of the landed property in Bohemia must be highlighted. By 1500, the power ambitions and the high political autonomy of Bohemian cities also accrued from their expanding landownership which was substantively enlarged during and after the Hussite revolution, mostly at the expense of the Catholic Church. Unfortunately, a large-scale investigation of the scope of ecclesiastical property in pre-Hussite Bohemia is still hampered by the 22 23

A summarizing view in F. Šmahel, Husitská revoluce I (Praha 1993), pp. 396–414. Archiv český, V, pp. 406–408.

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fragmentary character of the sources and estimates may only be drawn from limited regional research. Most recently, the results of these case-study surveys have been summarized and critically reviewed by F. Šmahel in his giant work on the Hussite revolution, in which the author concluded that before 1420 Church ownership might have comprised as much as one-third of the landed estates in Bohemia.24 Out of four Prague articles that embodied the minimal programme of the Hussite Reformation, the secularization of ecclesiastical property became its most visible achievement with far-reaching social, economic and political consequences. Not only the fact that unscrupulous seizures of Church possessions on behalf of magnates, nobles and royal cities heavily undermined the economic potential of the Catholic Church, but they also helped to establish feudal ownership and the impressive financial reserves of the burgher estate in Bohemia. There were also other factors that prompted, or at least facilitated, the evolution of the burgher estate, namely the weakening of royal power and the destruction of the Roman Catholic Church. The former resulted in a loosening of the bonds between the royal cities and their feudal overlord which formed a favourable precondition for the more autonomous policy of Bohemian citizenry. The elimination of the Catholic Church from the decision-making process created a power vacuum to be filled in the subsequent period by the consolidated burgher estate.25 The outcomes of the Hussite revolution in Bohemia also substantially affected the political climate in other provinces of the Bohemian Crown. Both the overall enfeeblement of central power and in some regions also the impoverishment of the Catholic Church considerably changed provincial power relations and gave rise to alternative constitutional settlements based on a system of estates.26 Though the normative influence of the Bohemian pattern on the structure of estates in the principalities of Moravia, Lusatia and Silesian has not yet been systematically studied, one may suggest a tentative conclusion that the emerging constitutional settlement in Bohemia inspired the rise of compatible, though not completely identical, political systems in the neighbouring provinces. The case of Moravia may exemplify this thesis. In the mostly pro-Hussite province, the major Moravian cities benefited remarkably from their role as strongholds of Catholicism. One may even suggest that without their sustained loyalty to King Sigismund and Albrecht of Austria during the Šmahel, Husitská revoluce I, pp. 226–233. The principal causes of the political rise and fall of cities in Bohemia has been investigated by J. Kejř, ‘Zur Entstehung des städtischen Standes im hussitischen Böhmen’, in Töpfer, B. (ed.), Städte und Ständestaat (Berlin 1980), pp. 195–213; Šmahel, Husitská revoluce I, pp. 370–414; W. Eberhard, ‘The Political System and the Intellectual Traditions of the Bohemian Ständestaat from the Thirteenth to the Sixteenth Century’, in Evans, R.J.W. and T.V. Thomas (eds), Crown, Church and Estates – Central European Politics in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Basingstoke: Macmillan 1991), pp. 23–47; J. Pánek, ‘Města v předbělohorském českém státě’, in Bůžek, V. (ed.), Kultura každodenního života českých a moravských měst v předbělohorské době – Opera Historica I (1991) pp. 9–125; J. Pánek, ‘Města v politickém systému předbělohorského českého státu’, in Pánek, J. (ed.), Česká města v 16.–18. století (Praha 1991), pp. 15–37. 26 During the 15th century the Catholic Church in Moravia lost much of its landed property, mainly due to the upper nobility. See Válka, Dějiny Moravy, I, pp. 171–172. 24

25

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Hussite wars, the Catholic forces in Moravia would have been annihilated. Thus in the first half of the 15th century, Moravian royal free cities became important players in the power game and they found themselves at the forefront of political life. As early as the 1430s, cities were among the architects of multilateral peace agreements and in 1440 they signed Landfrieden on behalf of the emerging Moravian burgher estate.27 Although the number of Moravian royal cities in the 15th century drastically declined and they were by no means able to challenge the power ambitions of the noble oligarchy, they managed to take part in the formation of the early modern political system of Moravia as one of its political nations.28 Power instability together with confessional duality in the post-Hussite period also accelerated the political ascent of Silesian cities. In addition, the Silesian metropolis Breslau adopted the same role played during the Hussite wars by Prague in Bohemia, as the city headed an armed Catholic resistance against the ‘heretical’ King George of Poděbrady. In the course of the protracted military conflict Breslau itself managed to mobilize a relatively large army and became a recognized centre for the political and diplomatic activities of the Catholic side in Silesia, which kept lively contact both with the Polish king in Kraków and Curia in Rome. Unable to ignore the growing military and economic potential of cities, the assembly of Silesian princes and other estates from 1469 (considered by many as the first Silesian Diet) eventually had to consent to the integration of burgher estates into the nascent political system of the province.29 The genesis of the early modern political system in Royal Prussia shows many structural similarities with Bohemia. While the Hussite period accelerated the evolution of the Bohemian burgher estate, a series of wars between the Teutonic Order and Poland, which was eventually resolved in the mid-15th century by the division of the Order’s territory into Ducal and Royal Prussia and by the incorporation of the latter into the expanding Polish state, had an analogous impact on the social, economic and political status of Prussian burghers. During the conflict it was cities led by Danzig that played a crucial role in the defence of political freedoms and the economic interests of the Prussian burghers and nobility against the (mis)rule of the Teutonic knights. In their resistance to the Order, the Prussian burghers could largely rely on pre-existing supra-regional organisational structures that secured communication among cities, namely the traditional assemblies of Hanseatic towns. No doubt, the existence of an autonomous and established communication network served well during the formation of the strong political and military union between Prussian cities and the nobility. Politically, their key role in resisting the Order proved beneficial for cities in two ways. Firstly, they stood at the very root of the early modern provincial political order. For the future, this secured Royal Prussian cities a unique position vis-àvis their counterparts in the heartland provinces of the Polish Crown. Secondly, the integration of the province into Poland by the Incorporation Act (1454) would J. Válka, ‘Morava a husitská revoluce’, Moravský historický sborník (1986), pp. 89–124. Válka, Dějiny Moravy, I, pp. 171–183. 29 C. Buśko and M. Goliński and M. Kaczmarek and L. Źiątkowski, Historia Wrocławia I (Wrocław 2001), pp. 193–199. 27 28

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certainly be more problematic without the strong pro-Polish sentiments inside the Royal Prussian burgher and noble estates. The incorporation into Poland was nevertheless construed by the Royal Prussian estates as an act revoking the supremacy of the Teutonic knights because of their mischievous rule and disdain for historical Prussian customs and rights. Such a theory unavoidably implied that Royal Prussia was, de iure, a free country whose estates were fully entitled to resist a tyrannical ruler and install another who would obey the fundamental laws and historical freedom of the province. For the future, the insistence that the nature of the relationship between the province and the Polish kingdom was that of a freely concluded personal union came to be a useful means of defense against any Polish interference in internal Royal Prussian affairs. Particularly instrumental in this respect proved the interpretation of Prussian history which introduced the legal fiction about the cultural autonomy and political sovereignty of the Prussians since ancient times while reflecting, at the same time, the sustained pro-Polish stance of most Royal Prussian intellectuals and the elite powers. Probably the most explicit about the issue was the eminent 17th century Prussian historiographer Christoph Hartknoch. In his impressive work he found ‘the sense of Prussian history’ in the resistance of freedom-loving Prussians against despotism while he used the lot of the Teutonic Order as his chief evidence. Though not questioning the Order’s primordial merits in christianizing and civilizing Prussia, Hartknoch argued that Prussia overthrew the yoke of its oppressive rule when it degenerated into mere tyranny and freely opted for the Polish king. A history construed in such a way bore a latent message addressed to the Polish Court and Sejm about the need to respect the ancient freedoms of the province. At the same time, Hartknoch did not challenge the integration of Royal Prussia into Poland–Lithuania. By identifying the origin of Prussians, Poles and Lithuanians in the ancient Sarmatians, Hartknoch viewed the Polish-PrussianLithuanian state as a natural outcome of the reunification of Sarmatian nations.30 All of these factors, the leading role of cities in Royal Prussian political life, their lion’s share in the unification with Poland as well as the legal fiction that the Polish king was chosen by free Royal Prussian estates to rule over the province, always had to be considered by the Polish side. As a consequence, the vast political, economic and administrative concessions granted to the Royal Prussian burghers created the grounds for the dichotomic development of early modern urban societies in the Baltic province of the Polish Crown and the rest of the country.31 The Bohemian model was also followed in Royal Prussia in another respect. Thanks to extensive royal donations during and after the Thirteen Years War (1454– 1466), the Royal Prussian cities multiplied their landed property and in the context of C. Hartknoch, Alt- und Neues Preussen Oder Preussischer Historien Zwey Theile (Frankfurt – Leipzig 1684); C. Hartknoch, Preußische Kirchen–Historia, darinnen von der Einführung der Christlichen Religion in diese Lande, wie auch von der Conservation, Fortpflanzung, Reformation und dem heutigen Zustande derselben ausführlich gehandelt wird (Frankfurt – Leipzig 1686). 31 W. Odyniec, Dzieje Prus królewskich, 1454–1774 (Warszawa 1972). Also K. Friedrich, The Other Prussia – Royal Prussia, Poland and Liberty, 1569–1772 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2000), esp. pp. 20–29. 30

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the province they became great feudal landowners that together controlled a territory covering more than 1500 km2.32 In addition, the political integration with Poland also initiated fundamental structural shifts in the Royal Prussian urban economies as the strategic geographical location of the province made it not only the guardian of the Commonwealth’s maritime border but also a hub of commercial exchange between Poland and Western Europe. As a result, Danzig and some other Prussian cities (Elbing, Königsberg) quickly monopolized Polish sea trade. Nonetheless, the burgher culture and republican model of civic order that developed in the Royal Prussian urban milieu had a very limited impact outside the province since the mainstream of early modern Polish political thought was based on the noble Sarmatism and monarchic values. As Karin Friedrich has convincingly suggested, over the long run the Sarmatian mythology, though interpreted in a modified way, was even accepted within the Royal Prussian environment as the outward symbol of its identification with the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.33 If the political status of burghers in a countrywide context is considered, then one would immediately identify a significant difference between the Bohemian lands and Royal Prussia. While the latter, no matter how economically developed, still remained on the political periphery of the Polish–Lithuanian monarchy, which was dominated by the magnate coterie and noble Sarmatian mythology, in each province of the Bohemian Crown the burgher estate became a more or less important component of the constitutional settlement and also retained some influence over countrywide political discourse. While the Hussite revolution in Bohemia and the conflict with the Teutonic Knights in Prussia substantively contributed to the rise of burgher estate awareness and reinforced the political and administrative autonomy of cities in both provinces, no similar impulses that would catapult the burghers into the forefront of political decision-making are to be found in Hungary and the heartland provinces of Poland. In order to explain the political weakness and underdeveloped self-confidence of the Hungarian and Polish burghers by 1500, some additional factors must also be considered. An insight into the social and political reality of late medieval Poland and Hungary reveals the existence of positive preconditions for the full integration of cities into the emerging early modern political systems. This suggests that the same trends previously identified in Bohemia and Royal Prussia, namely the gradual formation of the burgher estate and its integration into the political order, were not completely absent in Hungary and Poland. Eventually, however, in both countries the power potential of the burghers remained largely unexploited. If then the Polish and Hungarian burgher societies in the 15th century found themselves on the way to becoming components of communitas Regni Poloniae et Hungariae, why, by 1500, were they pushed to the margins of the political arena? In order to understand this issue, one has to review the specifics of social and political development in Hungary and Poland in the late Middle Ages. In some works on 15th century Hungarian society, the year 1405 is still seen as a watershed in the evolution of the country’s late medieval and early modern political 32 33

Friedrich, The Other Prussia, p. 54. Friedrich, The Other Prussia, pp. 89–95.

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system. This judgment largely relies on an older interpretation of the famous decree by King Sigismund, according to which the Hungarian citizenry was elevated among the estates (membra regni) on the ground of its invitation to the Hungarian Diet.34 Yet as early as the 1920s this hypothesis was contested by E. Mályusz and more recently also by A. Kubinyi who offered an alternative version of the event. Both scholars basically argued that the king summoned burgher deputies as their feudal overlords in order to discuss internal issues relating to the city administration and the economy, instead of inviting them as representatives of the burgher estate to the Hungarian Diet. In view of the episodic presence of urban deputies in Diet sessions during the first half of the 15th century (Sopron in 1431 and Brassó in 1441), this theory definitely has some merit.35 More frequently Hungarian cities were represented in countrywide Diets only after 1445, mainly in connection with the feudal anarchy caused by the short-lived interregnum.36 At the same time, the royal free cities also became more actively involved in provincial politics and they often dispatched their deputies to regional noble assemblies in order to discuss issues of common interests such as safety on the roads or the suppression of occasional peasant revolts. In addition, the 15th century saw the ascent of proto-corporative organizational structures that usually comprised several cities. Along with unions of Lower and Upper Hungarian mining towns, it was five Hungarian cities (Kassa, Bártfa, Eperjes, Lőcse and Szeben) that formed a close alliance in 1485. Though the principal goals of these multilateral agreements covered better cooperation in legal, judicial and administrative matters, such alliances also created the preconditions for the joint political action of cities at a regional and countrywide level.37 Oddly enough, the Hungarian burghers failed to benefit politically from the power potential of these alliances and probably the same judgment may be passed on regular meetings of urban representatives during the sessions of the Tavernical law court. No doubt these institutional structures contributed to the evolution of communication networks among major Hungarian cities and they were also utilized for political consultations. But they never transformed themselves into a significant power base for the Hungarian burghers and rather remained instruments for the vindication of the internal juridical and administrative autonomy of cities, if questioned and attacked by the ruler or nobility. Such an inference largely coincides with arguments aired in analytical studies by A. Kubinyi who suggests that despite the existence of some favourable factors, the Hungarian citizenry did not develop

34 Marečková, ‘Politická autonomie’, p. 545; M. Suchý, Dejiny Levoče I (Košice 1974), p. 60. The text of the decree in Corpus Iuris Hungarici, I, p. 210, art. 3. 35 E. Mályusz, ‘Geschichte des Bürgertums in Ungarn’, Viertel für Sozial- und Wirtschafts Geschichte, 20 (1927), pp. 356–407; A. Kubinyi, ‘A magyarországi városok országrendiségének kérdéséhez (különös tekintettel az 1458–1526 közti időre)’, Tánulmányok Budapest Múltjából, XXI (1979), pp. 7–48. 36 Kubinyi, ‘A magyarországi városok’, pp. 7–48; J. Házi, Sopron szabad királyi város története I/3 (Sopron 1923), p. 36. 37 Kubinyi, ‘Zur Frage der Vertretung der Städte’, p. 222; G. Bónis, ‘Die ungarischen Städte am Ausgang des Mittelalters’, in Rausch, W. (ed.), Die Stadt am Ausgang des Mittelalters (Linz/Donau 1974), pp. 84–85.

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a strong estates awareness, implying that for the future its impact on state affairs remained vestigial.38 Causes of ‘the unexploited political potential of the Hungarian burgher estate’ should be perhaps seen in its persistently indefinite status on the grounds of the chief political institutions of the country. Despite the paucity of sources, it seems that in the 15th century Hungarian cities were invited to the Diet highly irregularly and usually for mostly pragmatic reasons, like political instability in the country or the personal interests of the king. Moreover, because of their low numbers, modest population size and low economic potential, Hungarian urban centres could not provide efficient and long-term political support on behalf of the king against the power ambitions of magnates. In Hungarian scholarship, it has also been argued that cities themselves showed little enthusiasm about their full and long-time integration into the late medieval political system of the country. This inertia, later resulting in bitter economic and social consequences for Hungarian burghers, apparently had its underlying motives. According to E. Mályusz, the Hungarian cities, aware of their overall political and economic weakness in the face of the magnates, nobility and clergy, consciously gave up their consistent effort to take a more active part in the country’s politics. Instead, major Hungarian cities sought to monopolize control over the law court of magister tavernicorum as the chief and most visible symbol of their inner autonomy.39 This thesis has been further developed by subsequent generations of Hungarian scholars who have made some additional suggestions. A. Kubinyi, for instance, has suggested several factors that played a certain role in the rather distanced attitude of cities to their potential involvement in the decision-making process. He points out that the emergence of autonomous market areas around the most important urban centres substantively complicated the joint political action of Hungarian cities. It was the feudal landownership of these urban centres that caused a rapprochement of their economic interests with noble landowners rather than with the rest of the royal towns whose landed property was vestigial. As a result, Kubinyi argues, it was increasingly difficult for cities to come to a consensus in economic matters and act as a compact political body in the Hungarian Diet. In addition, the importance of some other aspects was stressed by Kubinyi, namely the remarkable financial burden associated with the subsistence of urban deputies in the Diet and also the cities’ fear that their representatives would be subject to perpetual financial and fiscal demands by the ruler and the Hungarian nobility.40 All of these factors as well as a lack of systematic royal support under the reign of Louis II Jagiello might have been responsible for the absence of burgher representatives in most pre-Mohácz Hungarian Diets. Nonetheless, in spite of its passivity the Hungarian citizenry was not completely ousted from political life and its right to take part in countrywide assemblies was not de iure challenged. Issued in 1514, Werböczy’s Tripartitum aptly mirrored the distribution of political power in Kubinyi, ‘Zur Frage der Vertretung der Städte’, pp. 215–246. Mályusz, ‘Geschichte des Bürgertums in Ungarn’, pp. 383–396. 40 Kubinyi, ‘A magyarországi városok’, pp. 7–48; Kubinyi, ‘Zur Frage der Vertretung der Städte’, pp. 238–245. 38 39

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the country. While the entire text is primarily concerned with the codification of the privileges and freedoms of the Hungarian nobility, the rights of burghers occupies only a marginal part of the book. If the Polish case is considered, one cannot avoid seeing some striking similarities with the evolution of political order in Hungary. Most historians recognize the apogee of political power of Polish cities as being in the period between 1380 and 1450.41 Their active role in the decision-making process found its expression in their involvement in regional, state and international political affairs, namely in local and countrywide confederations, royal elections, Landtag sessions and in diplomatic negotiations with the Teutonic Order. It also appears that at least once, in 1403, some major Polish cities convened an official gathering of urban deputies (Städtetag) in order to debate common policy at the Diet.42 To delineate the causes of the political decline of Polish citizenry, it is worth analyzing the strikingly different outcomes of comparable political events in Bohemia and Poland around 1500. In the search for political dominance of the country, the Bohemian nobility, in the so-called Wladyslaw Land Constitution (Vladislavské zřízení zemské), questioned the right of the burgher estate to sit in the Diet and endeavoured to curtail the judicial and economic rights of royal free cities.43 In a strictly juridical sense this was not an utterly illegitimate act since the participation of urban deputies in the legislative process still was not embedded in the law of the land (zemské právo, Landrecht) and rather it rested upon custom and the power potential of Bohemian burghers in the post-Hussite period. After all, the absence of juridically anchored claims to political representation was acknowledged by royal cities themselves in their gravamina. In their memorandum from 1479, for instance, they appealed not to codified law or written privilege but only to the immemorial custom which entitled them to sit in the Bohemian Diet at the side of the upper and lower nobility. Later the legal weakness of this argument was also hinted at by King Wladyslaw Jagiello, who acknowledged the political claims of the burgher estate in his coronation oath but at the same time he stressed that the participation of cities in the Bohemian Diet was never codified.44 The attempt at the revision of post-Hussite political order, however, did not pass unchallenged and was briskly rejected by most royal free cities in Bohemia. During the ‘cold war’ that broke out after the ratification of the Wladyslaw Land Constitution, the burgher estate developed a whole spectrum of effective forms of resistance, from organizing autonomous assemblies of urban deputies to the boycotting of the Bohemian Landrecht and the formation of mighty armed coalitions. The military vigour of the burgher estate was expressly manifested by the large investments in On the political upsurge of Polish cities in the 14th and the first half of the 15th century Bogucka and Samsonowicz, Dzieje miast, pp. 284–317. 42 M. Biskup, ‘Die Rolle der Städte in der Ständevertretung des Königreiches Polen, einschliesslich des Ordenstaates Preussen im 14./15. Jahrhundert’, in Töpfer, B. (ed.), Städte und Ständestaat (Berlin 1980), p. 171. 43 The text of the Wladyslaw Land Constitution in Archiv český V, pp. 5–265. The controversial article on the third vote of the burgher estate on pp. 261–262. 44 Archiv český, V, pp. 394–397. The declaration of the king from 1502 in Archiv český, VI, pp. 249–251. 41

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artillery and other kinds of weaponry, as a result of which the royal cities became the most powerful force in Bohemia. In the final phase of the conflict, cities did not even hesitate to engage the politician and condottieri Bartholomeus of Münsterberg, who was supposed to act as military leader and diplomat on behalf of the burgher estate. An attempt by the nobility to oust cities from the decision-making process and break some of their privileges thus launched a long period of inner instability during which the central power further lost its authority on behalf of the political concept of Ständestaat. As the conflict ruined the country’s economy as well as the financial resources of the antagonist sides, all the powers involved eventually agreed to settle controversial issues by purely political means. The St. Wenceslas Treaty of 1517, though being a clear compromise, ratified the third vote of the burgher estate in the Bohemian Diet and thus its official involvement in the political system.45 In Poland, one observes the alternative outcome of the parallel situation. Until the mid-15th century, Polish cities did not make any significant attempt to regularize and legitimize their ad hoc involvement in state affairs. This is why it proved relatively easy for the rising Polish szlachta to deny the political aspirations of the burghers by resorting to legal arguments. Moreover, political activity was usually implemented by only a handful of major Polish cities such as Cracow, Lwów, Lublin, Poznań and Gniezno, while other urban centres occasionally joined the common action or remained passive. Yet even leading cities saw their participation in countrywide political life primarily as an instrument of securing their individual privileges and pursuing their own particular objectives rather than as a means of pushing through the corporative interests of the burghers. Under such circumstances, the sessions of urban representatives did not evolve into a true organizational power basis for Polish cities and the formation process of the burgher estate remained frozen in embryonic form. Paralyzed by the particularism of the economic and political interests of major urban centres, the absence of autonomous organizational structures and the lack of a common military tradition, Polish cities proved increasingly unable to reverse their gradual elimination from the constitutional settlement of the emerging early modern Polish state. The gradual eclipse of the power ambitions of the Polish citizenry was marked by several milestones. The anti-burgher legislation was launched as early as 1454 by the Nieszawa Statutes that essentially undermined the trade privileges and rights of cities. In a later period, burghers were virtually excluded from discussing fiscal affairs and the Polish Sejm also restricted their right to purchase landed estates.46 One of the key documents in terms of the integration of Polish cities into the political order of the early modern rzeczpospolita, was the constitution Nihil Novi of 1505. For at least two reasons this may be considered the foundation stone of the Polish noble republic. It secured for the future the dominance of the szlachta and magnates

45 J. Pešek and B. Zilynskyj, ‘Městský stav v boji se šlechtou na počátku 16.století’, Folia Historica Bohemica, 6 (1984), pp. 137–162; J. Tomas, ‘Některé problémy ekonomických a mocenských vztahů mezi stavy v českých zemích v 15. a 16. století’, Folia Historica Bohemica, 6 (1984), pp. 109–136; Macek, Jagellonský věk, 3, pp. 322–372. 46 Volumina legum, I, p. 124. On the possession of landed estates by the burghers and towns in the later period Volumina legum, I, p. 259; Volumina legum, III, p. 11.

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vis-à-vis the central power but to a large extent it also ousted the Polish citizenry from participation in the decision-making process.47 A comparison of the structural shifts in the Bohemian and Polish political systems is instructive in terms of demonstrating the power, ambitions and estate awareness of urban societies. The Wladyslaw Land Constitution in Bohemia as well as Nihil Novi in Poland incarnated the noble conception of the corporative state in which the political role of the burghers would be rather symbolic. In both countries, the reaction of royal cities to the anti-burgher legislation, however, differed strikingly. While cities in Bohemia mobilized their financial and military potential to eventually force the revocation of the original constitutional project, their Polish counterparts remained passive and they reconciled with their vestigial political, social and economic role in the rising noble Commonwealth. Considering the integration of cities into the political institutions of the Ständestaat, one observes divergent development by 1500. While in the Lands of the Bohemian Crown and Royal Prussia the burghers had built a strong corporative identity and played an active part in building the political system of the Ständestaat, the royal cities in Poland and Hungary proved far less successful. Though in the 15th century some preconditions for the rise of the burgher estate appeared in both countries, in general this potential remained unexploited. In Hungary as well as Poland the royal cities failed to reach a sufficient level of autonomy on central power as enjoyed by their Bohemian and Royal Prussian counterparts. In political affairs cities largely remained dependent on their rulers who tended to utilize them as a means in their power struggle with magnates and the nobility. It was the persistence of the umbilical cord between Polish and Hungarian royal cities and their feudal overlords which essentially hindered the evolution of a self-confident and emancipated burgher estate capable of advocating its political and economic interests. In addition, the absence of an energetic leadership was not without significance. While Prague in Bohemia, Danzig in Royal Prussia, Görlitz and Bautzen in Upper Lusatia and Breslau in Silesia had by 1500 evolved into the undisputed leaders of the burgher estates and agents of their political ambitions, Hungarian Buda and Polish Cracow accomplished this mission rather inadequately. To explain this, consider Prague. The accumulation as well as the long-term stability of Prague’s administrative, economic and political functions legitimized its role as an advocate of Bohemian citizenry. Formally, Prague’s pre-eminent position among Bohemian urban centres found its reflection in legal and political documents as royal decrees and the Diet records, when referring to the entire burgher estate in Bohemia, commonly used a fixed formula ‘The Pragers and other cities’ or, alternatively, ‘The Pragers, Miners [Kutná Hora] and other cities’.48 But the primacy of Prague also had more practical manifestations. After the Hussite Wars it was only Prague citizens who enjoyed the noble privilege to buy landed estates and have their landownership recorded in the Land Tables (zemské desky, Landtafeln).49 In the political sphere, one Bogucka and Samsonowicz, Dzieje miast, pp. 321–328. Archiv český, V, p. 52; Archiv český, VI, pp. 249, 256, 269, 313. 49 Archiv český, V, p. 52. The privilege by Charles IV from 1366 in Codex Iuris Municipalis Regni Bohemiae, I, pp. 142–144. 47 48

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of the most conspicuous illustrations of the exclusive status of the city was probably the Diet’s resolution of 1505 which authorized Prague to negotiate on behalf of the Bohemian estates with the aristocratic family of Schlicks, who were charged with seditious deeds.50 In Royal Prussia, the status of Danzig, Elbing and Thorn was analogous to that of Prague in Bohemia. Formally, their economic, military and political hegemony found its expression in their privileged status in the provincial Diet vis-à-vis the other Royal Prussian towns. Compared to Prague or Danzig, the position of Buda as the political leader of the Hungarian royal cities proved much less authoritative. Rivalled by Székesfehérvár, Visegrád and Esztergom as the political and administrative centre of medieval Hungary, Buda usurped primacy among Hungarian cities relatively late.51 As a result, this produced a decentralization of the country’s chief institutions. Despite its prosperity under Matthias Corvinus and the Jagellonian kings, Buda largely failed to accumulate the central functions of a capital city since it hosted no university and Hungarian archbishops remained seated, at least officially, in Esztergom, while Székesfehérvár long retained its importance as the traditional coronation place and burial site of Hungarian kings. The administrative and economic polycentrism was further increased in the post-Mohácz period. Though Pozsony officially became the Hungarian capital, some chief state and Church offices as well as academic institutions resided either in Vienna or in Nagyszombat. At the same time, Pozsony failed to play the role of the economic heart of the country as the city was rivalled by Nagyszombat and the Upper Hungarian commercial centres grouped around Kassa. The status of Cracow largely resembled that of Buda. Though the city hosted the royal residence and a university, the Polish Sejm often took place in different cities and the Polish Catholic Church had its main centres in Gniezno and Lwów. More importantly, because of the late territorial building of the early modern Polish state, the political position of Cracow was considerably enfeebled by persistent regionalism. Therefore, political ties and communication networks between Cracow and Royal Prussian or Mazovian cities were less developed by 1500 than the contacts with urban centres in Lesser and Greater Poland. In this respect, the political gravity of Cracow remained regional rather than countrywide. Cities in the East-Central European Ständestaat The previous section of this chapter highlighted the gravity of some economic and sociopolitical factors that shaped the political mentality and estate self-confidence of the citizenry in the late medieval Bohemian lands, Poland and Hungary. It has been argued that these variables largely predetermined the extent to which the citizenry was integrated into the constitutional settlements of respective countries. In a countrywide context, it was only the royal cities in the Bohemian lands that attained a high level of political power and internal autonomy. By 1500, the citizenry was more or less an equal partner to other estates in all the provinces of the state. 50 51

Archiv český, VI, pp. 321–322. For instance Mályusz, ‘Geschichte des Bürgertums in Ungarn’, pp. 365–666.

