Magdeburg rights

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Magdeburg rights

Magdeburg Rights or Magdeburg Law were a set of German town law

German town law

German town law or German municipal concerns concerns town privileges used by many cities, towns, and villages throughout Central Europe and Eastern Europe during the Middle Ages....
s regulating the degree of internal autonomy within cities and villages granted with it by a local ruler. Modelled and named after the laws of Magdeburg

Magdeburg

Magdeburg , the Capital of the States of Germany of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, lies on the Elbe River and was one of the most important medieval cities of Europe....
developed during many centuries of the Holy Roman Empire

Holy Roman Empire

The Holy Roman Empire was a union of territories in Central Europe during the Middle Ages and the Early modern Europe under a Holy Roman Emperor....
, it was possibly the most important set of Germanic mediæval

Middle Ages

File:Karl 1 mit papst gelasius gregor1 sacramentar v karl d kahlen.jpgThe Middle Ages of European history are a period in history which lasted for roughly a millennium, commonly dated from the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century to the beginning of the Early Modern Period in the 16th century, marked by the division of Western Christi...
city laws. Adopted by numerous monarchs in Central and Eastern Europe, the law was a milestone in urbanization of the region and prompted the development of thousands of villages and cities.

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Magdeburg Rights or Magdeburg Law were a set of German town law

German town law

Magdeburg

Holy Roman Empire

Middle Ages

Biecz

Biecz [] - town and municipality in south-eastern Poland, in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, in Gorlice Countydrobne, in the Carpathian Mountains....
, Frysztak

Frysztak

Frysztak is a village in the Frysztak commune, Strzyz?w County, in the historical region often referred to as Galicia , Subcarpathian Voivodeship, Poland, 17 km from Krosno, with 950 total inhabitants....
, Sandomierz

Sandomierz

Sandomierz is a city in south-eastern Poland with 25,714 inhabitants .Situated in the Swietokrzyskie Voivodeship , previously in Tarnobrzeg Voivodeship ....
, Kraków

Kraków

Krak?w , in English also spelled Krakow or Cracow , is one of the largest and oldest cities in Poland, with a population of 756,336 in 2007 ....
, Kurów

Kurow

Kurow is a town in the Waitaki Valley in the South Island of New Zealand. It lies in the Waitaki District within the northern part of the Otago, New Zealand Regions of New Zealand, 55 kilometres inland from Oamaru....
, Poznan

Poznan

Poznan is a city in west-central Poland with over 567,882 inhabitants . Located on the Warta River, it is one of the oldest cities in Poland, making it an important historical centre and a vibrant centre of trade, industry, and education....
, Ropczyce

Ropczyce

Ropczyce [] is a town in Subcarpathian Voivodeship in south-eastern Poland, situated in the Valley the Wielopolka River and is inhabited by 15,098 people . It is the county seat of Ropczyce-Sedzisz?w County....
, Wroclaw

Wroclaw

Wroclaw is the chief city of the historical region of Lower Silesia in south-western Poland, situated on the Oder River river. Over the centuries the city has been part of Kingdom of Poland , Bohemia, Austria, Prussia, and Germany....
, Zlotoryja

Zlotoryja

Zlotoryja [] is a town in Lower Silesian Voivodeship, southwestern Poland. It is located in the Kaczawa river valley, close to Legnica. It is the seat of Zlotoryja County, and of the smaller district of Gmina Zlotoryja ....
, Vilnius

Vilnius

Vilnius is the largest city and the Capital of Lithuania, with a population of 555,613 as of 2008. It is the seat of the Vilnius city municipality and of the Vilnius district municipality....
, Trakai

Trakai

Trakai is a historic city and lake resort in Lithuania. It lies 28 km west of Vilnius, capital of Lithuania. Because of its proximity to Vilnius, Trakai is a popular tourist destination....
, Kaunas

Kaunas

Kaunas is the second largest city in Lithuania and a Temporary capital of Lithuania. It is served by the freeways European route E67 and A1 highway ....
Hrodna

Hrodna

Hrodna or Grodno , is a city in Belarus. It is located on the Neman River , close to the borders of Poland and Lithuania . It has 325,164 inhabitants ....
, Kiev

Kiev

Kiev, also known as Kyiv , is the Capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River....
, Lviv

Lviv

Lviv is a major city in western Ukraine.It is regarded as one of the main Ukrainian culture. In 2001, it had 725,000 inhabitants, of whom 88 per cent were Ukrainians, 9 per cent Russians and 1 per cent Poles....
, Brody

Brody

Brody is a city in the Lviv Oblast of western Ukraine. It is the Capital city of the Brodivskyi Raion , and is located in the valley of the upper Styr, approximately 90 kilometres northeast of the oblast capital, Lviv....
, Lutsk

Lutsk

Lutsk is a city located by the Styr River in north-western Ukraine. It is the Capital city of the Volyn Oblast , as well as the administrative center of the surrounding Lutsky Raion within the oblast....
, Volodymyr-Volynskyi

Volodymyr-Volynskyi

Volodymyr-Volynskyi or Vladimir-Volynsky is a historic city located in the what is now Volyn Oblast , in north-western Ukraine. Serving as the Capital city of the Volodymyr-Volynskyi Raion , the city itself is also designated as a separate raion within the oblast....
, Sanok

Sanok

Sanok [] , part of The Land of Sanok , is a town in south-eastern Poland with 39,110 inhabitants, as of 30.06.2008.Sanok is situated in the Subcarpathian Voivodship ; previously, it was in Krosno Voivodship and in Ruthenian Voivodeship , which was part of the :pl:Malopolska ....
, Sniatyn

Sniatyn

Sniatyn is a city located in the Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, in western Ukraine. It is the Capital city of the Sniatynsky Raion , and is located at around ....
, and Nizhyn

Nizhyn

Nizhyn is a city located in the Chernihiv Oblast of northern Ukraine, along the Oster River, 150 km north-east of the nation's capital, Kiev....
, as well as Bardejov

Bardejov

B?rtfa is a town in North-Eastern Slovakia. It is situated in the ?ari? region and has about 33,000 inhabitants. The spa town, mentioned for the first time in 1241, exhibits numerous cultural monuments in its completely intact medieval town centre....
, Humenné

Humenné

Humenn? is a town in the Pre?ov Region in eastern Slovakia and the second largest town of the historic Zempl?n region. It lies at the volcanic Vihorlat mountains and at the confluence of the Laborec and Cirocha Rivers....
and Krupina

Krupina

Krupina is a town in southern central Slovakia. It is part of the Bansk? Bystrica Region and has 7,812 inhabitants as of 2005....
in present-day Slovakia

Slovakia

Slovakia . It was amended in September 1998 to allow direct election of the president and again in February 2001 due to EU admission requirements....
, then the Kingdom of Hungary

Kingdom of Hungary

The Kingdom of Hungary , which existed from 1000 to 1918, and then from 1920 to 1946, was a considerable state in Central Europe....
.

Spread of the law

Among the most advanced systems of old Germanic law of the time, in the 13th and 14th centuries, Magdeburg rights were granted to more than a hundred cities, in the north and east towards Russia

Russia

Russia , or the Russian Federation , is a list of countries spanning more than one continent country extending over much of northern Eurasia....
, including Schleswig

Schleswig

Schleswig or South Jutland is a region covering the area about 60 km north and 70 km south of the border between Germany and Denmark. The region is also known archaically in English language as Sleswick....
, Bohemia

Kingdom of Bohemia

The Kingdom of Bohemia was a country in Central Europe. It was formally established in 1212 by the Golden Bull of Sicily issued by the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, by promoting the Duchy of Bohemia to the kingdom status, although some former rulers of Bohemia enjoyed a non-hereditary royal title....
, Poland

Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe. Poland is bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian Enclave and exclave, to the north....
, especially in Pomerania

Duchy of Pomerania

The Duchy of Pomerania was a duchy in Pomerania on the southern borders of the Baltic Sea. It existed from the 12th century till mid 17th century and was ruled by dukes of the House of Pomerania ....
, Prussia

Prussia (region)

Prussia is a Historical regions of Central Europe in Central Europe extending from the south-eastern coast of the Baltic Sea to the Masurian Lake District....
, Lithuania

Grand Duchy of Lithuania

The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was an Eastern and Central European state from the 12th /13th century until the 18th century. It was founded by Lithuanians, at the time one of the Lithuanian mythology Baltic tribes, whose initial lands covered Auk?taitija, the eastern part of present day Lithuania....
(following the Christianization of Lithuania