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In Bohemia proper, the royal cities formed the third curia in the Diet next to the upper nobility (Herren, páni) and knights (Ritters, rytíři). Perhaps the most favourable status was enjoyed by the burgher estate in Upper Lusatia where the economically strong and well-organized Sechsstädte (Bautzen, Görlitz, Zittau, Kamenz, Löbau and Lauban) represented the most powerful force in the province. Formally, the economic and political potential of Upper Lusatian burghers was expressed by the structure of the provincial Diet in which urban deputies sat separately while the other curia was formed by magnates, knights and clergy.52 In a three-chamber Silesian Diet, the burgher estate was de facto represented in two curias since Breslau, acting from 1357 as the chief administrator of Breslau principality, enjoyed the privilege of sending its deputies to a second chamber reserved for the noble estates.53 The rest of the royal cities from Silesian principalities under the immediate authority of the king formed the last curia. While in Bohemia, Upper Lusatia and Silesia, the burgher estates won a comparatively strong position in provincial politics, Moravian and Lower Lusatian cities played a far less significant role in the constitutional settlements of both lands. Seriously handicapped by their small number (Moravia) and by size and economic feebleness (Lower Lusatia), cities retained only a limited influence on the legislative process though in both regions burghers achieved the status of a political nation. The burgher estate in Moravia, for instance, shared voting rights with the clergy though the political as well as economic interests of both estates were largely incompatible.54 The integration of the burgher estate into the political system through regular representation in the Diet was, everywhere, the principal means of pursuing its political goals on a countrywide level. Yet in terms of day-to-day politics, the involvement of the burgher estate in regional administration and its representation in local self-governing bodies proved equally important, given that these political structures found themselves largely out of the control of the Crown and often acted as utterly autonomous institutions. With the exception of Moravia, where the regional administrative division played only a subsidiary role, mostly for fiscal and military purposes, regional self-governing bodies in other provinces of the Bohemian Crown evolved into solid power bases of burgher estate. This proved significant in several ways. Firstly, keeping control over regional politics, royal free cities could withstand potential anti-burgher initiatives in their embryonic phase. Secondly, the institutionalization of an inter-estate consensual policy on a regional level and the tradition of negotiated political compromise created excellent preconditions for the later emergence of noble/burgher coalition in its struggle against the centralizing and Counter Reformation efforts of the Crown.

52 See L. Bobková, ‘Zemská zřízení a zemské stavy v Horní a Dolní Lužici v 16. století’, in Malý, K. and J. Pánek (eds), Vladislavské zřízení zemské a počátky ústavního zřízení v českých zemích (1500–1619) (Praha 2001), pp. 165–191. 53 J.J. Menzel, ‘Die schlesischen Städte am Ausgang des Mittelalters’, in Rausch, W. (ed.), Die Stadt am Ausgang des Mittelalters (Linz/Donau 1974), p. 257. 54 F. Kameníček, Zemské sněmy a sjezdy moravské I (Brno 1900), pp. 1–16; Pánek, ‘Města v předbělohorském českém státě’, p. 14.

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After the renewal of regional administration (krajské zřízení) in post-Hussite Bohemia, local institutions were the first to reflect on the distribution of power in the province. Bereaved of its political monopoly, the upper nobility had to reconcile itself to the pervasion of knights and burghers throughout regional self-governing bodies. As a consequence, krajské zřízení soon became the fountainhead of the power ambitions of both lower estates. By 1500, it was regional dietienes that formed an official platform for the political activities of the Bohemian citizenry. As rather autonomous bodies, the regional assemblies quickly developed into hotbeds of estate opposition and as such they were challenged by Ferdinand I soon after his accession to the Bohemian throne in 1526. With reference to executive offices in the regions (kraje), they remained, in the pre-White Mountain period, in the hands of the noble estates that retained immediate control over regional military, financial and administrative affairs. Noble dominance over the regional executive was only suspended during the short-lived anti-Habsburg Protestant uprising in 1618–1620, when three officers representing all political nations were appointed.55 The most significant role, in the context of the Bohemian lands, were played by regional estates’ structures in politically fragmented Silesia. Here estates’ institutions actually formed the chief organizational and administrative bodies and in all fourteen (after 1520 thirteen) principalities, the burghers constituted an integral part of regional political structures. In provincial assemblies composed of two, three or four chambers, burgher estate usually formed the last curia but in some dietines urban deputies shared one chamber with other estates.56 The four-chamber assembly of the Breslau principality, for example, comprised separate curias for royal officials, the clergy and the Breslau Starosta, while the burghers, knights (Ritters) and upper nobility (Herren) sat in a common chamber. Because of the pre-eminent status of Breslau, which until 1635 held the office of Landeshauptmann, the burgher estate in this principality also proved successful in claiming a share of regional executive power.57 In some provinces of the Bohemian lands, countrywide and regional estates’ institutions were by 1500 further paralleled by autonomous power structures, namely the assemblies of royal cities (Städtetage) that formed the third institutionalized communication platform utilized for debates within the burgher estate. The role of Städtetage in the political system of the early corporative state has rarely been studied by historians, hence only partial and preliminary inferences may be drawn. The assemblies of cities mostly discussed three major issues: the protection of their vital interests through coordinated political or military actions, internal urban affairs and finally, the most suitable political strategies in the Diet. Given that the independent organizational platforms of cities could easily serve as instruments Pánek, ‘Města v politickém systému’, pp. 15–36. See studies by M. Ptak, ‘Zgromadzenia i urzędy stanowe księstwa źagańskiego w latach 1413–1742’, Acta Universitatis Wratislaviensis, 908/Prawo CVI (1989), pp. 31–73; M. Ptak, ‘Zgromadzenia i urzędy stanowe księstwa wolowskiego’, Acta Universitatis Wratislaviensis, 1033/Prawo CLXXII (1989), pp. 27–56. 57 Menzel, ‘Die schlesischen Städte’, p. 257; H. Weczerka, ‘Breslaus Zentralität im ostmitteleuropäischen Raum um 1500’, in Engel, E. and K. Lambrecht and H. Nogossek (eds), Metropolen im Wandel (Berlin 1995), p. 249. 55 56

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through which collective action was made possible, they posed a potential threat to the political stability of the country and a hindrance to administrative centralization. This is why after 1526 the autonomous burgher and noble assemblies were energetically challenged by Ferdinand I. Moreover, with the consolidation of the constitutional system after the politically turbulent twenty years of the 16th century, the Städtetage lost much of its raison d’ètre and in most provinces of the Bohemian lands they either disappeared or were converted into institutions designed mostly for administrative purposes. In the second half of the 16th century, cities rather relied on alternative means of communication and organizational platforms, namely on occasional informal meetings, mutual correspondence and political debates during Diet and Landgericht sessions.58 The Städtetage enjoyed imminent importance, apart from Bohemia, in Silesia and Upper Lusatia. It seems that the autonomous political organ of royal cities in Silesia emerged, rather surprisingly, under the aegis of Wladyslaw II. Aiming at increasing royal authority and pacifying the stormy social and political climate in the province, in 1508 Wladyslaw II approved the rise of a confederation of cities from several principalities, Breslau, Schweidnitz–Jauer, and Glogau. In spite of attempts to broaden the social platform of the confederation by inviting the nobility, the league eventually evolved into a separate political instrument of the burgher estate and in the second decade of the 16th century the confederation of cities had significant power potential. Having studied institutionalized political structures in early modern Silesia, Kazimierz Orzechowski has identified 35 Städtetage between 1510 and 1520, while in two consecutive years 1515 and 1516 no less than six assemblies per annum were convened. In the later period, the consolidation of the political climate in Silesia, however, strengthened the role of inter-estate institutions such as the Diets and regional assemblies and the political potential of the Städtetage markedly declined. Nonetheless, the assemblies of royal cities retained their place in the early modern Silesian political system though the locus of power had already shifted to countrywide political bodies and administrative organs of the principalities.59 In Upper Lusatia, assemblies of urban representatives performed a double role. Under Bautzen’s leadership they served as organizational platforms of the Upper Lusatian burgher estate in periods between sessions of the Diet but they were also designed as a counterweight to parallel noble institutions, namely regional noble dietines (Landtage).60 It seems that in spite of royal repressions against cities in 1547– 1548 after the battle of Mühlberg, the Upper Lusatian Städtetage were not completely discontinued and they remained an integral part of the provincial political system.61 If cities in the Bohemian lands took an active part in building the early modern Ständestaat and the burgher estate managed to institutionalize its social and political status in regional and countrywide self-governing bodies, then the Polish burghers came out as losers from the late medieval struggle over constitutional settlement in Pánek, ‘Města v politickém systému’, pp. 24–25. K. Orzechowski, ‘Zjazdy miast na Śląsku w czasach Jagiellońskich’, Studia śląskie, 26 (1974), pp. 227–240. 60 Bobková, ‘Zemská zřízení a zemské stavy’, pp. 169–170. 61 J. Lesczyński, Stany Górnych Luźyc w łatach 1635–1697 (Wrocław 1963), pp. 96–102. 58 59

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the country. After 1505 they de iure lost their right to sit in the Chamber of Deputies, with the unimportant exception of Cracow. In a way, the status of the country capital in Sejm well emblematized the nature of the social and political climate of early modern Poland as the city, because of its corporate ennoblement, was nominated as a delegate of a noble rather than burgher estate. After the conclusion of the Lublin Union in 1569, the same privilege was bestowed upon Wilno and in 1658 also upon Lwów as a reward for the brave conduct of its inhabitants during the Swedish siege.62 Though for all three urban centres the ennoblement embraced some practical benefits, such as direct representation in dietines (sejmiky) and the right to buy landed estates, their political weight in the Polish Diet remained marginal and their voice mattered only in issues relating to cities.63 The participation of other cities in the Diet was rather haphazard and their deputies were mostly summoned in connection with debates on urban economic privileges. Lublin, for example, probably received an invitation to the Polish Sejm only in 1503, 1505, 1551, 1565 and 1649.64 The fact that the presence of urban deputies in the Diet was a mere formality has been stressed by several Polish writers, including Sebastian Petrycy of Pilzno who paralleled the status of Polish cities in the Sejm with the invitation of a donkey to the wedding: To his surprise the donkey received an invitation to the nuptials. He looked forward to delicious meals, but after he arrived, he was asked to carry wood and water to the kitchen. The same role is played by some of our cities in the Sejm. They sit behind and listen to what they ought to do.65

The Polish citizenry was more frequently represented in elective and coronation Diets, but again only major cities such as Cracow, Poznań, Lublin, Warsaw and Sandomierz were entitled to join the electoral body. Once removed from the political system of the early modern Polish state, the burghers became the objects rather than agents of the decision-making process. For the future, this had fatal consequences for the autonomy of royal cities in Poland as urban societies, due to the lack of their own power base, proved too weak to withstand the growing pressure on their social and economic privileges and they soon fell victims to the political concept of a noble Commonwealth. The political impotence of the Polish cities also became evident in the sphere of regional politics. Unlike Bohemia, where autonomous political structures in regions shortly succumbed to centralization trends, the locus of power in early modern Poland remained largely vested in the provincial dietines. Given that several dozen regional assemblies (sejmiki) turned into the exclusive representative organs of the local gentry and magnates, cities retained minimal influence even over debates T. Wasilewski, ‘Nobilitacje miast w dawnej Rzeczypospolitej Obojga Narodów’, Czas, Przestrzeń, Praca w dawnych miastach (Warszawa 1991), pp. 373–385; J. Ptaśnik, Miasta i mieszczaństwo w dawnej Polsce (Warszawa 1949), pp. 216–242; Bogucka and Samsonowicz, Dzieje miast, p. 322. 63 Bogucka and Samsonowicz, Dzieje miast, p. 322. 64 J. Reder, ‘Poslowie miasta Lublina na sejmy dawnej Rzeczypospolitej’, Czasopismo prawno-historyczne, VI (2) (1954), pp. 253–286. 65 Ptaśnik, Miasta i mieszczaństwo, pp. 230–231. 62

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on urban affairs in the voivodships which harmed their autonomy and gravely undermined their economic interests. This mainly referred to such particular issues as the distribution of taxes between cities and the nobility, price regulations of craft products and financial contributions to the maintenance of city fortifications. As a consequence of the dissimilar social and political environment of the Polish heartland and Royal Prussia, the constitutional settlement of early modern Poland was marked by the coexistence of disparate political orders. In the former, the persistent passivity of the burghers as well as the chronic impotence of the Polish kings to pursue a systematic centralization policy gave rise to a political system in which the inter-estate concordia, as the constitutive principle of the state power, was substituted by unilateral noble supremacy. Along with a dominant model of a noble republic, there was a peripheral but highly autonomous Royal Prussian political order which, however, offered merely another alternative to a strong central power, namely the regional estate’s self-government with the strong representation of cities. In her excellent book on Royal Prussian political mentality and historical mythology, Karin Friedrich points out that the early modern constitutional settlement of the province rested upon two main pillars, a strong sense of regional identity and urban republicanism. The former was embedded in the theory, shared by most of the political body, about the exclusiveness and autochthonous nature of provincial institutions. In the 16th century the Royal Prussian burgher and noble estates could still largely agree that the cultural and political identity of the province, outwardly symbolized by the Kulm Law, ius indigenatus and the German language, had to be preserved despite the integration of Royal Prussia into a superior state structure. The adherence to these primordial institutions was intimately linked with the defence of the historical rights and fundamental laws of the province against both the intervention of the alien noble culture and the encroachments of Polish rulers. In the eyes of the Royal Prussian estates, a deterrent example of what might have happened to the province’s freedoms was found in neighbouring Ducal Prussia. Here the degradation of local estates, deprived of many of their rights by the Hohenzollern rulers, served the Royal Prussian political body as a warning that only vigorous protection of historical institutions and corporative privileges would guarantee the political autonomy of the province in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.66 Another factor that co-shaped the early modern political climate of Royal Prussia was a deeply rooted urban republicanism. Earlier in the text, it has been suggested that in the first half of the 15th century the autonomy of Prussian cities was increasingly threatened by the unitarian and centralizing policy of the Teutonic knights. Under somewhat different circumstances, the problem reappeared after the integration of Danzig, Thorn and Elbing into the Polish state. Observing the destructive effect of the power hegemony of the nobility on the economy and the inner autonomy of Polish cities, Royal Prussian urban centres opted for a policy whose main objective was to escape this tragic lot. In the 16th–17th centuries, vindication of the self-government rights and privileges of Royal Prussian cities became, therefore, one of the recurrent themes in political debates at a regional and countrywide level. Both the struggle over Royal Prussian autonomy within the Commonwealth and the protection of the 66

Friedrich, The Other Prussia, pp. 34–45.

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urban republican order against the Polish monarchic concept of power, gave rise to a peripheral political system that until the 18th century remained complementary to the dominant constitutional settlement of Poland–Lithuania. De iure, however, the burgher estate in Royal Prussia did not form a homogenous body since in provincial Landtag small royal towns failed to reach a political status equal to that of Danzig, Thorn and Elbing. While deputies from these large cities, together with the bishops and royal officials, formed the Prussian Council (Preußischen Rat), small towns sent their agents to a common noble/burgher Chamber of Deputies. De facto there was, however, a high degree of collaboration between burgher representatives in a two-chamber assembly and small royal towns usually followed the political line adopted by their senior partners in the Prussian Council.67 If the Bohemian/Royal Prussian and Polish models may be considered antipodes in terms of the political weight of cities, then the early modern political order in Hungary clearly represented a compromise between the two. Though formally the integration of burghers into Hungarian constitutional settlement was not seriously questioned, by 1500 cities were already finding themselves on the margins of political life. The negligible political weight of the burgher estate had its natural outcomes. During the 16th century, Hungarian cities ceased to aspire towards a more authoritative role in the countrywide power system and instead they focused on the defence of their inner administrative, judicial and religious autonomy against the intrusive efforts of the nobility and Habsburg rulers. As a result, in the early modern age Hungarian cities still managed to vindicate a great deal of their self-governing rights but in the context of countrywide politics their voice was gradually losing weight. The catastrophic defeat at Mohács (1526) and the victorious march of the Ottoman troops had an ambiguous effect on the political and social status of the Hungarian burgher estate. Naturally, the imminent Turkish menace necessitated a broader social consensus and close inter-estate collaboration, especially in military and fiscal matters. As defensive strategies and financial issues were mostly discussed in countrywide and county assemblies, the royal cities naturally took a more active part in these sessions. It has even been suggested that the Ottoman occupation modified the proportion between urban and county deputies in favour of the former since most royal free cities, because of their geographical location in the North and West of the country, were not directly affected by the war.68 On the other hand, the extensive migratory flows from invaded regions provoked sustained legislative pressure in the Hungarian Diet on urban institutions to conform to the new social conditions. A long-term debate, for example, was centred on the juridical status of the Hungarian nobility and its immobile property in cities. On this particular issue, which touched the self-governing rights of Hungarian urban centres, the burghers had to make some concessions in favour of the nobles residing in cities. The Hungarian model of regional self-government was fairly akin to the Polish one as counties (comitatus, vármegye) with their highly autonomous self-governing bodies formed the backbone of the early modern country’s administrative system. 67 Biskup, ‘Die Rolle der Städte’, p. 192; A. Groth (ed.), Historia Elbląga II/1 (Gdańsk 1996), pp. 9–10. 68 Mályusz, ‘Geschichte des Bürgertums in Ungarn’, p. 395.

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As in Poland, the executive organs of regional power, represented by ispán and vice-ispán, as well as county assemblies served primarily as institutions meeting the economic, social and political needs of the local gentry and magnates. At least two factors, however, made the Hungarian provincial administration specific. Firstly, the perpetual Ottoman danger entailed at least a basic inter-estate consensus on fundamental administrative and political issues which found expression in the collaboration between the burgher and noble estates at a county level. Furthermore, after the Reformation, common confessional interests created natural preconditions for inter-estate partnership vis-à-vis the recatholicization policies of the Crown and the Roman Catholic Church. Confessional affinity, however, could not surpass the persistent social and economic rifts between the burghers and nobility. In this respect, it has been suggested that in the 16th century Hungarian cities still profited from the power balance between the Habsburg rulers and the Hungarian nobility. In consequence, the administrative autonomy of royal cities as well as their economic privileges remained largely untouched until the Bócskai Revolt, which considerably weakened the Crown authority in favour of the Hungarian nobility. The military success of the Transylvanian prince István Bocskai as well as the political predicament of the Habsburgs was promptly utilized by the Hungarian Diet which launched a systematic anti-burgher legislative campaign.69 In terms of religion, however, the urban societies definitely benefited from the temporary decline of central power as the famous law of 1608, enacting religious freedom for the Protestants, also applied to the population of royal free cities.70 Weak Cities and Voracious States A survey of demographic, sociopolitical and economic variables in the previous sections has implied that the expansion of the early modern state at the expense of urban autonomy and the political ambitions of the burghers took highly different forms in the countries under review. Since direct involvement in the state’s political order was a sine qua non for the successful defence of medieval urban autonomy and urban privileges, Polish cities saw their freedoms soon curtailed and they remained rather passive observers of early modern state building. It was not, however, the centralized state to which Polish cities succumbed but rather the specific form of Ständestaat dominated by nobility and magnates. Alternatively, the citizenry in all provinces of the Bohemian lands as well as Royal Prussia managed to secure its status as a political nation and the burgher estate formed a constitutive part of the corporative political systems. In the 17th century, the different concepts of state power, a centralized monarchy in the case of Bohemian burgher estates, and decentralized noble republic in the case of the Royal Prussian

J. Szűcs, ‘Das Städtewesen in Ungarn im 15.–17. Jahrhundert’, in Székely, G. and E. Fügedi (eds), La Renaissance et la Reformation en Pologne et en Hongrie (1450–1650), Budapest (1963), pp. 157–158. 70 M. Kohútová, ‘Politické pozadie snemu roku 1608’, Historické štúdie, 40 (1999), pp. 123–129. 69

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citizenry, had to encounter an ambitious and well-organized cluster of cities that stuck to their medieval rights and that formed an autonomous political force. Usually, historians are inclined to argue that the rise of the proto-modern state was marked by the subordination of autonomous political entities to consolidated central power. If the integration of cities into the administrative structures of state is considered, such a classical scenario, in fact, only came true in the Bohemian lands. Many Czech scholars would suggest that the first serious attempts to undermine the political fundaments of Ständestaat immediately followed the Habsburg succession in 1526. Indeed, the reign of Ferdinand I launched a series of far-reaching changes in the distribution of power that affected, in the first phase, the burgher estate. In their studies on the pre-White Mountain political system of the Bohemian lands, Jaroslav Pánek and more recently also Joachim Bahlcke have depicted how the traditional burgher/ noble political and economic antagonism was paralleled and later overshadowed by growing tension between the self-confident burgher estates in all the provinces of the state and the Habsburg rulers seeking to regain their control over royal domains.71 Having examined the nature of confessional and constitutional conflict, Pánek has exposed that in the long run the counter-Reformation and centralizing policy by the Habsburgs enforced closer collaboration between the mostly Protestant cities and the noble estates. This new political partnership, however, was far from harmonious as social barriers and divergent economic interests persisted. The fragile character of the inter-estate coalition as well as its wavering and unwillingness to raise arms proved responsible for the defeat of the estate’s opposition in its first confrontation with the Habsburg power in 1547. Nonetheless, the offensive against royal cities was launched before the mid-16th century. Though the ban on convening regional assemblies (krajské sněmy) without royal consent (1528) mainly affected the political autonomy of the local nobility, it was the first attack on the administrative pillars of Bohemian Ständestaat. In order to restore royal authority over cities, Ferdinand I also outlawed gatherings of burgher communities (velká obec) that everywhere evolved into quasi-democratic and politically radical organs of municipal self-government. The collapse of the estate revolt in 1547, however, is justly considered one of turning points in the so far contractual relationship between the cities and the ruler. The suppression of the Protestant noble/burgher coalition in 1547 opened the door to far-reaching intrusions of the state into urban affairs and medieval urban freedoms. Particularly painful were repressive measures in the case of Bohemian and Lusatian cities whose landed estates were largely confiscated. On the other hand, royal cities in Silesia were affected much less, namely by financial penalties and new taxes, and the expanding territorial domain of Breslau remained largely untouched.72 Of the Moravian cities only Jihlava, as the owner of landed estates in Bohemia, saw 71 See Pánek, ‘Města v předbělohorském českém státě’, pp. 9–29; Pánek, ‘Města v politickém systému’, pp. 15–37; J. Bahlcke, Regionalismus und Staatsintegration im Widerstreit (München 1994). 72 On the rise of Breslau’s feudal hinterland L. Petry, ‘Breslau in der schlesischen Städtelandschaft des 16. Jahrhunderts’, in Rausch, W. (ed.), Die Städte an der Schwelle zur Neuzeit (Linz/Donau 1980), pp. 263–265.

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its property sequestered. The Crown manifested its momentary power also in another way, by encroachments on urban judicial, administrative and economic freedoms. Perhaps the most radical change occurred in the sphere of municipal law with the foundation of the Court of Appeal in Prague. The goal of this structural reform was threefold: the unification and bureaucratization of municipal law; a weakening of traditional bonds between most Bohemian cities and Magdeburg, the uppermost authority over municipal law and a hub of radical Lutheranism; and finally, the subordination of urban legal and judicial matters to state control. At the same time, the appointment of royal officials (královský rychtář, hejtman in Prague) supervising urban financial affairs and the political activities of the burghers aimed further to undermine the self-government of cities. A series of anti-burgher measures provoked an immediate response in the literature of the time. The trauma from the oppressive measures taken against cities and from the unprecedented expansion of state power was well expressed by the Bohemian humanist Sixt of Ottersdorf in his famous tractate On the Humiliation of the Burgher Estate in 1547. Horrified by what he perceived as a wanton demonstration of royal authority, the author, a zealous supporter of the politically potent burgher estate, did not hesitate to seek parallels with the tragic fall of Carthage, Rome and Troy. According to him, by curtailing urban liberties the king dismantled the edifice of the political and economic power of royal cities that had been arduously built up by previous generations of burghers.73 However, in retrospection, the author’s tragic tone did not fully correspond with the actual situation. Firstly, some important cities that did not play a direct part in the revolt, such as Kutná Hora and Most, were treated more leniently while those remaining loyal to the king (Pilsen, České Budějovice, Ústí nad Labem) escaped any repressions.74 Moreover, the practical impact of most anti-burgher measures proved rather symbolic. As royal officials in cities mostly recruited themselves from the local burghers, they were not particularly interested in restraining urban freedoms and urban autonomy. Within several years or decades, most cities also managed to regain their confiscated landed estates and restore their feudal domains. In the sphere of politics, Ferdinand’s anti-burgher strategy had ambivalent outcomes. True, after 1547, the power potential of the burgher estate substantially declined and royal free cities ceased de facto to pursue an independent political line. On the other hand, a weakening of royal cities blunted the long-term political and social rivalry between the nobility and burghers. Though traditional tensions did not completely vanish, as an approval of anti-burgher fiscal reform from 1567 showed, the political descent of the burgher estate paradoxically enabled its political rapprochement with the (mostly Protestant) nobility that resulted, during the anti-Habsburg uprising in 1618–1620, in a problematic but close partnership.75 73 S. z Ottersdorfu, O pokoření stavu městského léta 1547, ed. J. Janáček (Praha 1950), pp. 110–112. 74 Sněmy české II, p. 525. Also J. Čelakovský, ‘Postavení vyslaných krá. měst na sněmích českých a spor měst Hory Kutné, Plzně a Českých Budějovic o přednost místa a hlasu na sněmě’, Časopis Musea království českého, 43 (1) (1869), pp. 123–125. 75 On the fiscal reform J. Kollmann, ‘Berní rejstříky a berně roku 1567’, Sborník archivních prací, 1 (1963), pp. 169–246; Sněmy české, XI/2.

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In these years, royal cities managed to secure some economic, political and social concessions and burgher representatives also acquired some seats, though as junior partners, in the executive organs of rebellious Bohemia. The Protestant uprising also brought about a renaissance of medieval inner autonomy and self-governing rights of cities as most restrictive measures from 1547 were abolished. Thus for a short period of time the Confederation régime revived the idea of Ständestaat, but the military triumph of Ferdinand II in the White Mountain battle (1620) and the consequences of the Thirty Years War ultimately sealed the victory of the Habsburg concept of centralized power and uniform religion vis-à-vis the model of a corporate and multiconfessional state.76 Though the subordination of cities to state control was a complex process which took different forms, outwardly it was best manifested by the dramatic change in the composition of city councils to which, henceforth, were to be nominated only the Catholics loyal to the Crown. To adduce a striking example, let us briefly analyze the discontinuity in holding municipal offices in Prague, the most prominent urban centre of the Bohemian cities. In Prague’s Old Town, the renewal of the city council in 1622 brought a radical transformation of urban government as nine councillors out of eighteen had never occupied the post before and two others had not sat in the previous council. Even more revolutionary proved the changes in Prague’s New Town as twelve councillors out of eighteen had not held office in the previous government while eleven were complete newcomers.77 Neither were the provincial royal cities spared the complete change of the power elite. In Louny, for instance, almost half of the newly installed councillors had not occupied the post before.78 As apparent from the preceding paragraphs, the Bohemian lands epitomized the classical pattern of the enforced integration of cities into the structures of centralized state power. Conquered by standing armies, decimated economically and deprived of much of their population, the Bohemian, Moravian and to some degree also Silesian cities ceased to act as autonomous forces and found themselves on the way to becoming integral parts of a larger political order. Following its military victory over the estates opposition, the Habsburg state intensified pressure for the unification and rationalization of the urban administration, law and economy. Typically, the instruction from 1650 was intended by the Viennese government as an important step towards the central regulation and standardization of measures and weights, guild orders and orphans’ rights in all Bohemian cities.79 Nonetheless, the corporative awareness embedded in the burgher mentality as well as the yearning for the restitution of the medieval community long survived 76 See K. Adamová, ‘K politickému programu městského stavu v českém státě v roce 1619’, Právněhistorické studie, 31 (1990), pp.169–175; J. Dvorský, ‘Praha v českém stavovském povstání’, Pražský sborník historický, X (1977), pp. 51–120. 77 See J. Douša, ‘Městské rady v Plzni a na Starém Městě pražském v letech 1550–1650: Sociální složení rad v letech 1560–1590’, Sborník archivních prací, 32 (1982), pp. 321–418, esp. p. 368; J. Mendelová, ‘Rada Nového města pražského v letech 1600–1650’, Pražský sborník historický, XXIX (1996), pp. 59–106, esp. p. 71. 78 B. Roedl, Vademecum městské správy v Lounech v letech 1573–1727 (Louny 2004), p. 75. 79 J. Čelakovský, J., ‘Úřad podkomořský v Čechách’, Časopis Musea království českého, 51 (1877), pp. 570–575.