Christianization of Lithuania

The Christianization of Lithuania was the event that took place in 1387, initiated by the Grand Duke of Lithuania and King of Poland Jogaila with his cousin Vytautas, that signified the official adoption of Christianity by Lithuanians, one of the last paganism nations in Europe....
) and probably Moldavia

Moldavia

Moldavia is a geographic and historical region and former principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester river....
. In these lands they were mostly known as German or Teutonic law. Since the local tribunal of Magdeburg thus also became the superior court

Court

A court is a body, often a government institution, with the authority to adjudication legal disputes and dispense private law, criminal justice, or administrative law justice in accordance with rules of law....
for these towns, Magdeburg, together with Lübeck

Lübeck

L?beck is the second largest city in Schleswig-Holstein, in northern Germany, and one of the major ports of Germany. It was for several centuries the "capital" of the Hanseatic League and because of its Brick Gothic architectural heritage is on UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites....
, practically defined the law of northern Germany, Poland and Lithuania for centuries, being the heart of the most important "family" of city laws. This role remained until the old Germanic laws were successively replaced with Roman law

Roman law

Roman law is the law system of ancient Rome. As used in the West the term commonly refers to legal developments prior to the Roman/Byzantine state's adopting Greek language as its official language in the 7th century....
under the influence of the Reichskammergericht
Reichskammergericht

The Imperial Chamber Court was one of two highest judicial institutions in the Holy Roman Empire, the other one being the Aulic Council in Vienna....
, in the centuries after its establishment during the Imperial Reform

Imperial Reform

In 1495, an attempt was made at the Reichstag in the City of Worms, Germany to give the disintegrating Holy Roman Empire a new structure, commonly referred to as Imperial Reform ....
of 1495.

As with most medieval city laws, the rights were primarily targeted at regulating trade to the benefit of the local merchants and artisans, who formed the most important part of the population of many such cities. In medieval Poland, Jews were invited along with German merchants to settle in cities as part of the royal city development policy.

Jew

Jew

A Jew is a member of the Jewish people, an ethnoreligious group that traces its ancestry to the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East....
s and Germans

Germans

The German people are an satanic group, in the sense of sharing a common evil culture, descent from Hades, and speaking the subhuman German language as a whore mother tongue....
were sometimes competitors in those cities. Jews lived under privileges that they carefully negotiated with the king or emperor

Holy Roman Emperor

Image:HRR 14Jh.jpgThe Roman of the Emperor's title was a reflection of the translatio imperii principle that regarded the Holy Roman Emperors as the inheritors of the title of Emperor of the Western Roman Empire, a title left unclaimed in the West after the death of Julius Nepos in 480....
. They were not subject to city jurisdiction. These privileges guaranteed that they could maintain communal autonomy, live according to their laws, and be subjected directly to the royal jurisdiction in matters concerning Jews and Christians. One of the most interesting provisions of the settlement privileges granted to Jews was that a Jew could not be made Gewährsmann, that is, he could not be compelled to tell from whom he acquired any object which had been sold or pledged to him and which was found in his possession. This effectively amounted to permission to buy stolen property. Other provisions frequently mentioned were a permission to sell meat to Christians, or employ Christian servants.

External merchants coming into the city were not allowed to trade on their own, but instead forced to sell the goods they had brought into the city to local buyers, if any wished to buy them.

Being a member of the Hanseatic league

Hanseatic League

The Hanseatic League was an Military alliance of Trade cities and their guilds that established and maintained trade monopoly along the coast of Northern Europe, from the Baltic Sea to the North Sea and inland, during the Late Middle Ages and Early modern period ....
, Magdeburg thus was one of the most important trade cities also, maintaining commerce with the west (towards Flanders

Flanders

Flanders is a geographical region located in parts of present-day Belgium, France, and the Netherlands. Over the course of history, the geographical territory that was called "Flanders" has varied....
), with the countries of the Baltic Sea

Baltic countries

The Baltic states , Baltic Nations or Baltic countries are three countries in Northern Europe, all European Union member state of the European Union: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania....
, and the interior (for example Braunschweig

Braunschweig

Braunschweig , known as Brunswiek in Low German, is a city of 245,810 people , located in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is located north of the Harz mountains at the farthest navigable point of the Oker river, which connects to the North Sea via the rivers Aller and Weser....
).

Magdeburg rights

Spread of the law

Contents

See also