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the fall of the city as an autonomous political entity. The narrative sources reflected the contradiction between then and now in an interesting way. Most panegyrics devoted to individual cities, not to mention historical works, sought and found the apex of their glory and eminence in the past. While the present was belittled the future was completely ignored. In other words, cities possessed a famous past but they lacked any reasonable prospects. This sort of writing about Bohemian cities was typified by a panegyric by Jan Floryán Hammerschmid, W Praze blaze kdo má peníze (Those with money live well in Prague) from the beginning of the 18th century. The text, issued on behalf of the newly installed city councillors, celebrated the military potence, political power and broad freedoms of Prague in more fortunate past times. The signs of past eminence: the participation of the Prague burghers in the baptism of the (future) emperor Charles IV; the leadership of Prague during the Hussite wars, numerous economic and political privileges as well as the possession of many landed estates, were juxtaposed into a grey presence. The mission of the new urban government should have been to restore medieval glory and not to adapt the city to the needs of the new age. The bright future could be secured only through restoring the forgotten and destroyed values of the past.80 While the ambitions of the Bohemian burgher estate and the large-scale confessional, political and economic autonomy of Bohemian cities were annihilated in the direct and dramatic confrontation with the rival concepts of political centralization and recatholicization, a parallel scenario proved unfeasible in Royal Prussia. Here one identifies an alternative but largely unsuccessful model of political subjugation of cities to the early modern state. As the failure of Stephen Báthory’s military campaign from 1570s demonstrates, a weak central power in Poland could hardly subordinate the rich, populous and self-confident Royal Prussian cities to state supervision by force. In terms of relations between countrywide institutions and the province, the geopolitical position of Royal Prussian cities was of primary importance. Their role as the guardians of Poland’s maritime border always had to be considered by the Polish kings and Sejm and this made the state policy towards Danzig, Elbing and Thorn a delicate issue. Moreover, any potential military conflict would seriously harm Polish trade as well as the individual economic interests of Polish magnates and nobles who exported agricultural commodities through Danzig and Elbing to the Occident. For example, it has been estimated by Polish historians that during the 16th century about 70 per cent of all grain transported on Vistula to Danzig was owned by magnates and noble entrepreneurs.81 The combination of several factors, the military impotence of the Polish state, the economic and political strength of Royal Prussian cities and their indispensable role in Polish trade, made it clear that the highly autonomous status of Royal Prussian urban centres was to be subverted through diplomacy, changes in legislation and political pressure rather than by force. Sustained attempts by Polish kings and the Polish Diet to enhance their political authority in the province and attain greater control over autonomous Royal Prussian J.F. Hammerschmid, W Praze blaze, kdo má peníze (Praha 1715). M. Bogucka, ‘Polish towns between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries’, in Fedorowicz, J.K. and M. Bogucka and H. Samsonowicz (eds), A Republic of Nobles–Studies in Polish History to 1864 (Cambridge – New York: Cambridge University Press 1982), pp. 146. 80

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urban societies were not left unchallenged and the nature of the relationship with Poland–Lithuania was one of the hotly debated issues among patriotic burghers and nobles. Symbolically in the 1560s, roughly a century after the integration of the province into Poland, Elbing’s burgher Michael Friedwald penned his critical assessment of Polish rule entitled The Complaint of Polish Tyranny. Under Yoke and great Misery Prussia groaned hundred years ago When She her loyalty to the Order revoked (...) Now we are pressed by Poland, And the Poles do not respect Prussia any more (...) Poland begins to break our liberties and rights And occupies our estates (...).82

As apparent from the verses, Friedwald was convinced that following the integration of Royal Prussia into Poland the province fell out of the frying pan into the fire. Deprived of their historical freedoms and rights by the Teutonic Order, the Prussians raised their arms and with the help of the Poles they liberated themselves from the yoke. Deceived by pretended Polish amity, the Prussians agreed to create a common state with their allies. However, under the semblance of friendship, the Poles pursued the same goal as the Teutonic Knights, that is to undermine old Prussian liberty and eventually subjugate the whole province. In general, efforts to curb the autonomy of Royal Prussian cities and reduce their power potential were motivated by multiple reasons. Along with the Catholic pressure on the mostly Protestant milieu of Royal Prussian cities, there was a fundamental constitutional shift after the mid-16th century that challenged the political status and autonomy of Danzig, Elbing and Thorn. By incorporating Royal Prussia in the mid15th century, the Polish state gained direct access to the Baltic Sea and this fact began to play an increasing role in the economic plans and political aspirations of Polish rulers. With the aim of pursuing a more active naval policy and enhancing their financial revenues from trade, Sigismund August, Stephen Báthory, Sigismund III as well as Wladyslaw IV could not avoid short-term diplomatic and military conflicts with the assertive Royal Prussian cities that practically monopolized the Polish sea trade and profited from their strategic location on the Commonwealth’s maritime border. The control of the lucrative Baltic trade by Royal Prussian merchants was also an essential component of the conflict with the Polish nobility which in the 16th–17th centuries, despite its persistently inland mentality, became increasingly involved in the sea trade with Western Europe. Deprived of much of their profit by Danzig’s agents, noble exporters initiated a series of legislative steps aimed at curtailing Danzig’s commercial privileges and subjecting Royal Prussian cities to the authority of the Commonwealth’s central institutions. Though the anti-burgher ‘Was vor Bedruck und heftige Noth Vor hundert Jaren gedrungen hatt Preussen, das sie haben aufgesaget Ir Pflicht dem Orden und vorjaget (...). Mit dem uns die Polen setzen zu, Achten nicht mehr der Preussen nu (...). Als jetzt die Polen fangen an, Brechen Freiheit, Recht und nehmen Das Gutt (...).’ M. Toeppen (ed.), Peter Himmelreich’s und Michael Friedwald’s, des Löwentödters, elbingisch-preussische Geschichten (Leipzig 1881), pp. 364–366. 82

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policies proved far from fully successful, they revealed not only chronic social tensions within urban societies themselves but also the disunity of the economic and political interests of three major Royal Prussian cities which largely paralyzed their ability to act in unison. It was the constitutional reforms adopted in 1569 that sparked increasing pressure on the Royal Prussian political system of which the burgher estate was an integral part.83 In its essence the Lublin Union was a triumph of the long-term political movement aspiring to surpass the process of the atomization of political power in Poland. By assaulting provincial particularism, the excessive autonomy of magnate families as well as the exceptionally strong position of the Catholic Church, the Execution of the Laws (egzekucja praw) endeavoured to transform the state through political centralization and the unification of the juridical system.84 In the context of Poland, the Execution of Laws referred in particular to Royal Prussia whose closer incorporation into the country’s constitutional edifice was a recurrent theme of political discussions long before the rise of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The issue was intensely debated in the 1547–1548 Piotrków Sejm and also in Diets preceding the adoption of the Lublin Union in 1569.85 The emergence of Poland–Lithuania accelerated the rapprochement between the country’s constitution and the peripheral but largely autonomous Royal Prussian political system. Since after 1569 Royal Prussia was de iure equal to other parts of the Polish Crown, institutional reforms were launched to conform its self-governing bodies to Polish standards. As a consequence, the previously autonomous Royal Prussian Diet was transformed into a conventional General Assembly (sejmik generalny) debating only the internal affairs of the province. In addition, the agreement of the Royal Prussian nobility from 1585 to subject itself to the authority of the Crown Law Court (Trybunał Koronny) substantially undermined the traditional autonomy of the judicial system in the province, while in 1603 the Royal Prussian estates gave up their privilege to participate in military campaigns only within provincial boundaries.86 The structural reforms of the Royal Prussian political system climaxed in 1662 when representatives of lesser towns ultimately lost their right to sit in the Chamber of Deputies. Though ousted from the chief institution of the province, these towns were not entirely devoid of political influence as they quickly conformed to the new situation and in 1683 established an alliance with the objective of defending their collective interests through lobbying and coordinated pressure. Later in the 18th century plans appeared to reintegrate small towns into the Royal Prussian political system but eventually they did not come to fruition.87 83 Odyniec, Dzieje Prus królewskich, pp. 50–56; M.G. Müller, ‘Wielkie miasta Prus Królewskich wóbec parlamentaryzmu polskiego po Unii Lubelskiej’, Czasopismo prawnohistoryczne, XLV (1–2) (1993), pp. 257–267. 84 A lively debate over the issue was reflected abundantly in the early modern literature. See, for example, J. Loś (ed.), Stanislawa Orzechowskiego polskie dialogi polityczne(Rozmowa okolo egzekucyjej i Quincunx) 1563–1564 (Kraków 1990). 85 H.E. Dembkowski, The Union of Lublin – Polish Federalism in the Golden Age (New York: Boulder 1982), pp. 37–48, 167. 86 Odyniec, Dzieje Prus królewskich, pp. 47–50. 87 G. Labuda (ed.), Historia Pomorza 2 (Poznań 1984), pp. 127–128.

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The gradual metamorphosis of the Royal Prussian political and administrative structures after 1569 as well as their partial adaptation to the dominant Polish constitutional order naturally raises the question of what new circumstances made such a change possible and why the integrative factors outweighed traditional Royal Prussian separatism. In the search for an explanation one must consider the political and social benefits of the closer incorporation of Royal Prussia into the Commonwealth. As the political system of Poland–Lithuania saw the irreversible evolution towards noble and magnate hegemony, it offered vast corporative and individual opportunities to the Royal Prussian nobility whose power ambitions, in the context of their province, were seriously hampered by the self-confident and economically strong burgher estate. Precisely for the same reason the constitutional edifice of the Polish–Lithuanian noble republic had little to offer to Danzig, Thorn and Elbing, not to mention smaller Royal Prussian towns. This was most overtly manifested during political talks between the Prussians and Poles at Lublin. While the Royal Prussian noble and ecclesiastical senators and deputies achieved, following their incorporation into the Polish Diet, immediate influence over issues of countrywide importance, their burgher counterparts were offered political representation neither in the Polish Senate (Danzig, Thorn, Elbing) nor in the Chamber of Deputies (small Royal Prussian cities). While in the Royal Prussia, the burgher estate could benefit from its political representation in the regional power structures, in the Polish Sejm it remained largely dependent on provincial noble deputies. The different prospectives of both Royal Prussian estates in the countrywide political system naturally also affected their traditional adherence to provincial autonomy and historical privileges. In this context, the most conspicuous sign of the cultural and political rapprochement with Poland was the creeping infiltration of the Polish language into the Royal Prussian administration as well as a more tolerant approach towards ius indigenatus. Though originally ius indigenatus was viewed as the central privilege according to which only native Prussians could hold provincial offices, after the Lublin Union the Royal Prussian nobility opted for a compromise and let an increasing number of non-Prussians, provided they met the prescribed demands, occupy significant posts in provincial administration. One of the reasons might have been the sustained pressure from the Polish and Lithuanian noblemen, who argued that conferring Polish freedoms and rights upon the Prussian nobility reciprocally entitled the Poles to hold offices in Prussia. While in the 1570s the appointment of the native Pole Martin Kromer as the Bishop of Warmia still triggered vivid protests among Prussian estates, a few decades later the infiltration of non-Prussians into land offices was generally taken as matter of fact.88 In the eyes of the Royal Prussian burghers, however, the costs of closer integration with Poland clearly outweighed the benefits. This is why all three large cities became the most passionate defenders of the province’s historical rights, the German language, ius indigenatus and the Kulm law, and at the same time the most radical

88 On the resistance of Prussian estates against the Kromer’s appointment the bishop of Warmia in M. Kromer, Polska czyli o położeniu, ludności, obyczajach, urzędach i sprawach publicznych królewstwa polskiego księgi dwie (Pojezierze – Olsztyn 1977), pp. XIII–XIV.

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opponents of polonizing tendencies in Royal Prussian society.89 There is a lively debate among scholars on how the rather voluntary absence of the Royal Prussian burgher estate in the countrywide legislative body and political institutions affected its economic, social and political interests. The lack of an immediate opportunity to participate in the legislative process and shape the Diet’s decisions through direct representation certainly complicated the vindication of its fundamental concerns. Given their absence among policy-making social groups, the Royal Prussian cities were deprived of an effective means of power in all parliamentary systems, that is of mutual political backing based on agreements and ad hoc collaboration with the other factions and bodies involved. The capacity to push through the interests of a particular political coterie in exchange for reciprocal support would give a certain amount of power even to a minority group which the Royal Prussian urban deputies would definitely represent in the Polish Sejm, no matter whether it was in the Senate or the Chamber of Deputies. On the other hand, it has also been argued that the withdrawal from countrywide political bodies allowed the Royal Prussian cities to remain largely immune against the incessant political and fiscal pressures to which they would be certainly subjected in the Polish Sejm. This strategy could be aptly buttressed by historical and legal arguments. It has already been pointed out that early modern Prussian historiography asserted the legal fiction about the immediate submission of the Royal Prussian estates exclusively to the person of the Polish king. In order to legitimate such an interpretation of the Polish – Royal Prussian legal and political settlement, historiographers usually referred to the mid-15th century Incorporation Treaty (Privilegium Incorporationis) as providing conclusive evidence. Construing the nature of political relations between Poland and the province in such a way gave Royal Prussian cities ammunition in their polemics about the authority of the Polish Diet over them. This might have been the chief reason behind the decision of Danzig, Elbing and Thorn to abstain from their direct representation in the Polish Diet after 1569. If they joined the assembly, they would inevitably recognize their liability to follow Sejm resolutions and would deprive themselves of their freedom to manoeuvre.90 Nonetheless, the new situation forced the Royal Prussian burghers, seeking to blunt or stop any potential encroachments onto their autonomy, to develop alternative instruments of power, namely lobbying techniques and behind-the-scene cooperation with factions in the Diet. By 1600, they found political backing largely on a confessional basis. Through occasional support provided by the Protestant magnates and the nobles, the Royal Prussian cities succeeded in obstructing some anti-burgher policies. Thus in 1595, the initiative by the Catholic bishops to revindicate urban Churches was eventually impeded. Similarly, in 1604 the king made an effort to utilize the social strife in Danzig as a pretext for the political intervention into the city’s internal affairs. Again, the city council largely relied on magnate support in

Friedrich, The Other Prussia, pp. 34–45. M. Bogucka, ‘Gdańsk i rzeczpospolita w XVI–XVII w.’, Studia z dziejów rzeczypospolitej szlacheckiej (1988) (=Acta Universitatis Wratislaviensis, Historia LXVI/945), pp. 35–43. 89

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order to hinder the intentions of the royal court.91 In addition, those affairs which potentially threatened provincial freedoms usually provoked vociferous protests on the part of Royal Prussian nobility that in the 17th–18th centuries still remained sensitive to the special status of the province. By exploring the evolution of the relationship between the Royal Prussian burgher estate and the Commonwealth after 1569, one cannot avoid considering the perpetual attempts by Polish central institutions to gain advantage from the Achilles’ heel of Royal Prussian cities. There were basically two points of contention: the internal social conflicts within urban societies and the mutual economic competition of the three large urban centres. Strategies used against the highly autonomous Royal Prussian cities were best exemplified by disputes over the so called Karnkowski Statutes (1570–1585). Their practical application would heavily undermine Danzig’s maritime autonomy, strengthen royal authority over the city and weaken its self-governing rights. In order to reach this goal, the burgher community (pospólstwo) was to be corrupted by plans for reforms in the municipal government. Aiming to subvert the power of city councils and urban patriciate in Danzig and Elbing, the Karnkowski Statutes suggested the far-reaching democratization of municipal self-governance on behalf of the community and urban guilds.92 At the same time, by providing sinecures to selected patrician families, the kings of Poland sought to enhance their dependence upon the Crown and thus secure their loyalty. During the 16th–18th centuries a considerable number of Danzig patricians held lucrative posts as royal representatives (starosta) in several Prussian cities. Such a strategy did not always, however, prove successful as these holders of royal offices often withdrew from urban governments and decided to settle in the countryside as rich feudal landlords.93 The unity of Royal Prussian cities underwent a severe test during and after the royal election in 1575. While Thorn and Elbing, in spite of their initial support for the Habsburg candidate Maximilian, eventually declared their loyalty to Stephen Báthory, Danzig opted for a confrontation with the new king. Despite the fact that the military conflict was quickly resolved and both sides had to compromise, the episode uncovered the problem of the commercial rivalry between Danzig and Elbing. Though aware that Báthory’s campaign against the Baltic metropolis also signified an immediate attack against the autonomy of Royal Prussian cities, Elbing did not hesitate to utilize Danzig’s troubles in its own favour. Having capitalized on the economic embargo imposed on the revolting city, Elbing made an energetic effort to take over Danzig’s role in the Vistula trade. As this would subvert Danzig’s prosperity, Elbing’s commercial ambitions subsequently triggered a short-term war between the two cities. In the later period, a bitter trade rivalry persisted at the

Müller, ‘Wielkie miasta Prus Królewskich’, pp. 257–267; E. Cieślak (ed.), Historia Gdańska II (Gdańsk 1982), p. 572. 92 Odyniec, Dzieje Prus królewskich, pp. 87–102, 161–168; Cieślak, Historia Gdańska II, pp. 289–313, 579–657. 93 E. Cieślak and C. Biernat, Dzieje Gdańska (Gdańsk 1994), p. 126. 91

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political and diplomatic levels as Danzig did not reconcile itself to the competing activities of the English Eastland Company settled in Elbing.94 Yet in general, despite the occasional attempts of the Polish Sejm and Polish rulers to encroach onto urban affairs, the Royal Prussian cities managed to defend their position in provincial executive and legislative organs and they also retained a great deal of their religious, economic and juridical freedoms to a unique and unparalleled extent in 17th–18th century East-Central Europe. It was their broad autonomy and the relatively untroubled nature of their coexistence with the culturally and ideologically rather alien political model in Poland–Lithuania that probably stood behind the persistent loyalty of the Royal Prussian burghers towards the rzeczpospolita even during its agony in the final decades of the 18th century.95 In the first part of the chapter it has been observed that factors identified in the Bohemian lands and Royal Prussia were either underdeveloped or completely absent in Poland and Hungary. At least in the case of the former, the question should be raised as to whether cities and their medieval rights were victimized on behalf of the early modern state or rather in favour of the private interests of magnates and royal officials supervising urban affairs. While Polish rulers proved not strong enough to achieve full control over Royal Prussian cities, they found themselves too weak to obstruct the anti-burgher policies adopted by the Sejm between 1500 and 1700. A systematic legislative campaign against Polish royal cities virtually disqualified burghers from participation in the most profitable economic ventures and considerably aggravated their social status. Besides harsh anti-burgher economic laws, as was the act from 1565 restraining the involvement of urban merchants in Polish export, the legislation also curbed the scope of urban autonomy.96 This opened the door to the large-scale intervention of royal officials (Starosta) into municipal affairs. Given their rights to appoint burgomasters and in some cases also councillors, they could shape the religious, political and social profile of urban governments. The dependence of the urban political elite on the Starosta further increased after 1565 when royal officials gained the right to check the urban incomes and financial obligations of cities. Under such circumstances, the Starostas commonly misused their offices for personal enrichment and to advance their individual interests.97 The political and economic ostracism of Polish and Lithuanian cities was paralleled by the decline of urban culture and urban identity. As shown in chapter three, Polish burghers, and especially the upper echelons of urban societies, Odyniec, Dzieje Prus królewskich, pp. 124–132; Cieślak, Historia Gdańska, II, pp. 579–585; M. Biskup, ‘Elbląg w czasach Rzeczypospolitej’, Przegląd zachodni, VIII (2) (1952), pp. 191–192; Groth, Historia Elbląga, II/1, pp. 42–69. 95 M. Řezník, Pomoří mezi Polskem a Pruskem – Patriotismus a identity v Královských Prusech v době dělení Polska (Praha 2001), pp. 93–109. 96 S. Herbst, Miasta i mieszczaństwo renesansu polskiego (Warszawa 1954), p. 27; Ptaśnik, Miasta i mieszczaństwo, pp. 293–316; M. Bogucka, ‘The towns of East-Central Europe from the fourteenth to the seventeenth century’, in Mączak, A. and H. Samsonowicz, and P. Burke (eds), East-Central Europe in Transition, from the Fourteenth to the Seventeenth Century, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1985), p. 106. 97 More on the protests by royal cities against arbitrary and corruptive conduct of the Starostas in Ptaśnik, Miasta i mieszczaństwo, pp. 312–316. 94

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increasingly succumbed to the noble cultural models expressed by the Sarmatian mythology. Introduced by late 15th century writers such as J. Dlugosz, the myth was largely popularized by early modern Polish historiographers such as Marcin Kromer, Martin Bielski, Maciej Stryjkowski and Stanislaw Sarnicki.98 While early works, aiming to fix the place of Poles in the European past, used the Sarmatian myth mostly in a historical sense, the 16th–17th century saw the rise of Sarmatian ideology that was socially defined by referring to the country’s noble elite. Such an interpretation implied that the non-noble strata, including burghers and peasants, were not entitled to claim any freedoms and rights as they lacked the qualities of a true Sarmatian.99 Eliminated from the decision-making process and decimated economically, the Polish burghers failed to create the alternative cultural model and ideology that would counterweight the Sarmatian myth. This is why in the 16th–17th centuries urban societies largely adopted noble cultural patterns and the external attributes of nobility were commonly considered signs of social elevation. Probably the most conspicuous was the sarmatization of Polish urban societies in the sphere of burgher culture and, above all, in literature. By exalting the communal life of artisans the 16th century authors Sebastian Petrycy of Pilzno and Biernat of Lublin still kept the autonomous burgher literature alive, but the literary output of the following period largely lapsed from this tradition.100 The Officina ferraria, a poem from 1612 glorifying the craftsman as the chief producer of affluence and welfare was a mere exception proving the rule.101 Most literary texts of urban provenance emulated noble literature and some of them, like works by Jan Jurkowski and Józef Bartłomiej Zimorowicz, apotheosized the Polish szlachta, its virtues and heroism.102 The idealization of the nobility as a state-defending force and disseminator of national culture remained a distinctive feature of Polish literature well into the era of the National Awakening in the 19th century. In the famous historical epic by Henryk Sienkiewicz (1846–1916) it is the nobleman who bears responsibility for the state and eventually rescues the endangered Polish statehood. On the contrary, in the historical novels of Sienkiewicz’s Czech contemporaries Zikmund Winter (1846– 1912) and Alois Jirásek (1851–1930) it is the world of the burghers which is viewed as the fountainhead of national identity and culture. As the rise of the noble-dominated Polish–Lithuania in the 17th century was accompanied by the remarkable social and political decline of the citizenry, it is hard to speak of the integration of Polish cities into the structures of the early modern state. Probably a more appropriate term would be their social, political and economic 98 For example N. Kersken, ‘Geschichtsbild und Adelsrepublik. Zur Sarmatentheorie in der polnischen Geschichtsschreibung der Frühen Neuzeit’, Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, 52 (2004), pp. 235–260. 99 J. Tazbir, Arianie i katolicy (Warszawa 1971), pp. 265–269; M. Bogucka, ‘Polish towns between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries’, pp.135–152. 100 Biernat of Lublin, Wybór pism (Wrocław 1954). 101 W. Roździeński, Officina ferraria ábo hutá i wárstát z kuźniámi szláchetnego dzieła żeláznego (Wrocław – Kraków – Warszawa 1962). 102 M. Bogucka, ‘Die Kultur der Städte in der polnischen Adelsrepublik im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert’, in Wilhelm Rausch (ed.), Städtische Kultur in der Barockzeit, (Linz/Donau 1982), pp. 67–75; Bogucka and Samsonowicz, Dzieje miast, pp. 568–575.

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elimination in favour of the Polish nobility. While in most European countries the expansion of the state was marked by bureaucratization and administrative centralization which, however, did not aim to subvert the urban economies and uproot urban culture, in Poland the Sejm legislation as well as the contemporary political discourse distinguished themselves with their systematic effort to push the cities and citizenry into economic and social insignificance. In other words, Polish cities were not deprived of their medieval autonomy by the hobbesian Leviathan, an allegory of a powerful, centralized and efficient early modern state, as nothing like that emerged in 16th–18th century Poland. In the 17th century, the constitutional system and social climate of Poland–Lithuania attracted the attention of many foreign observers who usually stressed the extensiveness of noble freedoms and the misery of town dwellers and peasants. According to Samuel Pufendorf, ‘Anybody in Poland who is not a nobleman, is considered a peasant. The burghers in towns have a bad reputation and craftsmen are generally foreigners’.103 An even more emotive description of the country came from Bernard Connor, who recognized in Poland only ‘the Gentry or Freeborn Subjects, who are hardly a tenth part of the Kingdom, and the Vassals, who are no better than Slaves to the Gentry, for they have no Benefit of the Laws, can buy no Estates, nor enjoy Property, no more than our Negroes in the West-Indies can’.104 An utterly pessimistic view of cities and their future was also inherent in domestic political writing and as late as 1778, shortly before the ultimate collapse of the Polish–Lithuanian union, Ignacy Krasicki paralleled the Polish town with ruins, empty houses and the residues of city gates.105 Far from being monolithic, early modern Polish political thought always offered alternative concepts of government. The leading 17th century intellectuals, Mikołaj Rej, Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski, Szymon Starowolski and Krzystof Opaliński appealed to in-depth structural reforms and warned against the potentially destructive consequences of indolence in political matters. A particularly sharp criticism of the political and social reality of Poland–Lithuania was expressed by Szymon Starowolski. In one of his polemical texts from 1623, Starowolski heralded the apocalyptic lot of the country wantonly (mis)ruled by the nobility usurping boundless freedoms and oppressing the other echelons of Polish society. Once powerful and opulent cities were later ruined, overtaxed and dishonoured and would be, with their dilapidated walls, absolutely defenceless.106 However, the social and political status of the burghers found itself in the mainstream of the debate as late as the 18th century when, under the imminent threat of state disintegration, the political elite eventually resorted to overdue reforms and declared the Constitution of the 3rd May. Though a variety of views appeared on how to revitalize the decimated cities, from restoring their medieval rights and privileges to recognizing the natural rights 103 S. Pufendorf, Einleitung zu der Historie der vornehmsten Reiche und Staaten so itziger Zeit in Europa sich befinden (Frankfurt am Main 1684, 1699), p. 695. 104 B. Connor, The History of Poland in several Letters to Persons of Quality. Giving an account of the present state of that kingdom II (London 1698), pp. 4–5. 105 I. Krasicki, Monachomachia (Wrocław – Warszawa – Kraków – Gdańsk – Łodż 1987), p. 23. 106 Starowolski, Wybór z pism, pp. 274–285.

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of town dwellers, the Constitution of the 3rd May remained rather conservative in the sense that it rebuilt the Ständestaat by integrating the burgher estate into a somewhat modified political system.107 In terms of the conflict between city autonomy and the early modern state, the Hungarian case appears somewhat peculiar. During the 16th and the first half of the 17th century, the Hungarian nobility, a dominant social force in the country, did much to shape the political structures and legislative contours of the Ständestaat in its own favour. Not only was the position of Hungarian burghers in the Diet rather symbolic, but cities were also losing their battle over the juridical and fiscal status of the nobility in the urban environment. But unlike Poland, the anti-burgher measures did not seek completely to subvert the medieval rights and freedoms of cities and annihilate the burgher estate. An explanation should probably be seen in the existence of a religious and political alliance between the Hungarian nobility and burghers against the centralizing policies of the Crown. As Hungary became an almost entirely Protestant country whose rulers, however, were Catholics, any debate over religious issue was necessarily a debate over the country’s autonomy and estates’ freedoms vis-à-vis the Crown. Cities, if recatholicized, would turn into a power base of the Crown in the constitutional struggle over the nature of the Hungarian political system. This is why any attempt by the post-Tridentine Catholic Church and the Habsburg government to upset the status quo and subvert Protestantism usually provoked armed resistance that was often either supported or even organized by the Transylvanian princes. The comparative military weakness of the Habsburgs, the threat of potential destabilization of the country which was, after all, constantly under arms as well as the imminent Ottoman danger long prevented the Crown from applying the Bohemian model in the case of Hungarian cities. Though towns were practically ousted from the decision-making process, they managed to defend a great deal of their self-governing rights by the end of the 17th century. Though in Hungary the process of disciplining cities by the state was delayed, the Viennese government enjoyed considerable success in following the model earlier tested in the Bohemian lands. Preoccupied with the war and lacking the power potential to achieve full supervision over autonomous Hungarian cities, the Habsburg rulers in the first half of the 17th century had to resort to moderate strategies and occasional meddling in urban affairs. The interventions mostly took the form of active support for Catholic institutions (schools, Church orders) and the Catholic political elite which were ostentatiously favoured during the installation of new urban governments.108 The failure of the so-called Wesselenyi Plot in the early 1670s as well as the collapse of the Thököly and Rákoczi uprisings had the same devastating Z. Goliński (ed.), Abyśmy o ojczyźnie naszej radzili – Antologia publicystyki doby stanisławowskiej (Warszawa 1984), pp. 165–202. 108 On relations between cities and state in 17th century Hungary, especially I. Kállay, ‘Die Städte Ungarns im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert’, in Rausch, W. (ed.), Die Städte Mitteleuropas im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert (Linz/Donau 1981), pp. 73–82; A. Špiesz, ‘Der Wiener Hof und die Städte des Königreichs Ungarn in den Jahren 1681–1780’, in Rausch, W. (ed.), Die Städte Mitteleuropas im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert (Linz/Donau 1981), pp. 83–95; A. Špiesz, Slobodné král’ovské mestá na Slovensku v rokoch 1680–1780 (Košice 1983), pp. 14–16. 107

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effect upon Hungarian cities as the Thirty Years War had upon urban societies in the Bohemian lands. Sources from the dawn of the 18th century left us the gloomy picture of depopulated, economically ruined and barely habitable cities troubled by giant debts and quartered troops. Under such circumstances, the Hungarian royal cities found themselves entirely dependent upon the Viennese court which took advantage of the situation and commenced the systematic recatholicization and unification of distinct urban administrations. Over time, the urban governments began to be appointed instead of being elected and the financial affairs of the cities fell under the control of state officials. The integration process was de iure completed in 1755 by a decree unifying municipal administration in all Hungarian royal cities.109

109

Špiesz, Slobodné král’ovské mestá, pp. 31–40.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Urban Economy: Its Basic Parameters In Czech, Polish, Hungarian and Slovak urban history, one would hardly find a more extensively studied subject than that of the early modern urban economy. This (main)stream of scholarship, beginning with pioneers of urban history like Zikmund Winter, Bedřich Mendl, Jan Ptaśnik and Elemér Mályusz, reached its pinnacle in the postwar period being overtly favoured by the Marxist historiography. While seeking in socioeconomic structures both the seeds and signs of social class division, the Marxist historians substantially contributed to the investigation of the organization of urban production and trade and they also explored the inherent trends in early modern economies. Notwithstanding the abundance of literature, a scholarly debate is still marked, to a large extent, by two contradictory and extreme approaches that render rather unsatisfactory outcomes. The first approach may be defined as ‘the view from the inside’. One cannot overlook the lack of systematic comparison and the persistent atomization of EastCentral European scholarship, which is still largely channelled to regional and national frameworks. The rather fragmented nature of research greatly complicates a serious discussion on the general parameters and structural similarities and differences in Polish, Hungarian and Bohemian city economies. Though sporadic attempts have been made recently to overcome this inadequacy, the absence of a tradition in the comparative approach still remains a hallmark of East-Central European city-related scholarship.1 Consider, for example, the economic decline thesis, introduced by Henri Pirenne and later developed and modified by Max Weber, Francis Carsten and Immanuel Wallerstein. Pirenne’s argument about the victory of urban capitalism in the struggle with the feudal economy of the European Occident and the parallel triumph of feudalism over urban capitalism in the European East had a considerable impact upon East-Central European historical scholarship.2 Generations of Polish, Czech, Slovak and Hungarian scholars were involved in a major debate over the inherent trends in early modern urban production and trade. Until recently, there has been a consensus on the progressive stagnation of East-Central European city economies in the 16th and early 17th century. Instructive in this respect is the discussion among 1 The comparative approach mostly had the form of collected essays and conference papers. See I. Bog (ed.), Der Aussenhandel Ostmitteleuropas 1450–1650 (Köln – Wien 1971); A. Mączak and H. Samsonowicz and P. Burke (eds), East-Central Europe in Transition (Cambridge: CUP 1985). 2 H. Pirenne, Economic and social history of medieval Europe (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul 1947); H. Pirenne, La civilization occidentale au Moyen age du XIe au milieu du XVe siécle (Paris 1933).

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Hungarian historians who raised the issue in the 1950s. Pirenne’s conclusions found an advocate in Zsigmond Pál Pach who suggested that until the mid-15th century there were no structural differences between the economies of Hungarian cities and urban economies in other European countries. By cutting off the Hungarian trade with the Levant, the territorial expansion of the Ottoman Empire galvanized the process of the transformation of the Hungarian economy, which would henceforth be oriented on the western markets. Because of the high demand in the West for agricultural commodities, the Hungarian economy, Pach says, was gradually refeudalized. In particular, the Hungarian aristocrats, as landowners and the feudal lords of many peasants, capitalized on these trends while urban economies, which tended to be based upon craft production, were confronted with the increasing import of wares from the West.3 By exploring the demographic and economic development of cities situated along the country’s western borders, other historians (J. Szűcs, L. Makkai) validated a thesis according to which the crisis of urban production and trade began as early as the last decades of the 15th century. At the same time, they rebutted Pach’s earlier theories about the pernicious effect of the Turkish military campaign on the Hungarian economy. Instead, they stressed the importance of the unprecedented expansion of the South German financial investments and mercantile activities in the country. Devoid of their own financial resources, Hungarian merchants mostly served either as middlemen or agents and junior business partners of Viennese, Augsburg and Nuremberg entrepreneurs in whose hands the bulk of the profit from the Hungarian trade remained. Moreover, South German wholesalers flooded the Hungarian market with a whole range of imported goods which heavily damaged domestic urban handicraft.4 As a result, Szűcs and Makkai assure us, artisan production in Hungarian cities and towns declined and an increasing proportion of the urban population began to seek its livelihood in husbandry. Although this hypothesis had its partisans among the Hungarian scholars well until the 1980s, in general it did not escape vehement criticism from two sides.5 It has been subsequently argued (A. Kubinyi) that no signs of crisis appeared in towns situated in the country’s core areas (Buda, Kassa, Eperjes, Kolozsvár). This implied that the early regressive trends observed by J. Szűcs had only a regional dimension, while the real crisis began only after the mid-16th century. The presumption of the one-sided dependence of the Hungarian economy on German financial capital has also been questioned, as the source material does not seem to support it convincingly. But in general, by focusing on the economic trends in a relatively tiny group of royal free cities that 3 Z. Pál Pach, Das Entwinglungsniveau der feudalen Agrarverhältnisse in Ungarn in der zweiten Hälfte des XV. Jahrhunderts (Budapest 1960); Z. Pál Pach, Hungary and the European Economy in Early Modern Times, (Aldershot: Ashgate 1994); Z. Pál Pach, ‘The Shifting of International Trade Routes in the 15th–17th Centuries’, Acta Historica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, 14 (1968), pp. 287–319. 4 J. Szűcs, ‘Das Städtewesen in Ungarn im 15.–17. Jahrhundert’, in Székely, G. and E. Fügedi (eds), La Renaissance et la reformation en Pologne et en Hongrie (1450–1650), Budapest (1963), pp. 97–164. 5 The theory has been revived, for example, by I. Kállay, ‘Die Städte Ungarns im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert’, in Rausch, W. (ed.), Die Städte Mitteleuropas im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert (Linz/Donau 1981), p. 73.

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were considered the true centres of urbanity, Hungarian scholars basically accepted the economic decline theory, no matter when it came and what provoked it. Later research, however, revealed the grave methodological deficiencies of the entire debate. It was the more systematic attention paid to small towns and (semi)agricultural oppida that resulted in a significant revision of the views on early modern urban development in Hungary. Major works on Hungarian market towns not only discarded the theory on the general crisis of urban economy, but they also recognized a reverse trend in this category of settlements, whose inhabitants took an increasing share in the international trade in cattle and agricultural products. The recent study on the Hungarian urban economy by Ferenc Szákaly has even suggested, quite contrary to the urban decline theory, that the 16th century was the first golden age of Hungarian enterprise which was based upon the large-scale export of agricultural commodities. The commercial boom, however, was not carried on in traditional centres of trade and production but rather by small towns and oppida, ‘the real scenes of embourgeoisment in Hungary’.6 It was only the diminishing agricultural export in the 17th century that was responsible for the economic stagnation of many Hungarian towns and market places. Most recently, another Hungarian scholar, Balázs A. Szelényi, dissented from the universal economic decline theory by suggesting that in fact most urban centres coped with the new macroeconomic conditions rather flexibly and that many Hungarian cities and towns benefited from the agrarianization of the Hungarian economy.7 Despite the existence of numerous variables, some analogous tendencies in the early modern urban economy have been also identified in Poland-Lithuania and the Bohemian lands. The unprecedented rise of the manorial economy has been considered by Czech and Polish scholars to be the accompaniment and the first signal of structural economic changes that occurred during the 16th–17th centuries. The debate in both countries, dominated by Marxist historians, also highlighted ‘the general crisis of the 17th century’ and long-term war campaigns as relevant factors impeding the expansion of craft production in many Bohemian and Polish cities. The preceding paragraphs imply that the major trends in the early modern urban economy were addressed in all the countries under review, but the entire discussion largely remained within the boundaries of national historiographies. Though the synthetic works on production and trade in Hungarian, Bohemian and Polish cities brought important findings, any systematic comparative research that would explore structural differences and analogies in East-Central European urban economies has not yet been done. One may speak on parallel but rather autonomous scholarly debates in all the countries under review. F. Szákaly, Mezőváros és reformáció. Tanulmányok a korai magyar polgárosodás kérdéséhez (Budapest 1995). An outline of the debate in A. Kubinyi, ‘Burghers and the Reformation’, Budapest Review of Books, 7 (2) (1997), pp. 50–56; S. Gyimesi, ‘Debated Issues in Hungarian Urban History’, in Buza, J. and T. Csató and S. Gyimesi (eds), A gazdaságtörténet kihivásai: Tanulmányok Berend T. Iván 65. születésnapjára (Budapest 1996), pp. 115–121. 7 B.A. Szélenyi, ‘The Dynamics of Urban Development: Towns in Sixteenth and Seventeenth-Century Hungary’, The American Historical Review, 109 (2) (2004), pp. 360– 386. 6

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While the post-war historical science has created sufficient grounds for a largescale comparison which has not so far been accomplished, many Western European and American scholars are still inclined to view the early modern economy in East-Central Europe as a uniform whole. This macro-scale bird’s-eye view, which ipso facto tends to overlook local variables and regional diversities in favour of the universal picture, is caused by the persistently inadequate communication with regional scholarship and by the normative influence of some pioneering studies on early modern production and commerce. Of these, the still influential studies by Fernand Braudel and Immanuel Wallerstein on the major trends in the early modern economy shall be mentioned before others.8 Despite multilateral criticism of their core/periphery concept, Braudel’s and Wallerstein’s arguments still shape the general perception of the whole of East-Central Europe as a peripheral and, consequently, economically backward territory vis-à-vis the European core countries.9 I believe that the problem of criteria defining the peripherality as well as uniformity of the East-Central European economy persists. If the emergence of vast feudal estates exploiting serf labour are taken as a symptom of a backward economy, then a comparative survey would certainly disclose striking structural dissimilarities between Little Poland and, say, northern Bohemia. Also the share of urban production and trade in overall economic output remained territorially diversified. Especially if one considers the chronic spatial disparities at the urbanization level and the legislative restrictions of the urban economies that were pervasive in PolandLithuania and less manifest in Bohemia. Of course, this is not to suggest that ‘the view from the inside’ and ‘the bird’s-eye view’ approaches have not produced relevant outcomes and important findings. Despite their different perspective, a fundamental consensus has been reached that some common preconditions and trends decisively shaped the early modern economies of East-Central European countries. Here, the inland location of the territories under discussion was definitely one of the determinative factors. Restricted access to overseas markets and rather symbolic participation in sea trade, with the exception of the Baltic ports, not only disqualified East-Central European urban producers and merchants from the risky but highly profitable investments in the worldwide exchange of goods, but also made their participation in Europeanwide commerce limited. This resulted in a chronic lack of capital to be invested and in the underdevelopment of modern institutions that proved vital for large-scale financial operations, namely banks and banking houses. Moreover, some scholars recognized a direct link between the so called price revolution and the agrarianization of EastCentral European economy. They argued that the increase in the price of agrarian F. Braudel, Dynamika kapitalismu (Praha 1999); I. Wallerstein, The modern worldsystem: Capitalist agriculture and the origins of the European world-economy in the 16th century (New York: Academic Press 1974). 9 An example of such a simplified generalization in terms of the major trends in the early modern European economy is a view presented in an otherwise excellent study by Paul M. Hohenberg and Lynn Hollen Lees. Both authors suggest that ‘in Poland and other parts of Eastern Europe, towns declined as the rural nobility’s power over people and exports increased’. P.M. Hohenberg and L.H. Lees, The Making of Urban Europe 1000–1994 (Cambridge/Massachusetts – London: Harvard University Press 1995), p. 110. 8

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commodities, as compared to industrial goods, encouraged an in-depth transformation of economy in favour of agricultural production and trade.10 Though the effects of these factors on the East-Central European urban economy remained spatially uneven, in general the lack of capital and the low investment potentials rather supported the evolution of semi-closed and self-sufficient economies which did not exceed the regional or land outlets. Nevertheless, at least three branches of economy, due to their profitability, exceeded the narrow frame of the regional or land markets. Firstly, this referred to the robust export of agricultural commodities, especially corn from Poland and cattle from the Hungarian plains. The high demand in the European West for agrarian products had major demographic and economic consequences. The large-scale supply of foodstuffs assisted the impressive growth of some Dutch, German or English cities as the import made it possible to feed the rising number of people seeking their livelihood in the urban environment. At the same time, the profitability of the agrarian trade stimulated significant qualitative shifts in the Polish and Hungarian economies. Secondly, massive investments were also channelled to the mining industry in Jáchymov, Upper and Lower Hungarian cities, in Olkusz and the towns of Silesia. Particularly famous was the case of Hungarian copper exported by the Fuggers to European markets, mainly to Venice, Nuremberg and, above all, Antwerp, which became the most important outlet for Hungarian copper until the 1570s.11 Finally, the textile production in Silesia, Greater Poland, Moravia and Bohemia found its place within, but also beyond, the EastCentral European market. As already implied in the above paragraphs, urban production and trade did not escape the influence of some formative conditions that shaped the entire economy of East-Central Europe. What then were the general and specific features of early modern urban economies in the Bohemian lands, Hungary and Poland? The issue might be resolved with reference to three interrelated trends in the early modern urban economies, namely the break-up of medieval market relations and the rise of private town economies, the orientation of cities and urban societies towards agriculture and landownership, and finally the predominant dependence of urban production and trade on local and regional outlets. The Rise of the Private Town Economy and Structural Transformation of the Medieval Market When considering the overall trends in the early modern East-Central European economy, the ruralization of production and trade should probably be treated first. The process provoked sharp antagonism between production in traditional commercial centres, namely royal cities with their vast medieval privileges, and the quickly expanding and usually more flexible economies of noble feudal estates. Legions of historians have considered the large-scale violation of urban production S. Hoszowski, ‘The revolution of prices in Poland in the 16th and 17th centuries’, Acta Poloniae Historica, II (1959), pp. 7–16; V. Zimányi, Economy and Society in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Hungary (1526–1650) (Budapest 1987), pp. 20–21. 11 Zimányi, Economy and Society, pp. 18–20. 10

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and trade monopolies by noble manorial enterprises as the concomitant feature of the early modern economy in this part of the continent.12 This subchapter, however, does not investigate the rise of the feudal manor, which after 1600 became a dominant economic unit in some areas of East-Central Europe, especially in Little and Greater Poland, Ruthenia and Volhynia. It rather focuses on the question of how the expanding economy of towns under seigneurial jurisdiction changed the market that was, until the late Middle Ages, still usurped by a handful of cities possessing far-reaching trade and production privileges. It is argued in this section that an indepth transformation of market relations occurred mostly before the expansion of the manorial economy and that the whole process was intimately linked with the unprecedented rise of production and trade in private towns and market places. These centres comprised a large but rather heterogeneous club of settlements; from populous producing and trading towns, such as Broumov in Eastern Bohemia and Leszno in Greater Poland, to parochial agricultural boroughs and market places in the Hungarian Plain. Compared to the overt economic hegemony of royal free cities in the late Middle Ages, the subsequent period may be considered revolutionary in terms of changes in the structure of the market network. In the search for financial profit, noble as well as ecclesiastical owners invested considerable sums into the foundation of new towns and market places or they supported the old ones by granting them vast economic privileges and rights. Soon many Bohemian, Polish and Hungarian towns under seigneurial jurisdiction rivalled the royal free cities, at least in terms of their economic potential and inner autonomy. In the later stage, however, most private towns saw their newly gained privileges and freedoms again restricted by their feudal lords, who sought to incorporate their cities into larger structures of manorial economies. In Bohemia, for example, between 1479 and 1501 no less than sixteen market places were upgraded to towns, while in the first half of the 16th century at least 30 villages received the status of a market place.13 Yet the most dynamic metamorphosis of the urban landscape occurred in Poland–Lithuania where several hundred new towns emerged in the 16th–17th centuries. While in the Middle Ages, most urban centres were still founded by the king, in the early modern period the initiative was taken over by the nobility and clergy (Table 7.1). In the 16th century the number of royal cities had already stagnated, but private towns and market places mushroomed and by 1600 they formed about two thirds of all the urban settlements in Poland.

12 V. Ledvinka, ‘Feudální velkostatek a poddanská města v předbělohorských Čechách’, in Pánek, J. (ed.), Česká města v 16.–18. století (Praha 1991), pp. 95–117; V. Ledvinka, ‘Rozmach feudálního velkostatku, jeho strukturální proměny a role v ekonomice českých zemí v předbělohorském období’, Folia Historica Bohemica, 11 (1987), pp. 103–132; E. Maur, ‘Vývojové etapy českého feudálního velkostatku v období přechodu od feudalismus ke kapitalismu’, Hospodářské dějiny, 7 (1981), pp. 203–226; L. Źytkowicz, ‘Trends of agrarian economy in Poland, Bohemia and Hungary from the middle of the fifteenth to the middle of the seventeenth century’, in: Mączak, A. and H. Samsonowicz and P. Burke (eds), EastCentral Europe in Transition, from the Fourteenth to the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1985), pp. 59–83. 13 J. Janáček, Řemeslná výroba v českých městech v 16. století (Praha 1961), p. 74.

URBAN ECONOMY: ITS BASIC PARAMETERS

Table 7.1

Ownership of Urban Centres in Poland, 1500–1600 (Wolhynia, Podolia, Ukraine excluded)

Number of Number of Number of Number of Royal Cities, Royal Cities Private Towns Royal Cities Private Towns Growth by 1500 by 1500 by 1600 by 1600 in % 293 (43.8%)

203

371 (55.6%)

326 (35.9%)

578 (63.7%)

11.3%

Private Towns, Growth in % 55.8%

Source: Bogucka – Samsonowicz, Dzieje miast, p. 400.

When referring to the economic and sociopolitical status of urban centres, in the late Middle Ages the formal division into the royal cities, embodying the highly autonomous and privileged entities, and the economically rather underdeveloped private and patrimonial towns subordinated to the immediate control of their feudal lords, still had its raison d’ètre. In the royal free cities a considerable degree of self-governance was combined with numerous economic freedoms granted and repeatedly renewed by territorial rulers. The set of medieval liberties, such as the right of annual fairs, the mile privilege and staple right, substantively contributed to the virtual monopolization of production and trade by these urban centres. The economic exclusiveness of royal cities, however, had a petrifying effect on market relations. Countless regulatory mechanisms, the persistent gravity of the guilds in the organization of urban craft and the numerous restrictions imposed on the commercial activities of outside merchants gave rise to a closed and rigid economic system, whose principal objective, in short, was to support domestic producers and tradesmen by discriminating the others. A systematic effort to restrain competition by applying an array of protective measures engendered a paradox in the late medieval economy, namely the rise of competition, since the logic of any economic structure, its tendency to expand, was challenged by the restrictive policies of other urban economies. The long-term trade war between Breslau and Cracow at the dawn of the 16th century typified this rivalry in the supra-regional context. The fountainhead of the discord was the Breslau staple right as it impeded Cracow trade with Silesia and the German lands. The bitter and enduring conflict between the two cities gradually turned into a serious political issue and the Polish ruler, Sigismund the Old, did not hesitate to impose high customs on the Breslau goods imported to Poland.14 Breslau’s final defeat in the struggle over city’s staple right subsequently found its reflection in the work of the Silesian historiographer Bartholomeus Stein, who considered the city’s failure to defend its economic interest vis-à-vis its Polish rival a heavy blow to its grandeur and fame. Writing his panegyric upon Breslau shortly after the infamous end of this cold war, Stein consistently used the past tense whenever he referred to urban economy and

14 More on the conflict in C. Buśko and M. Goliński and M. Kaczmarek and L. Źiątkowski, Historia Wrocławia I (Wrocław 2001), pp. 213–214; J. Bieniarzówna and J.M. Małecki, Dzieje Krakowa I (Kraków 1994), pp. 31–32.

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trade and he also described the city as ‘once one of the most lively and important inland trading places’.15 The lot of the staple right of Thorn renders another illustrative example of the dog-eat-dog world of the medieval and early modern urban economy. In the second half of the 15th century, the city did not hesitate to use harsh repressive measures against the town of Nieszawa, which lay on the opposite bank of the Vistula river and competed with Thorn’s commercial privileges. By relocating Nieszawa, Thorn eventually succeeded in vindicating its monopoly, but the city enjoyed only a short-lived triumph as its staple right soon fell victim to more powerful opponents, namely Polish noble exporters of grain, Silesian merchants and Danzig, whose vital economic interests were damaged by Thorn’s privileges.16 The above-mentioned examples demonstrate that reliance on political support and the search for allies with parallel interests were as important as the economic strength of the city. In order to expand their trading areas and remove the omnipresent economic barriers, cities had to resort to active commercial diplomacy which was often buttressed by the state. Naturally, the most significant trading concessions were reached by economically and politically strong cities like Prague, Danzig and Breslau. Prague’s merchants, for instance, enjoyed vast trading privileges in Nuremberg, but similar rights had to be guaranteed to Nuremberg’s merchants in Prague.17 Since the mid-15th century, this closed, overregulated and inflexible but more or less stable economic system found itself increasingly confronted with the entrepreneurial activities of the nobility that were, in the first phase, marked with the support of production and trade in private towns and market places. The objective of this economic policy was threefold. By encouraging the economy of towns within their own feudal domains, the noble and ecclesiastical lords reached a certain level of self-sufficiency and independence on traditional purveyors of food and craft products. Moreover, the feudal overlords capitalized economically and financially on a whole range of payments, fees and taxes imposed upon artisan production and trade. As the scope of revenues was intimately linked with the prosperity of the town, the feudal owner proved ready to secure its boom through excessive rights and privileges granted to urban producers and merchants by the king. Lastly, the emerging well-to-do echelons of Christian and Jewish town dwellers might have been utilized as potential loan providers, donors and trade agents, which enabled large-scale commercial and financial ventures by noble and ecclesiastical feudal lords.18 The preoccupation of the nobility with the latent economic potential of their towns produced a vast body of theoretical literature. Perhaps the most well-known among those raising the issue was the Polish nobleman Krzystof Opaliński (1610– 1656), who penned the famous tract O sposobach pomnoźenia miast. Here Opaliński 15 B. Stein, Descripcio tocius Silesie et civitatis regie Vratislaviensis, ed. H. Markgraf, (Breslau 1902), p. 35 16 M. Biskup (ed.), Toruń dawny i dzisiejszy – zarys dziejów (Warszawa – Poznań – Toruň 1983), pp. 142–163. 17 J. Janáček, ‘Prag und Nürnberg im 16. Jahrhundert (1489–1618)’, in Bog, I. (ed.), Der Aussenhandel Ostmitteleuropas (1450–1650) (Köln – Wien 1971), pp. 204–228. 18 Janáček, Řemeslná výroba, pp. 73–74.

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contemplates measures securing the prosperity of towns and, therefore, financial revenues to their feudal owners. Apart from purely economic means, namely fair privileges and the support of urban guilds, he also recognizes the significance of good roads, the personal safety of merchants and buyers and the better social and juridical status of burghers.19 Opaliński, however, did not infer any essential difference between royal and private towns and his thoughts referred to the urban economy in general. The economic system of an ideal feudal manor, so called folwark, became the chief subject of another treatise entitled Gospodarstwo, written earlier by Anzelm Gostomski. Here the feudal estate is seen as a perfectly organized, overregulated and well administered organism whose single purpose is to generate a profit. Bearing in mind the folwark’s overall economic efficiency Gostomski paid particular attention to towns whose role he viewed as central. In order to enhance their gains from towns, good landlords are encouraged to found mills, obtain new fair privileges from the king, attract skilful craftsmen and, to avoid competition, coordinate the division of labour between the town and the countryside. Like Opaliński several decades later, Gostomski also acknowledged the importance of non-economic factors for the prosperity of towns and gave precise instructions that covered a set of issues from city administration to fire prevention.20 In its results, the emancipating process of private towns considerably reduced the juridical, social and economic disparities between the two groups of urban centres. A medieval sociopolitical classification distinguishing between the ‘privileged’ royal free cities and ‘unprivileged’ private towns lost in the early modern period much of its practical relevance, being counterbalanced by functional and geographic factors that proved increasingly important in terms of the expansion or stagnation of the urban economy. With reference to the Bohemian lands, valuable evidence on the massive attack against the medieval economic rights of royal free cities has been provided by the Czech historian Josef Macek. In his giant work on the Jagellonian age, Macek argues that during the period 1479–1526 more than 200 fair privileges were granted to Bohemian towns and 76 to Moravian ones.21 For example, one of the largest private settlements in Moravia, Prostějov, hosted in the 16th century two weekly markets, four annual fairs and three horse markets. All of them taken together, covered almost one hundred days per year.22 The weekly market and annual fair, these two quintessential economic instruments of the Middle Ages saw their golden age in East-Central Europe after 1500. During this time the market – an institution of an occasional exchange – in Western Europe had already declined in favour of bourses and shops allowing the continual flow of goods and money. In the polemics about the frontiers of European economy in the early modern period this might stand as a weighty argument.23

K. Opaliński, Satyry (Warszawa 1987), pp. 258–273. A. Gostomski, Gospodarstwo, ed. S. Inglot (Wrocław 1951), esp. pp. 100–105. 21 J. Macek, Jagellonský věk 3 (Praha 1998), p. 77. 22 F. Matějek, Feudální velkostatek a poddaný na Moravě s přihlédnutím k přilehlému území Slezska a Polska (Praha 1959), p. 156. 23 Braudel, Dynamika kapitalismu, pp. 20–21. 19 20

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The inflation of economic rights bestowed upon private towns unavoidably led to the fragmentation and condensation of the market network. Deprived of much of their traditional outlets, the craftsmen in royal cities began to face previously unknown difficulties with the sale of their artisan production. Conversely, the successful creation of their own market hinterland had a stimulating effect on manufacturing in private towns. If the organizational structure of urban production is considered, then the expansion of the private town economy in 16th century Bohemia was most conspicuously expressed by the proliferation of guilds. (Table 7.2). Table 7.2

Number of Guilds in Selected Private Towns, Bohemia

Private Town Chomutov Vlašim Kostelec nad Orlicí Třeboň Lomnice nad Lužnicí Veselí nad Lužnicí Soběslav Netolice Lhenice Prachatice Strakonice Vimperk Rychnov nad Kněžnou Jirkov Choceň Přelouč Altogether

Number of guilds (15th century) 3 no guilds no guilds 3 no guilds 1 3 3 no guilds 3 2 1 2 1 no guilds no guilds 22

Number of guilds (16th century) 15 3 6 7 3 3 4 6 3 7 4 5 3 4 4 3 80

Source: Janáček, Řemeslná výroba v českých městech v 16. století, p. 79.

Similar trends, such as those in Bohemia and Moravia, have also been identified by scholars in Hungarian private towns and market places. While the first guilds came into existence in the mid-15th century, a century later the craft organizations flourished in a number of urban settlements.24 Of course, the artisan output of private towns did not cover all branches of the urban industry as it usually satisfied only the basic needs of the rural population. This is why textile and food production prospered, but technically advanced crafts that required highly specialized skills remained monopolized by producers in large cities, like Prague, Olomouc, Breslau and Cracow. Nonetheless, in some provinces V. Bácskai, Magyar mezövárosok a 15. Században (Budapest 1965), p. 35; J. Szűcs, Városok és kézművesség a XV. századi Magyarországon (Budapest 1955), pp. 94–95; T. Lengyelová, Hospodárske a spoločenské pomery v zemepanských mestách na Slovensku v 16.–18. storočí (1997), pp. 114–115. The unpublished PhD dissertation, Historical Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Slovak republic. 24

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of East-Central Europe, market centres played a considerable role in long-distance trade. This was particularly the case in Hungary, where entrepreneurs from small settlements took over much of the Hungarian cattle and wine trade at the expense of merchants from royal cities. Similarly, in the second half of the 17th century, the merchants from Polish Leszno, the private town in the possession of the Leszczyński magnate family, were strongly represented at the Leipzig fairs and the town, together with Poznań, became a major centre of international trade in Greater Poland.25 As already argued, by creating their own market, the private towns subverted the economic stability of royal cities while depriving them of much of their traditional sales territories. This economic transformation, however, did not pass unchallenged and everywhere it was marked by a merciless struggle over local, regional and sometimes long-distance outlets. Reluctant to reconcile themselves with the new organisation of the market and with a massive attack on their production and trade, the royal cities employed a whole set of economic, legal and political instruments to cope with the undesirable trends. Yet the response and the nature of the means applied, however, was utterly conservative and, in its results, rather inefficient. The most manifest response to the expansion of the private town economy and the growing market competition was the application of a strict protective and restrictive economic policy by the urban authorities and urban producers in royal cities. The introduction of new customs barriers and the regulation of guild production by limiting the number of artisans, extending the period of apprenticeship and enhancing fees for becoming a master were the classical symptoms of stagnating medieval economies. Consider the growth of payments for mastership in the guild of blacksmiths and wheelers in Cheb, one of the major hubs of commerce in Bohemia. While by 1500, the sons of masters and journeymen who married into the master’s family were still granted their mastership free of charge, in subsequent decades the guild leaders decided to introduce a small fee and finally, in 1609, the applicants were asked to pay one thaler to the chief master of the guild and the same sum to the guild’s treasury.26 In the case of applicants with no family ties with guild masters the cost of the mastership rose even more. Although the rigorous control of output and sales might have secured a living for the local guild members, it was largely responsible for the closure of urban economies and the petrifaction of the medieval system of production, aptly defined by some scholars as municipal socialism.27 Because of the reluctance of the conservative Viennese government to abolish this inefficient economic arrangement the agony of guilds lasted several centuries, which forced artisan fraternities to resort to often draconian restrictive policies. In the 18th century, the exemplary withdrawal of guild membership for a trivial offence was no longer a rarity.

25 J. Bieniarzówna, ‘The Role of Jews in Polish Trade, 1648–1764’, in Paluch, A.K. (ed.), The Jews in Poland I (Kraków 1992), pp. 102–103. 26 Janáček, Řemeslná výroba, p. 168. 27 See, for example, a description of Nuremberg’s economy by G. Strauss, Nuremberg in the Sixteenth Century – City Politics and Life between Middle Ages and Modern Times (Bloomington & London: Indiana University Press 1976), p. 105.

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Apart from protective economic strategies, the royal cities sought a defense in the field of law against what they perceived as an encroachment on their exclusive rights. Many judicial registers of the period testify to the increasing tension between the traditional centres of production and manorial economies.28 An appeal to the ancient state of affairs, an argument of substantial weight in medieval and early modern legal and political thought, was in many cases perhaps justified de iure, but de facto turned out to be of little significance vis-à-vis the social forces and economic interests supporting the change. The political interventions of the burgher estate, directed against the mushrooming of new private towns and annual fairs, brought little effect either. For example, as early as 1479, the Bohemian royal cities resisted the founding of new urban settlements by the nobility, while in their gravamina from 1502 they lamented that ‘many new towns and fairs rose to the full detriment of [royal] cities’.29 Their protests, however, proved futile as in subsequent decades the shifts in the constitutional settlement of the country opened the door wide to noble entrepreneurial activities. In the St. Wenceslas Treaty (1517) that terminated the protracted period of political instability, royal cities had to reconcile themselves to the their economic monopolies being abridged in favour of the nobility. Moreover, the repressive measures against the burgher estate after the suppression of the anti-Habsburg revolt in 1547 heavily undermined its capacity to push through the economic interests of royal cities. Politically far less potent, the Hungarian and especially the Polish royal cities found themselves even more helpless against attacks on commercial and economic privileges. As their participation in the decision-making process was rather symbolic, they could not make use of the standard political tools. This is not to suggest that the boom of private town economies remained entirely unchallenged by Polish and Hungarian royal cities. Because of the lack of a political platform that would make efficient, collective action possible, royal cities usually had to protect their economic interests individually by relying either on lobbying or on judicial proceedings. An illustrative point was the reaction of Poznań producers to the rival economy of the private town of Stanislawów that was located in the close neighbourhood of the city and was granted the right to hold two annual fairs. Despite several judicial verdicts in Poznań’s favour, the issue remained unsolved until the Diet’s resolution in 1598 ordaining the abolition of the law. Only afterwards did Stanislawów fell under the jurisdiction of Poznań as one of its suburban areas.30 In the long run, however, this triumph, though of immediate significance for producers and merchants in Poznań, did not prevent a final defeat. Hosting many noble residences and besieged by feudal domains and private towns, Poznań, like many other royal cities in Poland, proved unable to defend the integrity of its inner market against the rise of jurydyki. These noble and ecclesiastical properties (houses, suburbs, urban quarters) within

See J. Miller (ed.), Konfliktní soužití: Královské město – šlechta – duchovenstvo v raném novověku. Knihy půhonné a nálezové královského města Olomouce (1516–1616) (Olomouc 1998). 29 Archiv český,V, p. 395; Archiv český, VI, p. 240. 30 J. Topolski (ed.), Dzieje Poznania I (Warszawa – Poznań 1988), p. 409. 28

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or outside the town walls were exempted from municipal jurisdiction and their own craft production suffocated the economy of the city.31 Although the fragmentation of the medieval market network due to the emergence of new urban economies was a general phenomenon, its impact on the economy of traditional trading and producing cities remained highly uneven. Admittedly, the rise of private town and market place economies posed an immediate threat to small and medium-sized royal cities, whose artisans produced almost entirely for the satisfaction of local and regional needs. Given the same structure of production in private towns, it was the bakers, brewers, butchers, clothmakers and tailors in royal cities who first started to feel the economic misery. As a consequence, those parochial urban economies that depended mainly on basic crafts were struck more by the competition of producers in private towns than large residential and consumer centres with a variety of specialized and fine crafts manufacturing for long-distance markets and for a moneyed clientele. Consider the craft production in Prague. In the second half of the 15th century Prague brewers still purveyed their beer in sixteen cities and towns in Bohemia. But in the 16th century, because of the rise in beer brewing in the provinces, the sales territory of Prague’s beer shrank considerably.32 On the other hand, specialists like goldsmiths, armourers, furriers or swordsmiths capitalized on the low competition and the high demand for their products. Furthermore, to a greater degree than other urban centres, the multi-functional cities like Prague, Cracow and Breslau could rely on the great absorption potential of their inner and local markets that might have embraced 50,000 or more potential customers. Also immune against the competition of producers in private towns and market places were those cities with a specific economic profile. This would apply for the handful of Baltic ports and hubs of sea trade such as Danzig, Elbing and Königsberg. Having monopolized the country’s maritime commerce, they mainly capitalized on the entrepreneurial activities of Polish magnates who occupied a steadily increasing share in the export from the rzeczpospolita to Western Europe. Illustrative, in this respect, is Maria Bogucka’s survey of the structural changes in Polish foreign trade based, among other sources, on the Warsaw and Wloclawek customs registers. Her study suggests that by 1600, about 70 per cent of all goods transported on the Vistula River to Danzig were owned by the nobility while only 20 per cent of the Vistula trade was covered by burghers.33 Arguably, it was also inland mining cities that successfully resisted market changes, as their economic decline or prosperity depended on the demand for silver, salt or copper rather than on the sale of craft products in the regional market. To conclude, since the late Middle Ages the process of a progressive transfer of economic activities to the countryside completely reshaped the market. This was, as many scholars would argue, a symptom of the changing economic behaviour of the nobility and an attribute of the emerging manorial economy. In the sphere of urban economy the process, in its initial stage, was fraught with tension between the old 31 32 33

p. 80.

Topolski (ed.), Dzieje Poznania I, pp. 399–402. Janáček, Řemeslná výroba, p. 83. Bogucka, Handel zagraniczny Gdańska w pierwszej polowie XVII. w. (Wroclaw 1970)

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centres of production and trade and private urban and semi-urban settlements that usurped much of the market previously controlled by royal cities. As a result, during the 16th–17th centuries the difference between royal cities and private towns, at least in economic terms, lost much of its justification. Though the largely inflexible and essentially still medieval system of production in royal cities succumbed to the protocapitalist trends and entrepreneurial activities of the nobility, the sense of injustice remained implanted in the hearts and minds of their once privileged inhabitants. In 1704, the Habsburg government, greedy for higher fiscal revenues, established a Committee for the revitalization of Bohemian cities (Komise pro povznesení měst) that were utterly ruined during the turbulent 17th century. In the questionnaire, distributed by the committee, cities were solicited to identify all the major causes of their economic decline and propose any necessary reforms to be executed. With touching unanimity, the urban fathers lamented that our happiness and wealth accrued from our privileges, bestowed upon us by many merciful kings and emperors (...). Nowadays, however, there are more craftsmen in the neighbouring private villages and towns than in the city (...). Thus the village becomes city and the city village. That is why most burghers are nostalgic for the old times when royal cities flourished as recorded in historical books and documents and testified by our forefathers.34

The urban fathers, therefore, saw their salvation in the renewal of the medieval rights and freedoms of royal cities and in the ban on craft production and trade in the countryside. Almost a century later, when asked to evaluate the reforms made by Maria Theresa and Joseph II, the Bohemian cities answered in practically the same way.35 One comes to a rather surprising conclusion that during the three centuries of in-depth structural change in the economy the urban producers and their political representatives still stuck to the economic principles of the Middle Ages, long obsolete and no longer viable. Building the Feudal Estates’ Economy and the Agrarianization of City Economies In historical scholarship, medieval and early modern cities were often perceived as fountainheads of the early capitalist economy and also as harbingers of modernity vis-à-vis the persistently feudal and backward rural sector. This line of argument, going back to M. Weber, H. Pirenne, F. Braudel and M.M. Postan, basically stressed that both the juridical autonomy of cities and their market potential advanced the accumulation of financial capital and the introduction of new technologies creating the preconditions for the development of proto-industrial production.36 This well 34 J. Klepl, ‘Královská města česká počátkem 18. stol. (Reformy hospodářské a správní)’, Český časopis historický, 38 (1932), pp. 489, 492. 35 P. Bělina, Česká města v 18. století a osvícenské reformy (Praha 1985). 36 See Pirenne, Economic and social history; F. Braudel, Civilisation and Capitalism II (London: Collins 1982); M.M. Postan, The Medieval Economy and Society (Harmondsworth: Penguin 1975).

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known theory defining cities as ‘non-feudal islands in the feudal seas’ provoked, however, vehement criticism from some economic historians such as Robert Brenner, who suggests that cities were in fact parasites on the countryside and their urban monopolies obstructed economic transformation.37 Yet all of these concepts stressed the opposition rather than the interaction between urban and rural economies. The interdependence between the city and countryside has received more systematic investigation during the last two or three decades. For example, it has been suggested that while the dynamic growth of early modern metropoles was made possible because of an uninterrupted supply of food from rural areas, the high demand of large urban societies, in return, pressed for innovations in agricultural production.38 Quite the contrary, some scholars have argued that the spatial concentration of people in large settlements had only a slight, if any, effect on agricultural improvement since the early modern agrarian sector was capable of generating enough surplus even with the help of traditional technologies.39 For many reasons, early modern East-Central Europe offers an example par excellence of the importance of agriculture and the rural hinterlands in the life of urban societies. Due to the prevailing orientation of urban production on the local and regional outlets, handicrafts secured a livelihood for only a limited number of town dwellers, while a considerable proportion of the urban population, especially in Polish and Hungarian cities, sought its subsistence in agrarian activities. The growing competition of artisan output in noble feudal domains as well as the formative effects of climatic conditions were also mentioned as being factors responsible for the rather agricultural nature of many East-Central European urban societies.40 In addition, external factors, namely the price revolution and the rising demand for agricultural commodities in the European west, made agrarian production cost-effective, at least during the 16th and early 17th century.41 All of these factors also substantially affected the financial and economic policies of rich burghers and city governments. Instead of investing their financial surpluses into large-scale entrepreneurial activities and long-distance trade, they tended to put their free capital into landed estates. As a consequence, considerable financial means practically disappeared from the urban market as they fell under feudal ownership. With reference to the excessive dependence of urban economies on agriculture and landownership, some historians speak of the agrarianization and feudalization of cities and consider the whole process to be the denominator of the growing R. Brenner, ‘Agrarian class structure and economic development in pre-industrial Europe’, Past and Present, 70 (1976), pp. 30–75; R. Brenner, ‘The agrarian roots of European capitalism’, Past and Present, 97 (1982), pp. 16–113. 38 For instance E.A. Wrigley, People, Cities and Wealth: the Transformation of Traditional Society (Oxford: Basil Blackwell 1987), esp. pp. 157–193. 39 G.W. Grantham, ‘Divisions of labour: agricultural productivity and occupational specialisation in pre-industrial France’, Economic History Review, 46 (1993), pp. 478–502. 40 H. Samsonowicz and A. Mączak, ‘Feudalism and capitalism: a balance of changes in East-Central Europe’, in Mączak, A. and H. Samsonowicz and P. Burke (eds), East-Central Europe in Transition, from the Fourteenth to the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1985), pp. 6–23. 41 Zimányi, Economy and Society, pp. 20–49. 37

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economic backwardness of early modern East-Central Europe.42 This trend took basically two forms. One was expressed by the particularly high representation of agricultural activities in the occupational structure of the urban population. Despite the functional diversity, different geographical location and uneven size of cities, everywhere there was a considerable number of town dwellers who made their living as peasants, farmers and cattle-breeders rather than craftsmen, merchants and rentiers. In general, agriculture played a crucial role in the urban economies of Polish and Hungarian cities and towns. Here both the anti-burgher economic legislation and the small income generated from craft production vis-à-vis the profitability of trade with agricultural commodities caused profound qualitative shifts in the occupational structure of city populations in favour of farming and the cultivation of land. In most cases, however, rural enterprises by ordinary town dwellers were confined to small pieces of land which rarely exceeded a few hectares. For instance, surveys by Polish historians have suggested that in the heartland provinces of rzeczpospolita (Greater Poland, Little Poland, Mazovia, Red Ruthenia) about 50–75 per cent of town dwellers in small and medium-sized towns might have been engaged in agrarian activities.43 But even large Polish urban centres became increasingly agrarianized as the gradual decline of handicrafts and the monopolization of foreign trade by the nobility obliged many urban inhabitants to engage themselves in the agrarian sector. According to J. Rutkowska, in the 16th century almost one-half of the population in New Warsaw benefited from farming and cattle breeding.44 After its elevation to the capital of the Commonwealth, about 30 per cent of the inhabitants still sought their living in agriculture. Its significance for the livelihood of the urban population in Poland substantially affected the burgher mentality. In the contemporary urban literature not a few texts appeared in which craft and trade were overshadowed by the importance of agriculture. A rather bizarre example was represented by the poem Flis by the Lublin burgomaster Sebastian Fabian of Klonowicz, which denounced trade as a potentially deceitful activity and eulogized agriculture as the fountainhead of Polish opulence and welfare.45 Though in this field the comparative method has been applied rather sparingly by historians, the available studies on Bohemian urban societies indicate that agriculture held a much less dominant position in the livelihood of town dwellers. Unrivalled in this context still remains František Kavka’s scrutiny of the occupational structure of four small and medium-sized Bohemian cities, namely Most, Kouřim, České On the feudalization of the East-Central European urban economies J. Topolski, ‘A model of East-Central European continental commerce in the sixteenth and the first half of the seventeenth century’, in Mączak, A. and H. Samsonowicz and P. Burke (eds), East–Central Europe in Transition, from the Fourteenth to the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1985), pp. 128–139; Szűcs, ‘Das Städtewesen in Ungarn’, p. 128; Zimányi, Economy and Society, pp. 49–60. For Bohemia Macek, Jagelonský věk, 3, p. 88. 43 Bogucka and Samsonowicz, Dzieje miast, pp. 449–450. 44 J. Rutkowska, Nowe Miasto w okresie utrwalania się stoleczności Warszawy 1609– 1730 (Warszawa 1961), pp. 55–81. 45 M. Bogucka, ‘Das Bild der Stadt im Poem “Flößerei” von Sebastian Fabian Klonowic’, in Edmund Kotarski (ed.), Literatur und Institutionen der literarischen Kommunikation in nordeuropäischen Städten (Gdańsk 1996), pp. 38–46. 42

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Budějovice and Louny. For the first half of the 16th century, Kavka discovered a relatively small proportion of town dwellers engaged in the agrarian sector, ranging from 5 per cent (Most) to 28 per cent (Kouřim), but the actual size of this group might have been slightly higher as the urban registers did not cover all taxpayers.46 Further support for the theory of the exceptional role of agriculture in Polish cities and towns during the 16th–17th centuries is provided by the abundance of studies investigating the occupational structure of city populations in other territories. Methodically much akin to Kavka’s study is, for example, Franz Mathis’s scrutiny of the social and occupational composition of the urban population in three Austrian urban centres, the residential and commercial towns Salzburg and Innsbruck and the rather parochial Hall. The outcomes of Mathis’s research suggest that in all three cities the proportion of people engaged in agrarian activities was rather similar to that in Bohemian urban settlements.47 While many individuals pursued their living in agriculture, cities as juridical entities did practically the same. For many cities the collective possession of landed estates, including villages, forests, pastures, mills and breweries, provided significant revenues for the urban treasuries. Overall, it was only the royal cities that could have claimed the right to build their own feudal domains, but it also happened that a private town was the feudal lord of one or several villages. In large cities, the ownership of landed estates as a mark of the social prestige and ‘noble’ living was also widespread among urban social and property elites. Frequently this opened the door to further elevation in the hierarchy of feudal society. Having analyzed a whole range of sources referring to the feudal property of Prague’s citizenry in 1471–1526, Josef Macek suggests that in this period individual burghers possessed at least one town and a great number of villages, gardens, ponds, pastures and fields.48 Similarly, in 16th century Danzig more than 40 per cent of councillors owned landed estates as their feudal lords.49 Nonetheless, apart from the fact that financial aspects disqualified most town dwellers from buying large landed properties, burghers as feudal lords also found themselves under pressure from the nobility, which considered landownership one of its exclusive privileges. In Poland, for instance, several Acts from 1496 onwards restricted individual landownership by burghers. Yet legislative measures proved largely ineffective and the purchase of landed estates by the upper crust of urban society in practice remained almost unhindered until the mid-17th century, when the Polish state authorities commenced a more systematic struggle against burgher landownership.50 Having no possibility of holding landed 46 F. Kavka, ‘Majetková, sociální a třídní struktura českých měst v první polovině 16. století ve světle knih a rejstříků městské dávky’, Sborník historický, VI (1959), p. 258, table 1. 47 F. Mathis, Zur Bevölkerungsstruktur österreichischer Städte im 17. Jahrhundert (Wien 1977). 48 Macek, Jagellonský věk, 3, p. 90. 49 M. Bogucka, ‘Miejsce mieszczanina w społeczeństwie szlacheckim: Atrakcyjność życia szlacheckiego w Polsce XVII wieku’, in Andrzej Wyczański (ed.), Społeczeństwo staropolskie (Warszawa 1976), p. 193. 50 A. Janeczek, ‘Town and country in the Polish Commonwealth, 1350–1650’, in Epstein, S.R. (ed.), Town and Country in Europe, 1300–1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2001), pp. 156–175.

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estates was generally viewed as a sign of social inferiority and political weakness. The ostracizing approach of the Polish szlachta towards the possession rights of burghers, therefore, did not pass unnoticed and many Polish intellectuals considered such a policy to be an ominous breach of an inter-estate consent, the pillar of a statehood. Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski, one of the most illustrious political thinkers of the age, spoke in this context about the arrogance and tyranny of the nobility as heralding the future fall of the Polish state.51 To be sure, the size of a city’s feudal domain was inseparably linked with its political strength and its ability to withstand pressure against its rights and freedoms. Generally, in densely urbanized provinces with a politically potent citizenry, as were Bohemia, Upper Lusatia and Royal Prussia, urban societies proved more capable of defending their vital economic interests, including landownership rights. As a result, the urban economy in those territories was marked by the large communal possession of landed estates. Much the reverse state of affairs, however, evolved in Poland and to some extent also in Hungary, where cities, due to their political impotence, built rather small feudal domains or none at all. After 1500, according to rough estimates, the royal cities and burghers in Bohemia might have owned perhaps more than one-fifth of the taxed land in the country. Due to both large confiscations after the anti-Habsburg revolt in 1547 and increasing financial pressures from the Crown, the absolute proportion of urban feudal domains fell steeply to 9–10 per cent in the second half of the 16th century and to 4–6 per cent in the last decades before the Thirty Years War.52 Equally impressive was the territorial expansion of the Upper Lusatian Sechsstädtebund, which was, after 1500, one of the largest feudal owners in the province. Yet a corollary of the ill-fated anti-Habsburg rebellion in 1547, known as Pönfall in German historiography, caused a considerable reduction in the urban landownership in Upper Lusatia.53 A rather diverse trend, if compared to Bohemia and Upper Lusatia, was identified by František Hrubý for the Moravian Margravate, in which urban landownership, despite the small number of royal cities, grew from 1–2 per cent in 1526 to 6 per cent in the beginning of the 17th century.54 More stable, in this respect, proved urban landownership in Royal Prussia, where royal cities perpetually controlled territories of considerable size. For example, after 1550 city-owned countryside possessions in the Malbork voivodship formed roughly 20 per cent of all landed estates.55 On average, however, the urban feudal domains in Royal Prussia probably did not exceed 10 per cent of the landed property in the province.56 Yet, shortly before the ultimate collapse of the state in the A.F. Modrzewski, Wybór pism (Wrocław 2003), pp. 35–59. A. Míka, ‘Majetkové rozvrstvení české šlechty v předbělohorském období’, Sborník historický, 15 (1967), p. 47. On the situation before 1547 see Macek, Jagelonský věk, 3, p. 89. 53 E. Hartstock, ‘Auswirkungen des Pönfalls auf die wirtschaftlichen Verhältnisse der Sechstädte’, in 1547 Pönfall der Oberlausitzer Sechsstädte (Kamenz 1999), p. 87. 54 F. Hrubý, ‘Moravská šlechta r. 1619, její jmění a náboženské vyznání’, Časopis Matice moravské, 46 (1922), p. 139. 55 M. Biskup, ‘Rozmieszczenie wlasnosci ziemskiej województwa chelmińskiego i malborskiego w drugiej połowie XVI. w.’, Roczniki towarzystwa naukowego w Toruniu, 60 (2) (1955), p. 24. 56 Bogucka and Samsonowicz, Dzieje miast, p. 448. 51 52

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18th century, three large cities in Royal Prussia might have possessed almost onethird of the landed estates.57 In terms of the dynamics of building their feudal domains, the Royal Hungarian and Polish cities embodied opposite extremities. In both countries, the vast lay and ecclesiastical possessions as well as overtly anti-urban legislation restricted the territorial expansion of the royal cities. This resulted in a rather vestigial degree of urban landownership, which in 17th century Royal Hungary might have fluctuated between 1.5–2 per cent of all landed property. Generally, in the early modern period Hungarian cities did not considerably broaden their feudal domains and, perhaps with the exception of Kassa, they controlled rather small rural territories with only a few villages.58 A much similar pattern can be identified in Poland where a series of discriminatory laws restraining urban landownership was passed after 1496. Nevertheless, the anti-burgher legislative campaign initiated by the Polish nobility eventually had an ambiguous and unintentional effect. It made it difficult for royal cities to acquire landed property as juridical entities. Consequently, relative to their size, even the largest urban centres such as Poznaň or Lublin possessed rather humble feudal domains that lagged far behind the vast landed estates of their Royal Prussian and Bohemian counterparts. Yet at the same time, the profitability of investments in landed property caused a massive demand for land from individual wealthy town-dwellers, despite the fact that burghers were theoretically forbidden to possess estates in the countryside. Moreover, as only nobles were entitled to the unrestricted possession of landed property, many burghers did whatever they could to gain ennoblement, no matter whether in the traditional way or through bribery and the forgery of letters patents. The policy of territorial expansion, with the exception of East-Central Europe, was also pursued by city councils in many German urban centres. Consider, for example, the south German imperial cities, such as Nuremberg, Ulm and Schwäbisch Hall, which possessed vast feudal domains whose size greatly exceeded that of the landed properties of most Polish, Bohemian and Hungarian urban centres. In the eyes of the burghers and urban fathers the feudal estate was a universal value and all cities, regardless of their economic orientation, attempted to build their own domains if conditions permitted. This empirical fact, when applied to East-Central Europe, seems to challenge Elisabeth Raiser’s theory referring to the diverse strategies pursued by the different types of cities in Germany. By distinguishing three categories of urban centres – the patriciate-dominated city (Aristokratenstadt), the artisan town (Gewerbestadt) and the centre of long-distance commerce (Fernhandelstadt), Raiser basically suggests that trading cities abstained from building large rural hinterlands in favour of protecting trade routes and securing their commercial monopolies.59 K. Friedrich, The Other Prussia – Royal Prussia, Poland and Liberty, 1569–1772 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2000), p. 54. 58 Overview of urban landownership in Royal Hungary in F. Sedlák, ‘O feudálnom vlastnictve miest a miestečiek v 16.–18. storočí’, Liptov, 8 (Ružomberok 1985), pp. 27–44; V. Matula and J. Vozár, Dejiny Slovenska II (Bratislava 1987), p. 67. 59 E. Raiser, Städtische Territorialpolitik im Mittelalter: eine Vergleichende Untersuchung über verschiedene Formen am Beispiel Lübecks und Zürichs (Lübeck – Hamburg 1969), pp. 23–31. 57

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Seen from this viewpoint, one must conclude that the East-Central European hubs of international trade, quite contrary to Raiser’s scheme, pursued the most active territorial policy and their feudal domains were considerable in size. The most advanced urban economies and the most important trading centres in the region, Danzig, Elbing, Thorn and Breslau, systematically built up their rural hinterlands and in fact they were some of the largest urban landowners in the whole East-Central Europe (see Table 7.3). Table 7.3

Feudal Domains of Selected East-Central European Cities as Compared to Rural Hinterlands of Selected German Cities60

Cities in the German lands (size of feudal domain in the early 16th century) 2 th Danzig (643 km , 76 villages and estates, mid-16 Nuremberg (1200 km2) century) Ulm (830 km2) Elbing (512 km2, 65 villages and estates, mid-16th century, Erfurt (610 km2) about 6250 subjects in 1655) Rothenburg (400 km2) 2 th Thorn (360 km , 33 villages and estates, mid–16 Schwäbish Hall (330 km2) century) Strasburg (220 km2) Breslau, (c. 45 villages and estates, 6000 subjects, early 17th century) Kassa, (c. 30 villages and estates, first half of the 17th century) Olomouc, (c. 23 villages and estates, first half of the 16th century, c. 800 subjects before 1600) Pilsen, (c. 24 villages and estates in 1549, 27 villages and estates in 1607) Cities in East-Central Europe (the size of feudal domain)

Source: Multiple sources, see notes.

Given that building dependent rural territories was a general economic strategy adopted by most cities and rich individuals, one should investigate the underlying motives of such behaviour. By regulating and supervising agricultural production within their own feudal domain, cities sought to secure regular supplies of basic foodstuffs, in particular milk, grain, meat and fish. Though full self-sufficiency was never reached, the control over their own rural hinterlands made cities less vulnerable to price fluctuations and less dependent on imports. In particular, this turned out to be crucial in times of scarcity and during periods of excessive population influx when the city’s own resources of T. Scott, ‘Towns and Country in Germany, 1350–1600’, in Epstein, S.R. (ed.), Town and Country in Europe, 1300–1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2001), p. 212; A. Piatkowski, Posiadlości ziemskie miasta Elbłąga w XVII–XVIII wieku (Wrocław – Warszawa – Kraków – Gdańsk 1972), p. 119; W. Długoborski and J. Gierowski and K. Maleczyński, Dzieje Wrocławia do roku 1807 (Warszawa 1958), p. 344; O.R. Halaga, Domínium města Košíc a jeho agrikultúra (Nitra – Košice 1990), p. 7; V. Nešpor, Dějiny Olomouce (Brno 1936), pp. 115, 143; M. Bělohlávek, ‘Plzeň – obraz města předbělohorské doby’, Folia Historica Bohemica, 15 (1991), p. 110. 60

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agricultural commodities could be mobilized in order to prevent famines and feed the immigrants. Despite this, the full saturation of the urban market with foodstuffs remained a constant problem, especially in large cities where great concentrations of people forced the urban authorities to also rely on imports from more distant areas. The high demand for agricultural products naturally raised their prices and the potential threat of starvation was one of life’s adversities in all overpopulated cities. Attempting to forestall famines, city councils everywhere adopted a set of administrative measures strictly regulating the sale and prices of agricultural products on the urban market. In Prague, for example, two police decrees from 1577 and 1605 fixed the maximum prices of selected artisan products, they forbade the accumulation of grain supplies for private purposes and also outlawed any speculations in the sale of basic foodstuffs.61 The flow of goods between the city and the countryside was, however, reciprocal. While rural hinterlands furnished cities with agrarian products, they were utilized by urban producers who monopolized outlets absorbing a surplus of the craft production. Often the territorial expansion of the feudal domain was a mere symptom of the antagonism between two competing economies rather than a conscious attempt to broaden a city’s rural hinterland. Aiming to eliminate the rival production of beer or fish that much affected the sale of urban products, the city might have decided to buy the competing economic unit and integrate it into its own feudal domain or, alternatively, dissolve it. That such a strategy was a standard method in the economic struggle is illustrated by the abundant conflicts between cities and noble and ecclesiastical entrepreneurs. Occasionally, the purchase of the rival economic unit turned out to be the only feasible way of resolving the long-term and costly lawsuits. Consider the enduring conflict over beer brewing by the Olomouc and Moravian noble entrepreneur Jan Skrbenský of Hříště. Charged with trespassing upon the mile privilege of the city, Skrbenský summoned a great number of depositions in order to prove that his brewery was in fact founded beyond the mile-distance zone. Still unresolved after almost two decades of bitter discord, the Gordian knot was eventually cut in 1579 when urban authorities decided to buy the brewery and incorporate it into the city’s feudal domain.62 The same solution, but with different results, was adopted by Danzig in its long-term struggle with the artisans in Schottland and Stolzenberg, villages owned by the Cujavian bishops and the Chapter. After having exploited all possible strategies, from negotiating to burning out both settlements, Danzig eventually decided to buy or lease them from the owners who, however, refused.63 The tension between the big Prussian city and these small villages was well illustrated by the nickname given to Schottland by the Danzigers, who referred to it as Schadeland (Harmland).64 J. Janáček, Dějiny obchodu v předbělohorské Praze (Praha 1955), pp. 38–39. Miller (ed.), Konfliktní soužití, pp. 184, 191; also V. Nešpor, Dějiny Olomouce (Brno 1936), p. 142. 63 More on the conflict see G. Lengnich, Ius publicum civitatis Gedanensis oder der Stadt Danzig Verfassung und Rechte (Danzig 1900), pp. 560–566. 64 G. Hufeland, ‘Briefe über die itzigen Streitigkeiten des Königes von Preussen und der Stadt Danzig’, in Ueber die neusten Angelegenheiten der Stadt Danzig (Thorn – Leipzig 1784), p. 11. 61 62

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As already stated, the purchase of landed estates was also perceived by both the city authorities and well-to-do citizens as an effective anti-inflation strategy and a profitable means of depositing financial surpluses. Because of growing inflation towards the end of the 16th century, practically all urban budgets found themselves endangered by the gradual devaluation of money. Consequently, the large investments into real estates, including land, were a reasonable means of increasing the value of public property. This is why landed estates also played a considerable role in the financial transactions of cities. As feudal landlords, wealthy urban centres could afford large-scale credit operations as the value of their public property minimized the threat of a town’s insolvency. Feudal possessions proved to be of crucial importance in times of economic and financial distress when landed estates might have been utilized as the gage for loans or, if sold, as the source of cash. On the eve of the Thirty Years War the royal cities in Moravia found themselves in such a miserable situation. Analytical studies of municipal revenues and expenses have elucidated that the insatiable financial needs of Emperor Rudolph II drew the budgets of Moravian royal cities into chronic deficits. For example, in 1619 the Olomouc public debts reached about 70,000 Schock groschen. At the same time, however, the value of the city’s landed property was still three times greater than the indebtedness and the sum could easily be covered from the potential sale of feudal estates.65 Apart from economic and financial motives behind the systematic building of a feudal domain, the importance of the demographic aspect shall be stressed too. In most cases, the rural hinterlands served as population reservoirs. Everywhere the immigrants coming from a city’s feudal domain either satisfied the demand for human labour or simply compensated for the increased mortality during epidemics or natural disasters. The aggregate effect of all the above-mentioned factors created a strong motivation for urban governments to invest considerable sums into feudal estates. In many cities, the massive purchase of landed property was even responsible for temporary deficits in the urban budgets as municipal authorities, lacking enough money in cash, often did not hesitate to increase public indebtedness in order to territorially expand a city’s feudal domain. Mostly this proved a good investment, at least if the structure of municipal revenues is considered. Like all feudal owners cities, by purchasing landed estates, also tended to build an integrated money-making economic system usually referred to as a feudal manor or, by Polish historians, as folwark. Financial revenues from feudal manors basically came from two sources. Apart from peasant dues, cities as entrepreneurs earned money by pursuing a range of economic activities, from grain grinding in municipal mills, fish farming and beer brewing to the exploitation of forests. Let us scrutinize, therefore, the significance of the manorial economy and feudal estates for urban budgets. During the early modern period, cities increasingly relied on revenues from their manorial economies that everywhere formed a considerable, if not decisive, part of their overall municipal gains. Surviving financial records in many cities make it possible to roughly estimate the actual income from urban 65 L. Urbánková–Hrubá, ‘Zadlužení moravských královských měst po Bílé hoře’, Sborník Matice moravské, LXXX (1961), p. 250.

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estates. For instance, an examination of Pilsen expenses and revenues for 1524/1525 reveals that in this middle-sized artisan and trading town more than a half of public gains might have stemmed from the manorial economy.66 In the case of large commercial centres, such as Elbłąg and Breslau, the share of the manorial economy in urban revenues was usually less dominant as the public budget could rely on more diversified financial resources. Nonetheless, between 1603–1698, the average revenues from landed property and feudal manors might still have made up about one-third of all Elbłag’s financial incomes. In Breslau, the impressive growth of the city’s feudal domain in the 16th century markedly changed the structure of municipal receipts. While in the last decades of the 15th century the revenues from landed estates were still insignificant, one hundred years later the share of the manorial economy in Breslau’s budget might have reached about 18 per cent.67 In 1620, shortly before the detrimental war campaigns, more than one-tenth of Breslau municipal revenues were still generated by financial income from the rural hinterland. In the subsequent difficult decades, however, this source of funds gradually dried up and its proportion dropped to 7 per cent in 1631 and less than 3 per cent in 1649.68 The local conditions and the nature of market demand were responsible for regional disparities in the profile of feudal economies. For example, by comparing the revenues of Bohemian and Hungarian royal cities from their feudal manors and landed estates, one observes marked differences. In the public budgets of many Bohemian, but also Moravian and Silesian towns it was the profit from beer brewing and trading that occupied the first place among the city’s financial resources. In some cities, as in Domažlice in southern Bohemia, the income from beer brewing and marketing might have totalled up to 80 per cent of the overall municipal takings.69 Though beer was mostly marketed within the territorial frame of the city’s feudal domain, some urban centres, namely Rakovník, Louny, Český Brod, Kadaň in Bohemia and Schweidnitz in Silesia, grew into major regional exporters of this commodity. However, to a great degree this huge market expansion was carried out by private entrepreneurs among the burghers rather than by cities as legal entities.70 Though the brewing industry usually played a central role in the economy of the feudal manor, in some areas (Southern Bohemia, Central Moravia) it was rivalled by fish farming whose dynamic spread, due to high initial costs, may seem rather surprising. Apart from beer selling and fish farming, considerable revenues also flowed into the urban budgets from mills, the sale of grain and the exploitation of municipal forests. On the other hand, the urban treasuries of most Hungarian cities benefited rather from viticulture. In this respect, the attractiveness of the Tokay region in eastern M. Bělohlávek (ed.), Kniha počtů města Plzně 1524–1525 (Plzeň 1957), p. 50; Bělohlávek, ‘Plzeň – obraz města’, p. 110. 67 K. Popiołek, Historia Śląska od pradziejów do 1945 roku (Katowice 1972), p. 81. 68 Długoborski and Gierowski and Maleczyński, Dzieje Wrocławia, p. 344. 69 P. Mužík, ‘Městská kancelář, správa a hospodářské poměry v Domažlicích v 16. a na počátku 17. stol.’, Sborník archivních prací, XXVII (1) (1977), pp. 63, 82. 70 J. Janáček, Pivovarnictví v českých královských městech v 16. století (Praha 1959); M. Dvořák, ‘Odbytové problémy městské ekonomiky v 16. století: Český Brod a kutnohorská hornická oblast’, Hospodářské dějiny, 4 (1979), pp. 205–248. 66

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Hungary far outshone other wine-growing areas and this is why the bulk of the local vineyards were purchased by external owners – noblemen, individual burghers and cities. Particularly large sums of money were invested in the Tokay region by the Upper Hungarian cities of Kassa, Bártfa, Eperjes and Lőcse, whose communal possessions covered vast areas of the most fertile land. The prevailing orientation towards viticulture logically mirrored itself in the structure of municipal incomes. Apart from servile dues, the revenues from the retail of wine were indispensable for the urban budgets of most urban centres, including mining cities. In her study on the major trends in the early modern Hungarian economy, Vera Zimányi has noted that in 1569 about one quarter of overall public incomes in Sopron came from the sale of wine while investments into municipal vineyards made up about 8 per cent of public expenditures.71 Surveys by other scholars seem to suggest that in this respect the Sopron case typified the profile of the urban economy in many Hungarian cities. In Nagyszombat between 1530 and 1600, takings from the wine trade relative to overall urban revenues as well as expenses on behalf of viticulture were roughly the same as in Sopron.72 In individual years the financial profit from wine selling might even have eclipsed all other sources of municipal incomes. In 1580, the wine trade probably formed more than one-half of the public revenues in Lőcse.73 The structure of the urban budget followed the same patterns in Pozsony, in which the share of viticulture in municipal revenues might have reached, after the mid-16th century, between 30–50 per cent. Similarly, in 1607–1620 the profit from the wine trade in the rather parochial Modor varied between 26–65 per cent of all public receipts.74 To sum up, the concept of agrarianization of early modern urban economies is well-established in East-Central European scholarship. In the 16th–17th centuries, the increasing numbers of town dwellers, particularly in Poland and Hungary, sought their livelihood in agricultural activities rather than in craft production. Most cities, especially in the Bohemian lands and Royal Prussia, invested considerable sums in buying new landed estates and building their own feudal manors. One may even risk the statement that early modern East-Central Europe did not offer a more profitable way of investing than buying landed estates. The potential dynamic expansion of long-distance and overseas trade required good business contacts, a knowledge of remote markets and, above all, high initial capital investments. The absence of these preconditions meant, in Braudel’s words, that the group of wholesalers active in different areas of business on the global or at least the Europeanwide market was relatively tiny in our territory.75 While in the European West a range of alternative and highly profitably investment opportunities appeared, in East-Central Europe the land remained the most remunerative and by far the safest source of capital. Historians therefore would probably agree that the impetus behind the partial agrarianization and Zimányi, Economy and Society, p. 51. Š. Kazimír, ‘Hospodarenie mesta Trnavy v druhej polovici 16. storočia’, Historické štúdie, IX (1964), p. 157. 73 Zimányi, Economy and Society, p. 51. 74 Š. Kazimír, ‘Vývoz vína z malokarpatskej vinohradnickej oblasti od 13. do polovice 18. storočia’, Historický časopis, 29 (5) (1981), pp. 719–734. 75 See Braudel, Dynamika kapitalismu, pp. 31–39. 71

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feudalization of urban economies was the combination of profitability and exigency. While investments of financial surpluses into land as well as large-scale trade with agricultural commodities was found to be cost-effective, for sizeable segments of the urban population husbandry remained the only source of income that secured at least a modest standard of living. Urban Production and Trade: International Exchange and the Trap of the Local Market It has already been mentioned that the rise of private towns and the market place economy provoked reinforced protectionism by producers in traditional urban centres, who sought to support sales of their own products in all ways possible. Generally speaking, however, the craft output and its marketing was also confronted by other factors including the long-term market demand in the West for agricultural commodities, massive investments of financial surpluses into land rather than into trade as well as the stagnation of real wages and the prices of manufactured goods that did not, due to strict regulatory measures, follow inflation. All of these trends supported the dependence of the urban industry on the local and regional market while long-distance trade with urban craft products remained limited to a narrow range of goods. Admittedly, the prevailing orientation of urban production towards the local society and the rural population living in the city’s hinterland guaranteed, under normal circumstances, a relatively stable market which was more or less immune to price fluctuations, competition from other producers and the changeability of demand. On the other hand, local and regional trade, due to its limited size and purchasing power, never generated a high profit and did not stimulate the specialization of crafts and technological innovations. It has been suggested by several studies on early modern East-Central European economy that the local and regional markets were of vital importance for urban producers in all categories of towns, from small settlements to large and populous hubs of commerce. What made an essential difference, however, was the nature and structure of local demand which decisively shaped the scope and specialization of urban production. In the overwhelming majority of small and medium-sized towns only a greatly limited number of crafts, mostly producing cheap products, was viable. Basically these were those indispensable in any urban centre since they satisfied the basic needs of the urban and rural population. Usually they totalled about ten to twenty crafts depending on the size and social structure of the local market. By exploring the nature of urban production in Bohemian small and medium-sized towns, Josef Janáček counted fifteen ‘strong crafts’ to be found in most towns, with the cloth (shoemakers, tailors) and food (bakers, butchers, beer-brewers) industries clearly dominating.76 Arguably, the corresponding structure of urban production would be identified in most East-Central European provincial urban settlements, regardless of their geographic location. Equally significant proved local and regional outlets for artisans in large cities and commercial centres. Urban production in these urban 76

Janáček, Řemeslná výroba, p. 177.

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centres, however, capitalized on the higher purchasing power of the resident haut monde as well as the size of the local market, which encompassed tens of thousands of consumers. Consequently, the diversification of crafts and the manufacture of luxury goods were fomented by local and regional customers rather than by high demand in distant outlets. The nature and size of urban production and trade in most large East-Central European cities stands out if paralleled to the strong exporting economy of Nuremberg. In this German city, the existence of an enormous variety of specialized crafts manufacturing a whole range of products, from metal wares to genuine pieces of art, was possible because of the high demand for Nuremberg’s merchandise in the broad territory of Western, Central and East-Central Europe. Of course, Nuremberg’s artisans also had to the satisfy the needs of the domestic population, which numbered about 25,000–30,000 inhabitants, but the city’s material opulence, prosperity and Europeanwide reputation rested entirely upon its deliberate commercial diplomacy, relatively open economic system and the capacity of its craftsmen to react flexibly to the changeable demand in the vast market over which neither the urban producers nor the city itself had any control.77 The impressive spatial expansion of Nuremberg’s trading territory, embracing virtually the whole of Europe, was assisted by a sustained and active exporting policy that involved reciprocal customs treaties with many other cities, the legal and political protection of its merchants and also far-reaching commercial privileges issued by territorial rulers. In Prague, for instance, Nuremberg merchants formed a highly privileged caste as they were subject to one-half of the usual customs, their wares could not be seized by the municipal authorities and they could pursue their trade without the annoying limitations otherwise imposed on foreign entrepreneurs.78 The scale of the administrative, diplomatic and political strategies as well as lobbying techniques aimed at safeguarding the business interests of Nuremberg’s producers and merchants proved unprecedented and hardly any city in Central and East-Central Europe pursued its economic goals with such vigour and effectiveness as Nuremberg did.79 If Nuremberg’s economy was in juxtaposition to those of Prague, Cracow, Warsaw, Olomouc and Lwów, it appears that the broad variety of urban crafts in large East-Central European cities was a symptom of the high consumption potential of the inner, regional and land markets rather than a mark of the dynamic economic expansion to long-distance sales territories. This is to suggest that narrowly specialized crafts manufacturing luxury goods and pieces of fine art mainly benefited from the demand from the royal and imperial courts, wealthy burghers, resident magnates, nobility and the clergy. Such crafts also found their clients within a region and a country but neither the scope of their production and territorial extent of their market nor the numbers of their masters could match that of Nuremberg. It may be argued that the connection of early modern East-Central Europe with the worldwide exchange of goods depended on a handful of strong and exporting urban economies that linked the region with Europeanwide and overseas outlets. But only a 77 78 79

See Strauss, Nuremberg in the Sixteenth Century, pp. 116–153. Janáček, Dějiny obchodu v předbělohorské Praze, pp. 212–215. Strauss, Nuremberg in the Sixteenth Century, pp. 127–132.

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few of them, such as the Royal Prussian port cities, were situated within its territory. Above all, Danzig played an irreplaceable role in the massive export of Polish corn and raw materials to the Dutch and English markets and also in the reciprocal import of colonial wares and luxury goods produced in the European Occident. It has been estimated by Polish scholars that by 1600 as much as 80 per cent of the country’s maritime export might have been handled by this city alone while the other Baltic ports such as Elbing, Königsberg and Riga lived in Danzig’s shadow.80 Of the many examples referring to Danzig’s economic pre-eminence, let us consider its rich trade connections with Amsterdam. Having analyzed freight contracts concluded in 1597– 1651 between Amsterdam wholesalers and their partners in the Baltic area, Maria Bogucka showed us that more than 55 per cent of all contracts referred to Danzig as the freight destination while Riga was the target for about 21 per cent of freight contracts and Königsberg a marginal 5 per cent.81 Equally important in terms of East-Central European international trade was another gateway city, namely Nuremberg, that not only supplied East-Central Europe with Italian, German and Dutch merchandise but also marketed a whole range of goods originally manufactured by Bohemian, Moravian and Silesian craftsmen and artists. In addition, the Nurembergers invested considerable sums of money into some profitable sectors of the East-Central European economy, including mining, Baltic commerce and trade with agricultural commodities. According to surveys by Hungarian and Slovak scholars, the direct financial involvement of Nuremberg wholesalers as well as the credit provided by them to Hungarian merchants and retailers assisted in the dynamic expansion of the cattle trade in the 16th–17th centuries.82 At the same time, Nuremberg’s trading companies Gewandschneider and Viatis und Peller, to mention just two, exported large quantities of linen from Bohemia, Lusatia and Silesia to the world market.83 True, after 1550 Nuremberg’s share of the long-distance exchange of goods somewhat declined and much of the international commerce between East-Central Europe and the rest of the continent was usurped by Linz, Vienna, Leipzig, Augsburg and, to a lesser extent, by Italian wholesalers.84 Yet in the long run, Nuremberg served as a major gateway through which a whole range of products flowed in both directions, to inner Hungarian, Polish and Bohemian outlets but also from East-Central Europe to the West. 80 M. Bogucka, ‘Handel baltycky a bilans handlowy Polski v pierwszej połowie XVII wieku’, Przeglad Historyczny 59 (2) (1968), p. 246; M. Hroch, Handel und Politik im Ostseeraum während des Dreissigjährigen Krieges (Praha 1976). 81 M. Bogucka, ‘Amsterdam and the Baltic in the first half of the XVII century’, The Economic History Review, XXVI (3) (1973), pp. 434–435. 82 Szücs, ‘Das Städtewesen in Ungarn’, pp. 112–113; G. Ember, ‘Ungarns Aussenhandel mit dem Westen um die Mitte des XVI. Jahrhunderts’, in Bog, I. (ed.), Der Ausenhandel Ostmitteleuropas 1450–1650 (Köln – Wien 1971), pp. 101–102; Zimányi, Economy and Society, p. 46. 83 A. Klíma, Economy, Industry and Society in Bohemia in the 17th–19th Centuries (Praha 1991), pp. 135–136. 84 J. Janáček, ‘Česko–rakouské obchodní styky v 16. století’, Sborník historický, 17 (1970), pp. 123–145; J. Janáček, ‘Die Handelsbeziehungen zwischen Prag und Linz im 16. Jahrhundert’, Historisches Jahrbuch der Stadt Linz (1960), pp. 55–80.

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Compared to Danzig and perhaps two or three other cities whose commerce had a Europeanwide dimension, most the large East-Central European urban centres, such as Poznań, Cracow, Lublin, Lwów, Prague and Breslau, rather operated as significant trading centres in the geographical context of Central and Eastern Europe. By analysing the model of East-Central European continental trade, the Polish historian Jerzy Topolski has suggested that in the early modern period these cities took advantage of the transit trade between the Eastern and Western parts of the continent. Through the network of international fairs held in Polish, Silesian, Bohemian, Moravian and Saxon cities, Russian furs, skins and leather were re-exported to western outlets that, in return, supplied the European East with spices, high-quality textiles and metal products.85 Apart from serving as trade crossroads between the European East and West, these cities also operated as the chief distributors of imported goods to the regional and local markets. Despite the fact that East-Central European urban economies mostly depended on local and regional outlets or served as important centres of transit trade, some branches of industry and commerce managed to release themselves from the trap of parochialism either by playing a significant part in the international exchange of goods or by dominating over large market territories. Of all the crafts working for remote outlets, the unrivalled leader was textile production in general and the cloth and linen industry in particular. In the 16th century, the cloth and linen manufacture converged into two major areas of East-Central Europe. The first hub of the textile industry emerged in the southern parts of Bohemia and Moravia with several dozen production centres such as Pelhřimov, Jindřichův Hradec and, above all, Jihlava with its impressive annual output of cloth. The textile wares manufactured in these cities and towns were marketed mostly in Austria, Hungary, the German lands and the Balkans. The other textile-producing area embraced the considerably large territory of Upper Lusatia, northern and eastern Bohemia, Glatz, northern Moravia, Silesia and some parts of Greater Poland. Here Görlitz, Broumov, Breslau, Glogau and Olomouc took a lead, but they were seconded by dozens of lesser urban centres such as Frýdlant, Lanškroun and Oppeln.86 The demographic growth of Liberec testified to the breathtaking boom of the clothmaking industry. Thanks to Wallenstein’s project of army supplies and the enterprising spirit of later feudal owners, Liberec evolved from a small settlement into the most populous city of Northern Bohemia with about 550 houses in 1713.87 As regards the textile production in western parts of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, the classical work on the clothmaking industry in Greater Poland 85 J. Topolski, ‘A model of East-Central European continental commerce in the sixteenth and the first half of the seventeenth century’, in Mączak, A. and H. Samsonowicz and P. Burke (eds), East–Central Europe in Transition, from the Fourteenth to the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1985), pp. 128–139. 86 J. Janáček, ‘České soukenictví v 16. století’, Český časopis historický, (4) (1956), pp. 553–590; J. Marek, ‘Řemeslná výroba v moravských městech v 16. století’, Sborník Matice moravské, 81 (1962), pp. 124–154; Z. Swiechowski (ed.), Wrocław – jego dzieje i kultura (Warszawa 1978), p. 201. 87 K. Kuča, Města a městečka v Čechách, na Moravě a ve Slezsku III (Praha 1998), pp. 425–427.

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by Antoni Mączak suggested that its expansion was largely due to the massive immigration of Protestant refugees from Silesia. In the 16th century, the overall output of cheap and low quality cloth in western Polish towns was still not particularly impressive and it was only in Międzyrzecz, Wschowa, Kościan, Stryków and some other centres that the clothmaking crafts employed a considerable numbers of artisans. The wave of immigration from Silesia in the 17th century, however, incited quantitative as well as qualitative shifts in the manufacture of cloth. Not only did newcomers from Glogau, Góra Śląska and other Silesian centres substantially contribute to the rise in the numbers of clothmakers in Wschowa, Leszno and Kościan, but they also brought their well-established business contacts and introduced more sophisticated techniques of production. It was Silesian immigrants, Mączak assured us, who stood behind the production of better quality cloth which was mainly marketed in eastern and southeastern Europe.88 At the same time, the expansion of the textile industry in the Bohemian lands and Greater Poland stifled cloth and linen production in other parts of East-Central Europe. In this respect, the 16th century textile manufacturing crisis in Hungarian towns is often viewed as the consequence of the ruinous competition of Silesian and Moravian wares sold in large quantities on the Hungarian market.89 The mass import of linen might have been behind the decline of the linen production in Bártfa, the major centr of the Hungarian textile industry whose output in the 16th century fell by more than half compared to the Late Middle Ages.90 In view of the imposing extent of cloth and linen production, the question is raised as to what degree the expanding textile industry shaped the nature of the urban economies. In the chief textile-producing regions, and particularly in northeastern Bohemia, Glatz and southern Silesia, large-scale textile manufacture utterly transformed the occupational structure of the urban population. Abundant source material demonstrates the vital importance of the linen and clothmaking industry for the livelihood of the people settled in these hilly, densely forested and generally not wealthy regions. A persuasive testimony to the rather one-sided profile of the economies of northern Bohemian towns, villages and hamlets is rendered by the official registers that covered the massive exodus of Protestants from this province to Upper Lusatia after the Battle of the White Mountain in 1620. Drawing, for example, on the inventories of applicants for citizenship in Upper Lusatian cities, one observes that textile craftsmen, referred to as Tuchmacher, Tuchknappe, Tuchbereiter and Leinweber, were clearly predominant. Consider Görlitz, the largest Lusatian urban settlement. If only citizens with a recorded occupation are taken into

88 A. Mączak, Sukiennictwo Wielkopolskie XIV–XVII wieku (Warszawa 1955), pp. 262– 281. In Wschowa, for instance, between 1659–1754, the artisans engaged in the clothmaking industry comprised about 20 per cent of all burghers coming from Silesia. W. Schober, ‘Die Fraustädter Neubürger aus Schlesien 1659–1754’, Zeitschrift des Vereins für Geschichte Schlesiens, 73 (1939), pp. 218–219. 89 Zimányi, Economy and Society, p. 52. 90 L. Holotík, Dejiny Bardejova (Košice 1975), p. 119.

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account, then between 1620 and 1676 textile artisans made up about one-third of all the new burghers coming from Bohemia to the city.91 In general, a difference between the rather unilaterally oriented producing and exporting towns and large multi-functional urban centres must be drawn. The former category embraced dozens of small and medium-sized hubs of textile manufacture, whose economies were almost completely dependent on the market demand for linen and cloth products. Of course, reliance on a single dominant economic activity was a double-edged weapon. In times of high demand, the ability of urban craftsmen and merchants to produce and market large quantities of wares was a major source of prosperity and material affluence for the city. On the other hand, the dominant position of the textile industry made the well-being of urban societies much more vulnerable to market fluctuations as any significant fall in demand might have been disastrous for the city economy. Jihlava in Moravia and Broumov in eastern Bohemia, among other cities, may serve as vivid examples of the one-sided orientation towards textile manufacture and trade. As for the former, an investigation of the occupational structure of the urban population by J. Marek suggests there was an impressive boom in textile crafts after the mid-16th century. While in 1576 textile producers in Jihlava represented perhaps 45–50 per cent of all craftsmen, in the 1580s–1590s their dominance further grew to about 55–60 per cent.92 To a great extent this trend was stimulated by the continual influx of immigrants attracted by the long-term prosperity of the city’s clothmaking industry. By relying upon Jihlava Bürgerrechtsbücher, one observes that in the period 1501–1560 the clothmakers comprised about 45 per cent of all new burghers with a recorded craft specialization, while in 1581–1650 their proportion was still almost 30 per cent.93 Broumov embodied the same type of urban economy. Here clothmakers in the 1570s, according to rough estimates, might have made up as much as twothirds of all craft masters and still about 50 per cent in the mid-17th century.94 The supremacy of textile production in both cities distorted, however, the profile of their economies that proved strongly dependent on the import of some commodities that were lacking. In Jihlava this applied particularly to the food and metal industries whose representation among urban crafts was rather low or vestigial.95 A more balanced structure of the urban economy was found in large cities that also benefited from the production and export of textile goods. This was mainly due to the multiplicity of their urban functions, including administrative, residential and academic. In such centres, the concentration of inhabitants with disparate financial means and diverse social needs fomented the rise of a broader spectrum of conventional as well as highly specialized crafts that were either underdeveloped or entirely missing in predominantly export-oriented urban economies. This is why in 91 A.E. Stange (ed.), ‘Görlitzer Bürgerrechte von 1601–1676’, Oberlausitzer Sippenkundliche Beiträge, 1 (1937), pp. 34–83. 92 Marek, ‘Řemeslná výroba’, pp. 148–153. 93 A. Altrichter and H. Altrichter, ‘Die Iglauer Neubürger 1360–1649 nach Beruf, Herkunft und Volkszugehörigkeit’, Zeitschrift für Sudetendeutsche Geschichte, 2 (1938), pp. 94–95. 94 Janáček, Řemeslná výroba, pp. 207–211. 95 Marek, ‘Řemeslná výroba’, pp. 139, 148.

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multi-functional cities a variety of urban occupations saturating the broad and socially diversified local and regional markets created an effective counterweight to the purely exported crafts. Moreover, in large cities the local cloth and linen production usually played a rather limited role in the overall export of textiles from the city as urban merchants and trading companies also used to purchase cheaply made textile wares from the countryside and re-export them to long-distance markets. In the early modern period, Breslau and Olomouc perhaps epitomized the ideal types of large multi-functional centres that also served as hubs of textile production and trade. In both cities, the textile industry occupied the leading but not absolutely dominant position among urban crafts. It has been argued that before the mid-16th century, the Breslau textile masters made up only 12 per cent of all the craft masters in the city but in the course of the next two hundred years their numbers rose steadily. But even in the heyday of textile manufacture, around 1700, they did not represent more than one-third of all the masters in the city.96 In the case of Olomouc, there is no comparable evidence available that would refer to the proportion of masters engaged in the linen and clothmaking industry vis-à-vis other urban producers. Nonetheless, the gravity of textile manufacture is illustrated by the occupational structure of another social group, that of the journeymen. According to data from 1577, journeymen employed in the linen (about two-thirds of all textile craftsmen) and cloth industry comprised approximately one fifth of all artisans while by 1600 this ratio had increased to one third. This would imply that textile manufacture was at the forefront of all Olomouc crafts, but compared to Jihlava or Broumov its position remained far less impressive.97 The strong market demand for Bohemian, Silesian or Lusatian textile wares soon gave rise to more sophisticated and better organized forms of trade, based on the purchase of great quantities of cloth and linen from producers and on largescale export to remote outlets. In Breslau, for example, the trading company owned by the Popplau burgher family nearly monopolized the export of textile goods manufactured in Silesian cities (Breslau, Liegnitz, Schweidnitz, Glatz) as well as the import of high quality cloth from Western Europe. The radius of the company’s commercial activities was indeed imposing as its registers from the beginning of the 16th century reveal its extensive business contacts with merchants based in Arras, Brugges, Brussels, Amsterdam, Louvain and Maastricht.98 The profitability of the textile trade also did not escape the attention of South German wholesalers and business firms. From the second half of the 16th century two Nuremberg based companies, the Gewandschneider and the Viatis und Peller controlled much of the long-distance trade in northern Bohemian linen. While the former signed collective contracts in 1557 with weaver guilds in Rumburk, Šluknov, Česká Lípa, Frýdlant, Liberec, Jiřetín, Jablonné, Cvikov and Chřibská, the latter had a similar agreement, from 1597, with weavers in Vrchlabí. Once delivered to storehouses, the linen was further transported through Nuremberg, Augsburg, Memmingen or Hamburg for sale to territories in Occidental Europe. If one considers the scope of linen production 96 97 98

Swiechowski, (ed.), Wrocław, p. 201. Marek, ‘Řemeslná výroba’, pp. 148–149. Długoborski – Gierowski – Małeczyński, Dzieje Wrocławia, pp. 241–243.

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and trade, it has been estimated that before the Thirty Years War the Viatis und Peller bought linen in Silesia, Lusatia and Bohemia for about 250,000 Reichsthaler a year. At the same time, the company engaged no less than 2,000 craftsmen and journeymen in dozens of towns and villages. Though the German companies retained their prominent position in the export of linen even after the war, from the second half of the 17th century the profitable business also attracted merchants from the Low Countries and England to Bohemia and Silesia.99 In the 1950s–1960s, Czech historians delved into a lively debate on the principal causes of the sweeping boom of Bohemian, Moravian and Silesian cloth and linen industries. Some scholars referred to the role of the state and they stressed the importance of army supplies and government commissions for the expansion of textile manufacture. The theory of the large-scale involvement of the urban linen and clothmaking industry in orders for the army, however, has been discarded by the economic historian Josef Janáček. Having explored the issue, he came to conclusion that the reactions of urban craftsmen were in fact far from whole-hearted and that most producers and merchants who found themselves subject to pressure from the government, either temporized or intentionally avoided any commercial links with the state. The underlying motive of such an attitude, Janáček suggests, was a generally shared distrust of the Viennese government whose unreliability in financial matters and insolvency proved notorious. The sorrowful fate of a Jihlava clothmaking trading company might have arguably served as a warning for other textile producers. Despite the paucity of sources it appears that the company, apparently having succumbed to political pressure, eventually agreed to operate as state purveyor. The unfavourable nature of the contract as well as the government’s reluctance to pay off its financial commitments might have caused the company’s ultimate collapse in 1600.100 This is not to deny that state commissions for textile wares might have played a certain role in the expansion of the cloth and linen industry in the Bohemian lands, but most historians tend rather to recognize the momentum of robust textile manufacture in the long-term demand of remote outlets for the relatively inexpensive and high quality Bohemian, Lusatian, Moravian and Silesian wares that did not immediately compete with the first-class and more costly Dutch and English textile goods. As far as the export potential of other commodities of urban provenance is concerned, none could rival that of textile wares either in the volume of production or the geographic scope of marketing. This is not to argue that other branches of urban industry, apart from textile crafts, did not take part in international trade, but usually their share of the overall exports remained either vestigial or they embraced only a few urban economies. For example, this may have been the case for hats and selected types of ironware (blades) exported from Bohemia to Central and Eastern European outlets.101 The breathtaking boom of Bohemian glassmaking manufacture began only after the Thirty Years War and reached its climax in the 18th century.102 99 100 101 102

Klíma, Economy, Industry and Society, pp. 135–136. Janáček, Řemeslná výroba, pp. 94–95. Janáček, Řemeslná výroba, pp., 107–111. Klíma, Economy, Industry and Society, pp. 85–98.

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Quite the opposite was the fate of East-Central European mining. In the 16th century, the region was still one of the chief exporters of raw metals, especially silver and copper, but the exclusive club of mining cities never embraced more than a limited number of members. In addition, the glory of most mining centres proved rather short-lived, either due to diminishing resources and the growing costs of mining or because of rising imports to Europe from overseas mines. All of these factors lay behind the decline of silver mining in Jáchymov, Kutná Hora and Körmöcbánya back in the years before 1600. Apart from textile manufacture, urban industrial production, therefore, played a rather limited role in the international exchange of goods. Instead, it was the export of food products and agricultural commodities that occupied a significant place in many East-Central European urban economies. In terms of the food industry, the large-scale trade in malt and beer typified some urban economies, especially in Bohemia and Silesia. However, compared to the textile trade, the export of malt and beer to more far-flung outlets was hampered by several factors. Trade in the former remained dependent on the quantity of corn available on the home market as in times of scarcity the export of malt used to be restricted by the state in order to secure enough corn for the needs of the domestic population. Moreover, bad harvests caused the prices of corn to rise which made malt export expensive and therefore less profitable. Despite this, some Bohemian cities such as Kadaň, Louny, České Budějovice and Ústí nad Labem supplied foreign markets with large quantities of malt, but the geographic scope of their trade was limited to Saxony and Austria.103 Similar characteristics would apply to the beer trade. Like most kinds of food and beverages, beer was produced for immediate or short-term consumption and the lengthy transport to remote markets would deteriorate its quality, not to mention the relatively high costs of transportation that affected the price of the product. The other limitation accrued from the rather closed nature of urban economies and the protective policies pursued by the local brewers’ guilds who felt threatened by beer imports from other places. Moreover, the brewing industry flourished in both the lay and ecclesiastical feudal domains whose owners made every effort to push out imported beers from the market in favour of their own product. Nonetheless, the robust export of beer was possible provided that its quality exceeded that of the local product or that the high demand for beer could not be sated by domestic brewers. In terms of long-distance trade, there is rich evidence that during 15th–16th centuries large amounts of beer were imported to the Bohemian urban market from Saxony, Lusatia and Silesia, namely from Freiberg, Zittau and Schweidnitz. Yet such beer was always some of the most costly.104 At the same time, Bohemian cities and towns were large-scale beer purveyors to foreign outlets. Until the first half of the 16th century, Hradec Králové, for instance, traded beer in Glatz and Breslau, while beer brewed in southern Bohemia (Domažlice) used to be sold in Bavarian markets.105 In Poland, beer as an export played a considerable role in the economy of Bydgoszcz. The city, besides furnishing beer to Danzig, was listed as one of the five urban centres of beer 103 104 105

Janáček, Řemeslná výroba, pp. 109–110; Janáček, Pivovarnictví, pp. 7–10. Dvořák, ‘Odbytové problémy’, p. 217. Dvořák, ‘Odbytové problémy’, p. 219; Janáček, Pivovarnictví, p. 71.

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production in Poland, together with Piatek, Piotrków, Leczyca and Przemyśl, that exported this commodity abroad.106 Most hubs of beer brewing, however, benefited from trade in the context of regional and local outlets. During the early modern age, several beer consuming areas with high sales potential emerged in East-Central Europe and all of them largely relied on massive imports from nearby centres of the brewing industry. As a consequence, the voracious markets in large residential and mining cities gave rise to a web of urban economies that accommodated themselves to the needs of such a city. The long-term economic symbiosis between Kutná Hora, a traditional centre of silver mining, and Český Brod, a rather parochial town in central Bohemia with less than 2,000 inhabitants, may serve here as an ideal example. While in the 15th and early 16th century Český Brod supplied beer to Kutná Hora together with dozens of other towns, after 1550 its brewers and merchants assumed a dominant position on the Kutná Hora market and managed to maintain their leading position until the outbreak of the Thirty Years War. Though the actual size of export from Český Brod to Kutná Hora is hard to estimate, the number of beer purveyors to the mining city, fluctuating between 40–50 after the mid-16th century, was impressive.107 The available data on the average annual per-house output render further evidence referring to the significance of the beer trade for Český Brod. The beer tax register, embracing 27 Bohemian cities, gives us at least a rough idea of the extent of urban beer production in the country, though data relating to some royal cities (Pilsen, České Budějovice, Ústí nad Labem) and all private towns are missing. If the total scope of beer brewing in the late 1570s is considered, it turns out that Český Brod occupied the third place in Bohemia after Prague and Hradec Králové. However, with about 295 hectolitres of brewed beer, Český Brod secured its primacy among the Bohemian cities in terms of annual per-house output. Other beer exporting urban economies found themselves far behind while the per-house beer brewing in the much bigger Hradec Králové was 174 hectolitres and only 87 in Prague. Notwithstanding the general recession in the Bohemian brewing industry before 1600, Český Brod managed to retain its hegemony until the outbreak of the Thirty Years War, followed by Hradec Králové, Prague, Slaný, Čáslav and Klatovy.108 Along with the Kutná Hora sales area, it was the Krušné Hory (Erzgebirge) mining district and Prague that absorbed much of the Bohemian beer production. Indirect evidence of the market potential of Rudolphine Prague is provided by beer sale tax (posudné) registers from 1590 according to which the consumption of beer in the Emperor’s residence reached about 41 per cent of the total beer sales in Bohemian royal cities.109 While textile wares and beer were the genuine products of urban craft, the other sphere in which the East-Central European urban economy overstepped the 106 F. Mincer, Historia Bydgoszczy do roku 1806 (Zielona Góra 1992), pp. 120–122; F. Persowski and A. Kunysz and J. Olszak, (eds), Tysiac łat miasta Przemyśla I (Rzeszów 1976), pp. 310–313. 107 Dvořák, ‘Odbytové problémy’, p. 219. 108 Dvořák, ‘Odbytové problémy’, p. 225; Janáček, Pivovarnictví, p. 27. 109 Sněmy české, VII, p. 564.

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boundaries of local and regional outlets had nothing to do with artisan production as it involved trade in agricultural commodities, cattle, wine and raw materials. The trade in livestock and agrarian products proved vital for many Hungarian urban economies that managed to keep a considerable share of the international commercial exchange, regardless of growing competition from the nobility. In order to illustrate the economic importance of agricultural export for early modern Hungary let us outline the major trends in the country’s foreign trade. Having drawn on customs registers, the Hungarian scholar Erik Fügedi scrutinized the size and structure of the country’s import and export in the late 15th century. If the former is considered, it was textile goods, various products of the metal industry and spices that made up the decisive segments of foreign wares either sold on the Hungarian inner market or transported through the country to remote Southeastern European outlets. The composition of Hungarian export, however, differed sharply, mainly consisting of cattle, wine and copper.110 Between 1450–1550, however, two significant changes occurred. Firstly, the chronic deficit of Hungarian foreign trade became a highly positive balance. Secondly, this remarkable conversion was mainly due to the steadily growing export of cattle to Germany, Austria and the Bohemian lands. In 1542, for example, the livestock trade comprised more than 90 per cent of the entire Hungarian export as recorded in customs registers.111 Though in subsequent periods the significance of the cattle trade gradually dwindled in favour of the wine trade, the value of livestock sold on foreign markets between 1550–1600 still represented about three-quarters of the country’s export and almost one half by 1650.112 As already suggested, Hungarian burghers in the 16th–17th centuries still retained a considerable share in the export of cattle and wine, despite rising competition from the aristocrats and nobles. This was arguably the major difference between Hungarian and Polish urban entrepreneurs as the latter found themselves almost completely ousted from the long-distance trade in agricultural commodities by the nobility. According to customs records, at least 27,500 oxen were exported from Hungary to the West in 1542 and most of them were traded by the Hungarians, while the direct share of foreign merchants, mainly from Austria, Nuremberg and Moravia, proved rather marginal. Of the Hungarian entrepreneurs, the feudal lord Ferenc Nyáry occupied first place with 1,724 oxen, followed by Ambrosius Sántha, a burgher from Nagyszombat who exported 1,327 oxen in the same year.113 Due to the prevailing orientation of cattle trade to Germany, Austria and the Bohemian lands, it was cities and towns located in the western parts of Hungary that most benefited from this commercial activity. Perhaps the most impressive economic E. Fügedi, ‘Der Aussenhandel Ungarns am Anfang des 16. Jahrhunderts’, in: Bog, I (ed.), Der Aussenhandel Ostmitteleuropas 1450–1650 (Köln – Wien 1971), pp. 56–85. 111 Ember, ‘Ungarns Aussenhandel’, pp. 86–104. Mining products, such as copper, silver and gold, have not been included by the author as they did not pass through the customs office. 112 I.N. Kiss, ‘Agricultural and livestock production: wine and oxen. The case of Hungary’, in: Mączak, A. and H. Samsonowicz and P. Burke (eds), East-Central Europe in Transition, from the Fourteenth to the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1985), p. 95. 113 Ember, ‘Ungarns Aussenhandel’, p. 102. 110

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upsurge among them was experienced by Nagyszombat. In the 15th century still a rather parochial town, in the subsequent period Nagyszombat became a major transit point for the Hungarian cattle trade. However, most Nagyszombat entrepreneurs, lacking sufficient financial means for the purchase of large quantities of oxen in the Hungarian Plain, Wallachia and Moldavia, found themselves dependent on credit that was usually provided by Austrian and German wholesalers.114 Urban registers show us that the city’s economic and demographic boom climaxed between 1560– 1620. In this period the burghers engaged in trade (händler) represented between 10–25 per cent of all urban taxpayers and many of them were involved in longdistance commerce.115 While in 1545, only 50 Nagyszombat merchants conducted business transactions with international outlets, their number rose to at least 170 in 1580.116 The evidence of Nagyszombat’s status as an important trading city abounds. Again, let us resort to customs records, in this respect one of the most useful sources to be scrutinized by students of early modern economy. While in 1602, almost one half of oxen driven through the Stompfa customs office was traded by Nagyszombat merchants, six years later this share sank to some 12 per cent, but the Nagyszombat entrepreneurs, together with the Pozsony tradesmen, retained their position as major cattle exporters.117 Apart from Nagyszombat and Pozsony, large-scale cattle export also shaped the economy of many small towns, market places and villages in Western Hungary. Every year in fairs held in Szered, Galgocz, Szenc and Bazin, significant numbers of oxen were sold either to foreign or Hungarian wholesalers who subsequently traded the cattle on the international market. According to customs registers, the 16th century also witnessed increased numbers of merchants from small towns and market places involved in long-distance trade. In 1557/1558, for instance, Georg Bomb from Galánta exported an impressive 1,400 head of cattle, closely followed by Peter Bewres from Dvorníky with 1,081 head and by dozens of other tradesmen from Hungarian oppida located in the southwestern part of Royal Hungary.118 The stagnation of the cattle trade in the first half of the 17th century, however, resulted in the massive withdrawal of Hungarian merchants from international outlets. The reasons were manifold. Apart from inner instability caused by the Bocskay and Bethlen uprisings, it was the rise in competition by noble entrepreneurs as well as price fluctuations and the falling demand for livestock in the Occident that inflicted heavy blows on Hungarian cattle export. While according to recent estimates some 100,000 head of oxen per year might have been exported from the country 114 V. Zimányi, ‘Die wirtschaftliche und soziale Entwicklung der Städte Ungarns im 16. Jahrhundert’, in Rausch, W. (ed.), Die Stadt an der Schwelle zur Neuzeit, (Linz/Donau 1980), pp. 130–134. 115 Š. Kazimír, ‘Die Wirtschafts- und Sozialentwicklung der Städte in der Südwestlichen Slowakei im 16. Jahrhundert’, in Rausch, W. (ed.), Die Stadt and der Schwelle zur Neuzeit (Linz/Donau 1980), pp. 329–330; Zimányi, ‘Die wirtschaftliche und soziale Entwicklung’ , pp. 133–134. 116 Kazimír, ‘Die Wirtschafts- und Sozialentwicklung’, p. 330. 117 P. Horváth, ‘Hromadný vývoz dobytka z juhozápadného Slovenska do rakúských českých krajín na začiatku 17. storočia’, Historické štúdie, XIII (1968), pp. 111–115. 118 Kazimír, ‘Die Wirtschafts- und Sozialentwicklung’, p. 327.

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between 1550–1600, in the next fifty years this kind of export almost halved.119 As a consequence, some Hungarian towns and market places declined while the others managed to conform to their new circumstances by transforming their economies. In particular, this was the case of Nagyszombat. As a temporary see for the Esztergom archbishops and countrywide centre of university life, Nagyszombat gradually turned from a hub of cattle trade into a residential and academic city. In the 16th century, the overall value of marketed cattle still overshadowed the size of wine export channelled to the West and North. Yet during the early modern period the importance of the wine trade steadily grew and it has been estimated that 10–15 per cent of Hungarian wine went abroad.120 The Pozsony customs registers do not suggest the linear rise of wine export in the 16th and early 17th century. Mostly responsible for the ups and downs in trade were the climatic conditions that proved vital for the quality and quantity of produced wine. Nonetheless, from the 1530s export through the Pozsony customs office multiplied and reached its pinnacle in the late 1570s and again after 1610.121 In the early modern period, two provinces of Royal Hungary served as major wine suppliers to international outlets. In the western part of the country, it was the wine-growing regions around Sopron, Rohonc, Modor and Pozsony that saturated, above all, the Austrian, Bohemian and German markets. Sopron, for example, after the mid-16th century exported more than 40 per cent of its wine production to foreign outlets.122 The massive import of first-class and relatively cheap wine from western Hungary greatly damaged Austrian viticulture especially. The Viennese wine-growers and merchants repeatedly protested against the large-scale sale of Hungarian wine in the city, but their hostility had hardly any effect on the Hungarian export.123 The other hub of viticulture emerged in the Tokay region, which by 1600 occupied the leading role in international trade with Hungarian wines with much of its production being marketed in Polish outlets, especially in Cracow and Little Poland. Due to the profitability of trade in high-quality Tokay wines, there was a sustained demand for vineyards in the whole region. In the 16th century, some Royal Hungarian cities, namely Lőcse, Eperjes, Bártfa and Kassa, as well as individual burghers managed to purchase a great part of the Tokay vineyards, thus becoming the greatest external landowners. It has been determined that in the 1580s the burghers possessed about two-thirds of the vineyards in Zombor and even three-quarters in Erdőbénye.124 This is why urban wholesalers and merchants ranked as some of the major wine purveyors to Polish outlets. It seems, however, that the stagnation of the Cracow economy in the first half of the 17th century was also projected on the decline of wine import. While in 1624, Eperjes suppliers still marketed 565 casks of wine in Cracow, by the end of the decade the total amount of imported wine was only 78

119 120 121 122 123 124

Kiss, ‘Agricultural and livestock production’, p. 95. Kiss, ‘Agricultural and livestock production’, p. 93. Kazimír, ‘Vývoz vína’, p. 725. Kiss, ‘Agricultural and livestock production’, p. 93. Kazimír, ‘Vývoz vína’, pp. 719–734. Zimányi, Economy and Society, p. 41.

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casks. Analogically, Lőcse merchants purveyed to Cracow 382 casks in 1624 but only 47 five years later.125 A coup d’oeil at the Hungarian foreign trade in the early modern period implies the structural peculiarity of the country’s economy marked by a one-sided orientation upon agrarian capitalism, as compared, for example, with the Bohemian lands. In general, the economy of Poland–Lithuania followed the same path but here the burghers were almost ousted from the highly remunerative export of agrarian commodities to the European Occident on behalf of magnates and the nobility. The investigation of three major trends in the early modern urban economy, the transformation of the medieval market, the refeudalization and agrarianization of the city economies and the limited participation of urban producers and merchants in Europeanwide and global trade allows several inferences to be drawn. Though in the 16th–17th centuries the entire region of East-Central Europe probably had a favourable balance of trade with the European West, this was mainly due to the massive export of agrarian products and cattle. An overview of the structure and scope of urban production and trade made in this chapter thus seems to have revealed certain signs of economic backwardness or, in Wallerstein’s words, peripherality. In the early modern age, only a limited range of artisan products manufactured in the urban environment was traded in large amounts in international outlets. Those branches that expanded beyond the regional and land markets and participated in Europeanwide and worldwide commercial exchange were mostly clustered in the Bohemian lands and, to some extent, Greater Poland. The concentration of textile and later glassmaking production on the western edges of East-Central Europe contributed to the rise of significant territorial differences in the nature and structure of urban economies. While the medieval textile craft gradually transformed itself into a more sophisticated manufacturing industry working for export, in other parts of East-Central Europe the protoindustrialization was delayed and the export of raw materials and agrarian commodities retained its dominance well into the 19th century. Early modern East-Central Europe, therefore, did not form an economically homogeneous territory and structural differences rather tended to grow. This implies that the periphery and refeudalization thesis traditionally applied to the whole of East Central Europe is as simplifying as it is imprecise. If the famous theory about cities being islands of capitalism in the feudal sea was long ago rebuffed by western scholars as baseless, it would be even less valid in the context of early modern East-Central Europe. The response of royal cities, privileged hubs of medieval trade and craft, upon structural economic changes and market transformation was utterly conservative. By opting for a protective policy and more strict regulations on production they partially petrified the medieval guild system which did not press for technological innovations and proved unable to expand. The rigid mentality of guild producers had far-reaching consequences as in the course of the 17th century many royal cities started to become feudal islands in a protocapitalist and protoindustrial sea. Probably the most blatant was this development in the Bohemian lands where the protoindustrial tendencies appeared earlier than in other 125 F. Hejl and R. Fišer, ‘Obchod východoslovenských miest zo zahraničím v 17. storočí’, Historický časopis, 6 (1984), pp. 926–938.

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parts of East Central Europe. The Viennese government attempted to reform the inflexible guild socialism as late as the 18th century and its interventions were usually inconsistent and insufficient.126 It was rather the more flexible and efficient economies of the noble, church and crown feudal domains based upon the division of labour between the countryside and city that became the true driving forces of protoindustrialization. Entrepreneurs introducing technological innovations were thus feudal lords rather than burghers. This explains why most manufactories emerged in private towns and not in royal cities where local guilds would emphatically resist the progressive change of production. Indeed, manufactories established by burghers themselves were rare. In the Silesian city of Brieg the textile manufactory was set up by the urban government after 1700 but the enterprise soon fell short.127

Bělina, Česká města v 18. století, pp. 7–70. G. Otruba, ‘Manufaktur und Stadt – bzw. deren Bedeutung für die Entstehung “Zentraler Orte” im Alpen – und Donauraum’, in Frühsorge, G. and H. Klueting and F. Kopitzsch (eds), Stadt und Bürger im 18. Jahrhundert (Marburg 1993), p. 180. 126

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CHAPTER EIGHT

Conclusion In his recently published study about urban Europe, 1100–1700 David Nicholas has developed the continuity thesis. In his own words, the distinction that is commonly made between ‘medieval’ and ‘early modern’ is essentially irrelevant in the study of urban history, and indeed is a positive hindrance to our understanding. While all but one of the other existing treatments of European cities use this periodisation, I see an essential continuity of urban economic, social, cultural and governmental forms and ethical structures across these centuries.1

By discussing, from a comparative perspective, the major parameters of urban life in the 16th–17th century East-Central Europe, this book makes a clear compromise between the two opposite approaches. Everywhere in the text it is argued that until the 18th century the idea of a city as a closed and harmonious community survived in urban legislation, urban historiography and, most importantly, in the hearts and minds of ordinary town dwellers. At the same time, however, the principles upon which the notion of a medieval city rested were quickly corroding before they eventually collapsed. The book explores those processes that affected virtually all towns and cities in the area, irrespective of their size and function, and that had the potential to fundamentally change the life of the individual town dweller, the social structure of the urban population and the status of the city vis-à-vis the external world. These processes embraced early modern urbanization, ethnic, culturally and confessionally diversified immigration, urban Reformation, structural shifts in the economy and, finally, the unprecedented expansion of state administration. Generally speaking, the macro-analytical approach applied in this monograph has revealed several things. The first issue to be highlighted is the very nature of early modern urban change. It is most likely that an urban traveller in 1700 would have seen a similar picture of the city and urban society as would his predecessor in 1500. Outwardly, no significant changes in urban life had occurred or they were hardly visible to an external observer. In 1500 as in 1700, it was the city walls that were perceived as undisputed symbols of urbanity. More importantly, the chief urban institutions, such as the city councils, guilds and municipal law, retained their traditional structure and old medieval urban rituals and customs, such as those connected with the installation of new urban governments, were still kept alive as symbols of continuity and the city’s autonomous republican constitution. In most cases, however, they were increasingly nothing but a historical residue in the gradually changing social, political and economic environment of Europe around 1700. 1 D. Nicholas, Urban Europe 1100–1700 (Basingstoke – New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2003), p. viii.

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This implies that the early modern urban change was functional rather than structural as the original institutions gradually ceased to serve their original purpose, that is to embody the urban autonomy and urban republicanism. Instead, like the urban guilds, they either gradually became obsolete and unneeded or they found themselves on the way to being metamorphosed into basic administrative units of a greater political order, that is the early modern state. Consider the investiture of new city councillors, one of the oldest and most celebrated urban rituals. Once based upon the rotation principle and at least formal election, from the mid-17th century it was replaced in many cities by appointments for life and the medieval ceremony thus became a mere formality. In Bohemia, for example, this reform was codified in 1737 by the emperor’s decree.2 Urban guilds also vindicated their existence, but following the loss of their political power they were deprived of their dominant position in the economy by the mushrooming manufactories. From the last decades of the 17th century the Habsburg court economists repeatedly pressed for their abolishment but an appeal to their importance as a policing and disciplinary force in the context of the city prevented such a radical step. The weakening of the economic hegemony of the guilds as well as the restriction of their autonomy brought an interesting side effect. As a sign of instinctive defence against progressive changes, the fraternities of urban artisans began to place exalted emphasis upon their guild’s past, solidarity and concord among their members as well as their minute knowledge of the guild’s rules, freedoms and rights. Paradoxically, guild festivities and medieval rituals, which in preceding centuries often fell into oblivion, were resuscitated in around 1700 and saw their last golden age. At the same time, it was not exceptional that masters and apprentices knew the entire written order of their guild by heart. Fortifications, the visual symbols of the closed nature of medieval urban societies and the autonomy of cities, still stood, but they were losing their original purpose, and in the 18th century they had already begun to hinder the expansion of urban space and its reorganization. Though increasingly obsolete, these old signs of the past retained their key importance in the mentality of town dwellers as they were inseparably linked with the medieval collective identity of the burghers. The past was understandable and familiar to the community of town dwellers, but the future, bringing innovations and questioning traditional values, remained uncertain, unclear and therefore suspect. In a way, the story of urban societies in the early modern period typified the classical example of dichotomic development. The European economy as well as the political and cultural climate altered considerably during the 16th – 17th centuries, but urban patriotism and the medieval collectivist principles of urban life mostly found themselves antagonistic to all these changes and emphatically resisted them. The principles of a closed urban community still persisted in the 18th century, but the progress to an open urban society proved unstoppable. In a way, the story of a medieval city in decline, as fabricated by the 17th–18th century urban historiography, retained its impact upon the modern Czech, Slovak, Polish and Hungarian scholarship and was ultimately rebutted after 1960s. For example, not a few Czech historians 2 J. Čelakovský, ‘Úřad podkomořský v Čechách’, Časopis Musea království českého, 51 (1877), p. 19.

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spoke about the golden age of cities when referring to the 16th century but for the subsequent two hundred years they used the term the age of darkness. The concept of the early modern city applied in this book as well as the logic of narration renders somewhat unexpected results. In historical scholarship the city has usually been viewed as the cradle of economic, social and cultural progress. In other words, those terms such as modernization and protoindustrialization have traditionally been connected with the urban environment. Fernand Braudel, for example, saw capitalism and protoindustrialization as inseparable from the city and urban society. While developing the city/capitalism thesis, Marxist scholarship applied the concept to the social issue as well. The Marxists found the first symptoms of the crisis of feudalism in the social conflicts in early modern cities, mostly interpreted in terms of a class struggle. In this monograph, however, medieval and early modern urban society defines itself in an utterly different way – as a conservative, passive and, in the ideal case, self-regulating entity responding rather unwillingly to impulses that mostly came from the outside. Occasionally, these impulses – above all the Reformation – were utilized as instruments reinforcing the medieval urban constitution and conservative community values. Yet another inference may be drawn from a comparison of the early modern urban societies in the Bohemian lands, Poland–Lithuania and Royal Hungary. Although all the cities and towns in East-Central Europe were sooner or later confronted with the Reformation, early modern urbanization, economic changes and rising state power, the variables had a differing impact on urban societies. This supports the argument that early modern East-Central Europe can not be perceived as a unified whole but rather as a cluster of territories with an autonomous political, economic and social development. Consider for example the nature of city/state relations in Bohemia and Royal Prussia. In the 16th century both regions were still comparable in terms of the level of urbanization, urban autonomy and the political aspirations of the burgher estate. Yet the dichotomous development of state structures in Poland and the Habsburg monarchy predestined a different fate for them after 1600. While the Bohemian cities, under dramatic circumstances, eventually lost their medieval autonomy and succumbed to the centralized state power, the affluent Royal Prussian cities managed to vindicate much of their self-governing rights vis-à-vis the expanding but highly decentralized and militarily increasingly feeble Polish-Lithuanian noble republic and they continuously enjoyed an unprecedented level of independence from the state until the tragic fall of the Commonwealth at the end of the 18th century. The nature of urbanization trends in the Bohemian lands and Poland–Lithuania also testified to the diverse outcomes of typologically similar processes. While in the former, the early modern urbanization took place mostly within pre-existing urban structures, in the heavily underurbanized Polish and Lithuanian territories the process was rather marked by the mushrooming of new towns and cities. In the sphere of economy, territorially diversified development was increasingly visible during the early modern period. This referred, above all, to the principal trends in the Hungarian and Polish economies as compared, for instance, to the economic structure in Silesia or Bohemia. Because of the concurrent impact of political as well as purely economic factors, urban production and trade in Poland and Hungary became increasingly oriented towards agriculture which, in the long run, resulted in the agrarianization

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of urban life and the comparatively late evolution of protoindustrial forms of urban manufacture. These structural changes decisively influenced the process of shaping the economic profile of both countries in the 17th–19th centuries. As late as 1776, Adam Smith in his pioneering book The Wealth of Nations still described Poland as the region where the feudal system persisted and which ‘is at this day as beggarly a country as it was before the discovery of America’.3 Our survey, however, also indicated the existence of some universal features in the development of East-Central European urban societies, though in this respect a broader comparison with trends in other European regions would be particularly useful. In his study of the urban Reformation in Germany, Heinz Schilling argues that by adopting the Protestant faith and subordinating Church structures to municipal supervision, cities de facto reinforced their autonomy on both the ecclesiastical and lay authorities. Similarly, Bernd Moeller in his seminal monograph Reichsstadt und Reformation points out that of the 65 Imperial cities more than 50 adopted the Reformation and the majority of them retained their purely Protestant nature while several others tolerated Catholic alongside Protestant congregations. Only an insignificant minority of Imperial cities, says the author, later succumbed to pressures from the external Catholic power and returned to the Roman Church.4 Also in the context of the nascent Habsburg Empire, as Robert J.W. Evans tells us, the urban Reformation loosened the ties between towns and their overlords and facilitated a more autonomous policy of royal cities vis-à-vis the Crown. In his excellent monograph The Making of the Habsburg Monarchy 1550 – 1700, Evans argues that ‘the principal political beneficiaries of Protestant advance were the estates: nobles and cities in the various territories. Freeing them from the rivalry of prelates, the new religion gave them an access of strength and confidence in their dealings with the still Catholic prince’.5 This issue is certainly one of those that deserves more attention by Czech, Polish, Hungarian and Slovakian scholars, therefore Chapter Five could render only tentative conclusions. Nevertheless, I believe that in the long run the adoption of the urban Reformation by the relatively weak and small cities in East-Central Europe undermined their medieval autonomy and substantially contributed to their political decline. With the exception of the militarily strong and affluent Royal Prussian cities, the controversies over confessional issues gave rulers and other external forces an ideal chance to intervene into urban affairs under the pretext of restoring Catholicism. Thus, everywhere in East-Central Europe the suppression of the urban Reformation was intimately linked with the expansion of the state administration at the expense of old urban rights and freedoms. Reformation, therefore, must be viewed by urban historians as a double-edged phenomenon. It made it possible for cities to get rid of alien autonomous entities and enhance the legal integrity of urban space by subordinating the Protestant Church and clergy to municipal administration. On the other hand, the Reformation inevitably produced confessional frontiers within A. Smith, The Wealth of Nations (London: Methuen 1982), pp. 345–346. B. Moeller, Reichsstadt und Reformation (Berlin 1987), p. 9. 5 R.J.W. Evans, The Making of the Habsburg Monarchy (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1998), p. 5. 3 4

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urban societies which made cities more vulnerable in their incoming conflict with the consolidating state power. The last inference to be drawn is not very encouraging as a large-scale investigation of urban life in early modern East-Central Europe has revealed the limits of the historian’s ability to find satisfactory material that allows for a methodologically sound comparison. The issue is not the paucity of sources, the nightmare of most historians, though the lack of archival material is responsible for our limited knowledge of the changeable confessional milieu in many East-Central European urban societies. Instead, it is the problem of comparable materials which seriously complicates the macroanalytical approach used in this book. In particular, the chapter on urban immigration, based on the registers of newly admitted burghers, comes across the question of interpretation and method. Not only that historians are only able to investigate the mobility of certain echelons of urban society covered by the municipal administration, but the criteria defining the limits of immigration, either religious, financial or economic, may have varied from city to city. This naturally makes the models of urban immigration as presented in Chapter Three open to potential revision, provided that a different methodology were applied or different sources, if they exist, were exploited.

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Hungary City Archives: Főváros Levéltára Budapest, Pest Leveltára, Buda Leveltára, Matricula Civium, 1686/7–1848. Soproni Levéltár, No. IV.A. 1003.g, Bürgebücher der Stadt Sopron, nrs I–VIII. Slovakia City Archives: Archiv mesta Bratislavy, Bürger Buch der Stadt Preßburg ab Anno 1630 bis 1683, nr. 2 el. Archiv mesta Košíc, knihy, Liber Neo-Concivium, nr. H III/2 civ 1. State Regional Archives: Štátny oblastný archiv Bytča, Archiv Turčianskej župy, Archiv Liptovskej župy, archiv Oravskej župy. Štátny oblastný archiv Prešov, Magistrát mesta Prešova, Knihy, nr. 2118. Štátny oblastný archiv Levoča, Magistrát mesta Levoča, Bürgerrechtsbuch 1550– 1680, nr. 49. Poland State Regional Archives: Archiwum państwowe Kraków, oddzial Bochnia, Akta miasta Bochni, ASB 71 Archiwum państwowe Przemyśl, Cathalogus civium civitatis Praemisliensis ius civile acceptantium, nr. 429. Archiwum państwowe Sandomierz, Akta miasta Sandomierza, nrs 13, 14. Archiwum państwowe Poznań, Akta miasta Kościan, Acta spectabilis consulatus civitatis Kostensis I/119. Germany City Archives: Stadtarchiv Bautzen, Rats-Protocolle, nos 1–31. Johann Gottfried Herder-Institut, Marburg: Willkühr der Stadt Dirschau 1582, microfilm nr. 2380.

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new burghers in numbers

0 15

1 1–

0

50

100

150

200

250

0

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51 1 1–

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2 15

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4 15

54 1 1–

0

5 15

55 1 1–

0 1 1–

0

7 15

57

Prague

6 15

56 1 1–

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8 15

58

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9 15

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0

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Danzig

1 1–

1 1–

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1 1–

New burghers in Prague, Danzig and Cracow

Appendix A

0 6 16

66

1 1–

67

0

new burghers in numbers

0 15

1 1–

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5

10

15

20

25

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35

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9 15

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60

0 16

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61

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62

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63

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Žatec

1 1–

64

4 16

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65

5 16

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66

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1 1–

New burghers in Bohemian and Moravian towns (1)

Appendix B

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new burghers in numbers

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New burghers in Upper Lusatian towns

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  1                

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5

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Appendix F

New burghers in Polish towns

Index

Frequently mentioned names of countries and regions (Bohemia, Poland, Royal Prussia etc.) are not included. Aachen, 51, 86 Aberdeen, 52, 70 Albrecht of Austria, 165 Alnpek, Jan, 61 Amsterdam, 7, 51, 74, 75–6, 131, 223, 227 Anabaptists, 64, 142 Antwerp, 201 Arianism, 38 Armenians, Armenian, 39, 55, 59, 61–3, 76 106 Árva, 88 Augsburg, 85, 151, 198, 223, 227 Austria, Austrian Lands, 1–2, 14, 29, 35, 64 224, 229, 231 Bahlcke, Joachim, 182 Bairoch, Paul, 1, 8 Balaban, Majer, 84 Balkans, The, 2, 224 Bártfa, 45, 135, 157, 169, 220, 225, 233 Báthory, Stephen, King of Poland, 185–6, 190 Bautzen, 14, 30, 92, 146, 173, 175, 177 Bazin, 87, 232 Belgium, 29 Belzyt, Leszek, 65 Berlin, 89 Bernardin of Siena, 82 Besztercebánya, 68, 123, 130 Bethlen, Gábor, 113, 232 Biecz, 38, 47, 71 Bielski, Martin, 192 Bieniarzówna, Janina, 65, 67, 73 Biernat of Lublin, 192 Bochnia, 39, 70, 97, 112–13, 116 Bocskai, István, 110, 181, 232 Bodin, Jean, 133 Boel, Augustijn, 75 Bogucka, Maria, 84, 104, 110, 146, 209, 223

Bornbach, Stenzel, 122 Boskovice, 91, 96, 103 Brassó, 169 Braudel, Fernand, 200, 210, 220, 239 Braunsberg, 64 Brederode, Hendrik van, 75 Bremen, 40 Brenner, Robert, 211 Breslau, 6, 8, 13, 30, 36, 82, 89–90, 92, 107, 132–3, 147–9, 162, 166, 173, 175–7, 182, 203–4, 206, 209, 216, 219, 224, 227, 229 Brethren Unity (Unitas Fratrum), 44, 64, 168 Brieg, 235 Brody, 95 Březan, Václav, 78 British Isles, 1, 51, 54, 74, 76 Brno, 13, 30, 46, 67, 71, 73, 80, 92, 118, 127, 129, 139 Broumov, 44, 202, 224, 226–7 Brześć, 17, 92, 103 Bucer, Martin, 83 Buda, 20–21, 28, 30, 37–9, 42, 44–5, 50, 53, 68, 88–9, 157, 162, 173–4, 198 Bunzlau, 123, 140 Bussi, Jan Baptista, 73 Bydgoszcz, 17, 26, 229 Bytča, 71, 98 Calvinism, 144, 151 Capistrano, John, 82–3 Čáslav, 230 Cellari, 73 Cellarius, Andreas, 98 Česká Lípa, 35, 38, 43, 227 České Budějovice, 25, 143, 183, 229–30 Český Brod, 25, 219, 230 Charles IV, emperor, 185

286

URBAN SOCIETIES IN EAST-CENTRAL EUROPE, 1500–1700

Cheb, 25, 42, 46, 124, 207 Chmielnicki, Bohdan, 47, 88, 90, 91, 103–4, 106 Chřibská, 227 Cieszkowski, Tomasz, 113 Cieszkowski, Stanislaw, 113 Closed society, 4 Coesfeld, 40 Collective nobility, 113 Collegium Nordicum, 64 Colmar, 85 Cologne/Köln, 7, 85, 123 Communal order, 100–101, 127 Compactates of Jihlava, 144 Concordia, 127, 179 Confessionalization, 142 Confessio Heptapolitana, 150 Confessio Pentapolitana, 150 Confessio Scepusiana, 150 Connor, Bernard, 9, 65, 98, 100, 112, 193 Conti, Anthoni, 71 Corvinus, Matthias, King of Hungary, 53, 174 Cossacks, 84, 91 Council of the four lands (Waad Arba Aracot), 101–3, 106 Cowan, Alexander, 1 Cracow, 6, 18, 23–4, 26, 30, 36, 38, 42–4, 46, 48, 51–3, 61, 67, 70, 72–3, 75, 80, 85–6, 88, 92, 94, 100, 103–4, 110–113, 115–16, 124, 129, 137–8, 172–4, 178, 203, 206, 209, 222, 224, 233–4 Croatia, 21 Curaeus, Joachim, 13 Curicke, Reinhold, 130, 133, 158–9 Cvikov, 227 Czartoryski, 96 Dačický, Mikuláš of Heslov, 66 Da Nova, Ercole, 72–3 Danzig, 6–8, 10, 16, 23–4, 26, 30–31, 36, 41–6, 48, 50–52, 60–61,65, 67, 70, 74–6, 93, 104, 106, 118–19, 122–3, 125, 128–31, 133, 136–8, 146–7, 150, 156, 158–9, 162, 166, 168, 173–4, 179–80, 185–6, 188–91, 204, 209, 213, 216–17, 223–4, 229 Debrecen, 20 Delpace, 72–3 De non tolerandis Christianis, 100 De non tolerandis Judaeis, 93–4, 99

Dietrichstein, Francis, bishop of Olomouc, 39 Dietz, Johann, 89 Dlugosz, Jan, 83, 192 Domažlice, 25, 43, 71, 219, 229 Dortmund, 86 Dřímal, Jaroslav, 126 Dvorníky, 232 Dworzaczek, Wlodzimierz, 113 Dworzackowa, Jolanta, 148 Dyxon, Alexander, 70 Eastland Company, 51, 76, 191 Edirne, 89 Efendi, Ferdi, 89 Elbe, 67 Elbing, 16, 26, 31, 51–2, 60, 74–6, 124, 129, 137–8, 146, 150, 158, 162, 168, 174, 179–80, 185–6,188–91, 209, 216, 223 Elders, 101, 127, 134–6, 138–9 Emden, 51, 75 Eperjes, 21, 28, 37, 42, 44–5, 53, 88, 116, 135, 157, 162, 169, 198, 220, 233 Erfurt, 123, 216 Erzgebirge (Krušné Hory), 12, 230 Esken, Franz, 136 Essen, 95 Esztergom, 144, 157, 174, 233 Evans, Robert John Weston, 240 Execution of the Laws, 187 Exile city, 8 Fabian, Sebastian of Klonowicz, 109, 212 Ferber, Eberhard, 119, 129 Ferdinand I, King of Bohemia, 86–7, 104, 130, 151, 176–7, 182 Ferdinand II, emperor, 39, 160, 184 Fischer, Anna, 81 Flagellum Judeorum, 82, 84 Folk, Jan, 82, 98 Folwark, 205, 218 France, 22, 29, 50, 76, 82, 85, 156, 160 Frankfurt, 7, 51, 86, 93, 123 Frederick II of Liegnitz, 129, 143 Freiberg, 229 Friedrich, Karin, 65, 168, 179 Friedrichs, Christopher, 1 Friedwald, Michael, 186 Frýdlant, 224, 227 Fügedi, Erik, 231 Fürth, 95

INDEX Fusselius, Michael, 57 Galánta, 232 Galgocz, 88, 232 Geneva, 159 George of Poděbrady, King of Bohemia, 166 Germany, German Lands, 1–2, 7, 22, 29–30, 51, 60, 64–6, 74–6, 86, 93, 95, 101, 126, 152, 156, 203, 215–16, 224, 231, 240 Gewandschneider, 223, 227 Ghetto, 85–6, 90–91, 94, 96, 99–100, 102 Glatz, 224, 225 Glogau, 25, 83, 90, 149, 177, 224–5 Gniezno, 26, 92, 94, 112–13, 116, 172, 174 Goldberg, Jacob, 84, 103 Góra Śląska, 225 Górka, Stanislaw, 151 Górski, Maciej, 151 Görlitz, 14, 25, 30, 42, 47, 92, 124, 146, 173, 175, 224–5 Goslar, 123 Gostomski, Anzelm, 152, 205 Graudenz, 16, 26 Greece, 4 Grodno, 104 Grunau, Simon, 128 Guild, 3, 34, 36, 40–41, 52, 54, 65, 67–9, 71, 75, 90, 93, 101, 103–5, 109, 120, 125, 136, 138, 184, 190, 203, 205–7, 227, 229, 234–5, 237–8 Guldon, Zenon, 94 Habsburgs, 20–21, 50, 53, 66, 86, 90, 97, 99, 110, 143, 145, 150–151, 153, 159–60, 180–182, 190, 194 Habsburg monarchy, empire, 2, 14, 156, 239–40 Hájek, Václav of Libočany, 11, 77, 83 Hakohen, Joseph, 88 Halberstadt, 95 Hall, 213 Hamburg, 7, 86, 90, 93, 227 Hammerschmid, Jan Floryán, 185 Hanseatic League, 75, 166 Hartknoch, Christoph, 167 Heilbronn, 85 Henelius, Nicolaus, 13 Hertwig, Christoff, 129 Hesse, 22 Heylyn, Peter, 11

287

Hildesheim, 95 Hohenberg, Paul M., 1 Holešov, 91, 97 Holy Roman Empire, 2, 23, 43, 49–50, 54, 85, 93, 123, 156 Horn, Maurycy, 95, 105 Hradec Králové, 25, 119, 124, 130, 145, 229–30 Hrubý, František, 214 Hussite revolution, reformation, 65, 67, 77, 117, 139, 144, 149, 163–5, 168 Iberian Peninsula, 29, 85 Incorporation Act, 166, 189 Indygenat, 71, 114 Innsbruck, 213 Inowrocław, 17, 26 Ireland, 29, 52 Ispán, 181 Istanbul, 89 Italian Chapel (vlašská kaple), 78 Italian Hospital (vlašský špitál), 78 Italian Street, 78 Italian Market (vlašský plac), 78 Italy, Italian peninsula, 1–2, 7, 22, 29, 50–51, 53, 71, 80, 82 Italians, 53–4, 59, 61, 71–4, 76–81, 106 Ius indigenatus, 179, 188 Ius reformandi, 150 Ivančice, 42, 44, 64, 102–3, 128 Jablonné, 227 Jáchymov, 24–5, 201, 229 Jägerndorf, 90 James I., King of England, Scotland and Ireland, 70, 76 Janáček, Jozef, 65, 221, 228 Jaroslaw, 102–3 Jauer, 25, 83, 129 Jesuits, 77–9 Jew, Jews, 4–5, 38–40, 59–61, 63–4, 75, 78, 80–106, 147 Jewish guild, 101, 104–5 Jewish prefect, 87 Jewish tax, 89, 99, 102, 105 Jezierski, Franciszek Salezy, 116 Jihlava, 13, 24–5, 30, 42, 46, 67, 124, 129, 136, 139, 144, 182, 224, 226–8 Jindřichův Hradec, 24, 224 Jirásek, Alois, 192 Jiřetín, 227

288

URBAN SOCIETIES IN EAST-CENTRAL EUROPE, 1500–1700

Jordánková, Hana, 138 Joseph II, emperor, 210 Judenschaft deutscher Nation, 101 Jurkowski, Jan, 192 Jurydyki, 94, 108, 118, 148, 152, 208

Krzystanek, Karol, 94 Kubinyi, András, 53, 169–70, 198 Kulm, 117, 138, 179, 188 Kutná Hora, 25, 66, 72, 134, 173, 183, 229–30

Kaczkowski, Zygmunt, 116 Kadaň, 219, 229 Kaiserliche Kommission zur Einrichtung Ungarns, 50 Kaiserová, Kristina, 129 Kamieniec Podolski, 62, 94 Kamenz, 42, 175 Karlowski, Mathias de Edenborg, 70 Karmichel, Jakub, 70 Karnkowski Statutes, 190 Kassa, 21, 28, 30, 35, 42, 44, 111, 116, 157, 162, 169, 174, 198, 215–16, 220, 233 Kavka, František, 212 Kazimierz, 26, 85–6, 92, 94–5, 104 Kehilla, 105 Kejř, Jiří, 9 Kepno, 105 Késmárk, 28, 156, 157 Kessler, Johann, 88 Kiev, 62 Kismárton, 88 Klatovský, Ennius Šimon, 57 Klatovy, 230 Klonowic, Sebastian Fabian, 109, 212 Knittler, Herbert, 2 Kojetín, 10, 91 Kolín, 90 Kolozsvár, 68, 198 Königsberg, 26, 30, 51, 75, 124, 129, 168, 209, 223 Konitz, 26, 38, 43, 47 Körmöcbánya, 28, 229 Korpona, 68, 116 Kościan, 42, 225 Kościelecki, Janusz, 151 Kostelec nad Černými lesy, 136 Kot, Stanislaw, 98 Kouřim, 212 Krajské zřízení, 176 Královský rychtář, 183 Krasicki, Ignacy, 193 Krasiński, Gabriel, 79 Krochmal, Menachem Mendl, 102 Kromer, Marcin, 15, 188, 192 Kruchsang, Georg, 70

Lambrecht, Karen, 65 Lament Korony Polskiej, 79 Land Rabbinate, 102 Landrecht, 37, 81, 171 Land Tables, 173 Language Act (1615), 66 Lanškroun, 224 Latin language, 6, 61, 128 Lauban, 175 Lebeda, Václav of Bedrštorff, 11 Lees, Lynn Hollen, 1 Leipzig, 223 Lengnich, Gottfried, 133, 158–9 Leszno, 41, 64, 95, 105, 202, 207, 225 Libeň, 86, 99 Liber chamorum, 114 Liberec, 24, 224, 227 Licko, Brikcí of, 132–3 Liechtenstein, Charles of, 90 Liegnitz, 25, 83, 227 Limburg, 123 Lindau, 85 Linz, 223 Lipník nad Bečvou, 91 Liptó, 88 Litoměřice, 25, 40, 90, 134 Litovel, 57 Löbau, 25, 43, 175 Lőcse, 21, 26, 30, 35, 42, 44, 47, 146, 162, 169, 220, 233–4 London, 7, 51, 72 Long sixteenth century, 33 Loštice, 10 Loufsz, Cornelis, 74–5 Louis II Jagiello, King of Hungary, 87, 170 Louny, 124, 164, 184, 213, 219, 229 Low Countries, 1, 7, 50–52, 54, 69, 72, 74–5, 228 Lublin, 18, 27, 42, 44, 49–50, 62, 94–5, 99–100, 102–3, 109, 111, 124, 128–9, 137–8, 172, 178, 188, 212, 215, 224 Lublin Union, (1569) 43, 178, 187–8 Lucca, 159 Luther, Martin, 83–4, 145–6

INDEX Lutheranism, 77, 117, 143–4, 146–7, 150–151, 183 Lutherans, 38, 135, 144–5, 147, 149, 151 Lwów, 17, 23, 27, 30, 39, 42, 48, 50, 52, 61–2, 71, 84, 92, 94–5, 99–100, 103–4, 112–13, 123, 137–8, 143–4, 146, 172, 174, 178, 222, 224 Macek, Jozef, 205, 213 Madrid, 7, 24, 155 Magister tavernicorum, 157, 170 Mainz, 123 Małecki, Jan M., 67 Mályusz, Elemér, 20, 169–70, 197 Mączak, Antoni, 225 Marian Congregation, 78 Maria Theresa, empress, 210 Marienburg, 16, 27, 42 Marlowe, Christopher, 81 Marriage agreements, 34 Marxist historiography, 140, 197 Mathis, Franz, 213 Maximilian II, emperor, 86, 190 Memmingen, 227 Mendl, Bedřich, 197 Mennonites, 60 Middleburg, 75 Międzychód, 35, 43 Międzyrzecz, 67, 151, 225 Mikulov, 64, 89, 91, 96, 102–3 Milan, 71 Minden, 95, 123 Mladá Boleslav, 90, 96 Modor, 156, 220, 233 Modrzewski, Andrzej Frycz, 193, 214 Moeller, Bernd, 125, 148, 240 Mohács, battle of, 21, 86–8, 146, 180 Moritz, Paul, 87 Moryson, Fynes, 10, 15, 70 Moscow, 155 Most, 43, 212, 213 Mucante, Jan, 61 Mühlhausen, 123 Mundy, Peter, 7, 70 Munka, Jan of Ivančice, 128 Münster, 85, 123 Münster, Sebastian, 11 Münsterberg, Bartholomeus of, 172 Muscovy, 23 Myszkowski, Mikolaj, 151

289

Nagyszombat, 28, 30, 87, 143, 220, 232 Natural decrease theory, 33 Nicholas, David, 237 Niemsta, Jerzy, 152 Nieszawa, 204 Nieszawa Statutes, 172 Nihil Novi, 172–3 Nördlingen, 85 Nuremberg, 7, 72, 85, 137, 198, 201, 204, 215–16, 222–3, 227, 231 Nyáry, Ferenc, 231 Nyitra, 88 Oath, 54, 58, 77, 133, 171 Óbuda, 30, 44 Ogleby, Patrick, 98 Oláh, Miklós, 157 Olbracht, Jan, King of Poland, 85 Old Scottland, 93 Olkusz, 27, 124, 201 Olomouc, 13, 24–5, 30, 37, 39, 42, 48, 57, 64, 67, 81, 84, 93, 118, 123, 128–9, 139, 148, 206, 216–18, 222, 224, 227 Opaliński, Krzysztof, 83, 115, 193, 204–5 Opatów, 95 Open society, 3 Oppeln, 25, 89, 224 Oppidum, oppida, 9–10 Orsetti, 73 Orzechowski, Kazimierz, 177 Orzechowski, Stanislaw, 109 Osiander, Andreas, 83 Osnabrück, 123 Osoblaha, 96 Ostroróg, Jakub, 109, 152 Ostroróg, Stanislaw, 152 Ottersdorf, Sixt of, 130, 183 Ottoman empire, 89, 198 Ottomans, 20, 37, 50, 84, 88–9 Ozment, Steven O., 125 Pach Pál, Zsigmond, 198 Pánek, Jaroslav, 182 Parczew, 103 Paris, 7 Pasquina, Pietro della, 73 Pavlát, Jan of Olšany, 120 Pelhřimov, 224 Pernštejn, Vilém of, 102

290

URBAN SOCIETIES IN EAST-CENTRAL EUROPE, 1500–1700

Pest, 28, 30, 34, 37–9, 42, 44–5, 48–50, 53, 110, 157 Peter the Great, 155 Petersburg, 155 Petersen, Heidemarie, 100 Petrycy of Pilsno, Sebastian, 178, 192 Pilsen, 6, 26, 38, 40, 42, 57, 76–9, 124, 129, 143, 160–161, 183, 216, 219, 230 Pinocci, Hieronymus, 72–3 Piotrków, 27, 107, 187, 230 Pirenne, Henri, 197–8, 210 Płock, 15, 27 Pohořelice, 102 Popper, Karl, Sir, 3–4 Potocki, Jedrzej, 62 Poznań, 23–4, 27, 30, 38, 42, 47, 67, 92, 94–5, 99, 103–4, 111–12, 115, 123, 151–2, 172, 178, 207–8, 224 Pozsony, 6, 21, 23–4, 28, 30, 35, 42, 44, 87–9, 93, 107, 111, 116, 149, 157, 162, 174, 220, 232–3 Prague, 6–8, 23–4, 26, 30, 34, 36, 40–46, 48, 50, 53, 55, 64, 66, 72–3, 76–82, 84, 86, 89–92, 94–5, 98–9, 101–5, 107, 118–19, 121, 123, 130, 134–5, 144, 147, 162, 164–6, 173–4, 183–5, 204, 206, 209, 213, 217, 222, 224, 230 Prostějov, 26, 91, 96, 103, 120, 205 Pruský, Rafael of Prusy, 81 Przemyśl, 27, 39, 42, 47, 92, 100, 104, 124, 230 Ptaśnik, Jan, 197 Pufendorf, Samuel, 19, 193 Pushkin, Aleksandr Sergeyevich, 155 Rabbi, 102 Raguza, 159 Raiser, Elisabeth, 215, 216 Rákóczi uprising, 38, 45, 194 Rakovník, 35, 43, 219 Rakovský, Martin, 57 Ratibor, 26, 89 Rau, Susanne, 142 Ravensburg, 85 Rawa, 15, 152 Regensburg, 85 Reinhard, Wolfgang, 142 Rej, Mikolaj, 79, 193 Richards, Jacob, 89 Riga, 223 Roe, Thomas, 76

Rohonc, 233 Roman law, 136 Rome, 62, 77, 166, 183 Rothenburg, 85, 216 Rottál, Jan of, 97 Rotterdam, 75 Roudnice nad Labem, 90, 96 Rudolph II, emperor, 79, 86, 94, 218 Rudolphine’s Prague, 64, 72, 230 Rumburk, 227 Russia, 50, 155 Ruthenians, Ruthenian, 39, 62–3, 96–7 Rybiński, Jan, 67 Rzeszów, 105 Salzburg, 213 Sandiland, James, 76 Sandomierz, 18, 27, 94–5, 178 Sántha, Ambrosius, 231 Sarmatism, Sarmatians, Sarmatization, 108–9, 115–16, 167–8, 192 Sarnicki, Stanislaw, 192 Sárospátak, 98 Saxony, 1, 14, 22, 28, 143, 145, 229 Schilling, Heinz, 2, 51, 125–8, 131, 142, 240 Schottland, 217 Schramm, Gottfried, 125, 143, 146 Schwäbisch-Gmünd, 123 Schwäbisch Hall, 215 Schweidnitz, 26, 83, 124, 129, 177, 219, 227, 229 Schweinfurt, 123 Scots, Scottish, 40, 51–2, 55, 59, 69–71, 76, 80, 106 Scribner, Robert W., 125 Second Treaty of Thorn, 17 Sejm, 37, 69, 94, 103, 115, 167, 172, 174, 178, 185, 187–8, 189, 191, 193 Sejmiki, 178, 187 Ségur, Louis-Phillipe de, 10 Sforza, Bona, Queen of Poland, 53 Sibutus, Georgius, 57 Sigismund August, King of Poland, 186 Sigismund, King of Hungary and Bohemia, 165, 169 Sigismund the Old, King of Poland, 53, 71, 203 Sienkiewicz, Henryk, 192 Skalice, 83 Skrbenský, Jan of Hříště, 217 Slaný, 26, 164, 230

INDEX Šluknow, 227 Šmahel, František, 165 Smith, Adam, 240 Sobieski, Jan, King of Poland, 9, 63, 71 Socinianism, 38 Sokolów, 105 Sopron, 21, 28, 43, 87, 157, 169, 220, 233 Spain, 29, 82, 156 Speculum Judeorum, 82, 84 Speyer, 40, 123 Špiesz, Anton, 68 Städtetag, 171, 176–7 Stanislawów, 62, 208 Starosta, 94, 115, 138, 144, 151–2, 176, 190–191 Starowolski, Szymon, 159, 193 Statut Ormiański, 62 Statutes of Moravian Jewry (Šaj Takanot), 102 Stein, Bartholomeus, 132–3, 148, 203 Steinberg, Michael, 129 Stettin, 51 St. Kliment church, 78 St. Mary’s church, 107 Stolzenberg, 217 Stoneworker, 49, 53, 71, 76 Stránský, Pavel, 66–7, 132 Strasbourg, 85 Strážnice, 102 Striegau, 26, 83, 124 Stryjkowski, Maciej, 192 Stryków, 225 Studer, Barbara, 40 St. Wenceslas Treaty, 164, 172, 208 Sulitková, Ludmila, 71, 138 Sweden, 36, 41 Swedish Deluge, 19, 23–4, 47, 88 Synagogue, 83, 93, 97 Szákaly, Ferenc, 199 Szakolca, 143 Szapolyai, John, King of Hungary, 87 Szeben, 28, 169 Szeged, 157 Székesfehérvár, 174 Szelényi, Balázs, 199 Szenc, 87, 232 Szentgyörgy, 156 Szered, 232 Szűcs, Jenö, 198 Taqanot Qraqa, 100 Tartars, 61

291

Tazbir, Janusz, 59 Teplice, 90 Teutonic Knights/Order, 17, 117, 166–8, 171, 179, 186 Thijs, Hans, 75–6 Third Order, 93, 138 Thirteen Years War, 167 Thirty Years War, 5, 12–13, 22–4, 30–31, 43, 45–6, 91, 120, 137, 145, 160, 184, 195, 214, 218, 228, 230 Thorn, 16–17, 24, 27, 31, 42, 51, 70, 75, 92, 124, 128, 136, 146, 150, 158, 162, 174, 179–80, 185–6, 188–90, 204, 216 Thuringia, 22 Thurzó, György, 71, 98 Tokay, 219, 220 Tomicki, Jan, 152 Topolski, Jerzy, 96, 224 Tóth, István György, 114 Transylvania, 20–21, 64, 98 Trencsén, 88 Trepka, Nekanda Walerian, 114–15 Třebíč, 96 Turks, 23, 61, 82 Turóc, 88 Tykocin, 27, 92, 95, 103 Uherský Brod, 91 Uherské Hradiště, 13, 41, 53 Uličný, Ferdinand, 68 Ulm, 85, 215–16 Uničov, 13 Ústí nad Labem, 26, 183, 229–30 Utraquism, 144–5 Velké Meziříčí, 40, 43, 97 Venice, 7, 201 Viatis und Peller, 223, 227, 228 Vienna, 30, 86, 88–9, 94, 96, 174, 223 Visegrád, 174 Vistula, 47, 185, 190, 204, 209 Vodňany, 35, 43, 53, 136 Vrat, Pašek of, 135, 147 Vrchlabí, 227 Vries, Jan de, 1, 8, 29 Wallachians, 61 Wallerstein, Immanuel, 197, 200, 234 Warmoesstraat, 74

292

URBAN SOCIETIES IN EAST-CENTRAL EUROPE, 1500–1700

Warsaw, 6, 15, 24, 30, 36, 40, 42–4, 46, 48–9, 75, 98, 107, 111–12, 114, 124, 137–8, 143–4, 146, 152, 155, 178, 209, 212, 222 Weber, Max, 4, 197, 210 Werbőczy, István, 157, 170 Werdeman’s banking house, 72 Wesselényi plot, 158, 194 White Mountain, 14, 63, 66, 73, 76–7, 80, 117–18, 144, 176, 182, 184, 225 Wilno, 27, 93, 113, 124, 138, 146, 178 Winter, Zikmund, 66, 192, 197 Wittenberg, 145–6 Wladyslaw IV, King of Poland, 186 Wladyslaw Jagiello, King of Bohemia, 171 Wladyslaw Land Constitution, 171, 173 Wlocławek, 27 Wolski, Zygmunt, 152 Worms, 86, 93, 123

Wschówa, 67, 124, 151 Württemberg, 22 Zamość, 62, 95 Zamoyski, Jan, 109 Žatec, 26, 42, 124, 164 Zebrzydowski, rokosz of 23 Zeiller, Martin, 11 Zernecke, Jacob Heinrich, 136 Žilina, 68 Zimányi, Véra, 220 Zimorowicz, Józef Bartłómiej, 192 Zips region, 68 Zittau, 14, 26, 30, 175, 229 Zlín, 10 Znojmo, 13, 26, 67, 123, 129, 139 Zombor, 233 Zülz, 90