Magdeburg rights (German:Magdeburger Recht,Polish:Prawo magdeburskie,Lithuanian:Magdeburgo teisė; also calledMagdeburg law) were a set oftown privileges first developed byOtto I, Holy Roman Emperor (936–973), which regulated the degree of internal autonomy within cities and villages granted by the local ruler. Named after the city ofMagdeburg and based onRoman municipal and universal merchant traditions,[1] these town charters were perhaps the most important set ofmedieval laws inCentral Europe.[2] They became the basis for theGerman town laws developed during many centuries in theHoly Roman Empire.[2] The Magdeburg rights were adopted and adapted by numerous monarchs, including the rulers ofBohemia,Hungary,Poland, andLithuania, a milestone in the urbanization of the region which prompted the development of thousands of villages and cities.[3]
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Being a member of theHanseatic League, Magdeburg was one of the most important trade cities, maintaining commerce with theLow Countries, theBaltic states, and the interior (for exampleBraunschweig). 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. External merchants coming into the city were not allowed to trade on their own, but were instead forced to sell the goods they had brought into the city to local traders, if any wished to buy them.
Jews and Germans were sometimes competitors in those cities. Jews lived under privileges that they carefully negotiated with the king oremperor. 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 provisions granted to Jews was that a Jew could not be compelled to be aGewährsmann/informant; that is, he had the right to keep confidential how he had acquired objects in his possession. A Jew with this right could voluntarily divulge who had gifted, sold, or loaned him the object, but it was illegal to coerce him to say. Other provisions frequently mentioned were a permission to sell meat to Christians, or employ Christian servants. By at least some contemporary observers, the parallel infrastructure of Jews and gentiles was considered significant; in medieval Poland'sroyal city development policy, both German merchants and Jews were invited to settle in Polish cities.
| Modern major city | Year |
|---|---|
| Leipzig | 1165 |
| Wrocław | 1242 |
| Szczecin | 1243 |
| Poznań | 1253 |
| Kraków | 1257 |
| Lublin | 1317 |
| Bydgoszcz | 1346 |
| Lviv | 1356 |
| Vilnius | 1387[4][5] |
| Brest | 1390[6] |
| Kaunas | 1408[6] |
| Łódź | 1423 |
| Kyiv | 1494 |
| Grodno | 1496 |
| Minsk | 1499 |
| Mogilev | 1577 |
| Vitebsk | 1597 |
| Smolensk | 1611 |
| Vinnytsia | 1640 |
| Homel | 1670 |
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, inCentral Europe apart fromGermany, includingSchleswig,Bohemia,Poland,Pomerania,Prussia, theGrand Duchy of Lithuania (following theChristianization of Lithuania), including present-dayBelarus[7] andUkraine, and probablyMoldavia. In these lands they were mostly known asGerman orTeutonic law. Since the local tribunal of Magdeburg also became thesuperior court for these towns, Magdeburg, together withLübeck, 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 withRoman law under the influence of theReichskammergericht, in the centuries after its establishment during theImperial Reform of 1495.[citation needed]
The first town to be granted Magdeburg rights in Poland wasZłotoryja in 1211. Soon many towns were vested with the law includingWrocław,Opole,Inowrocław,Sandomierz,Gniezno,Poznań,Bochnia,Głogów,Bytom,Sieradz,Kraków,Legnica,Opatów,Konin,Piotrków,Racibórz in the 13th century, whereasSzczecin andStargard were granted the rights in 1243 by the duke of Pomerania. The Law of Magdeburg implemented in Poland was different from its original German form.[8] It was combined with a set of civil and criminal laws, and adjusted to include theurban planning popular across Western Europe – which was based (more or less) on the ancient Roman model. Meanwhile, country people often ignorant of the actual German text, practiced the old common law of Poland in private relations.[8] Local variants of Magdeburg law were created, such asŚroda law based on the rights granted toŚroda Śląska byHenry the Bearded in 1235, Kalisz law, a variant of the Środa law, based on the rights granted toKalisz byBolesław the Pious before 1268, and Poznań law, a variant of Magdeburg rights, based on the rights granted toPoznań by Bolesław the Pious in 1253.
Following the formation of thePolish–Lithuanian union in 1385, Magdeburg rights spread to Lithuania, first granted to the chief cities ofVilnius,[4]Brest andKaunas, although more slowly than earlier in Poland, especially late in the east and inprivate towns.[9] In the 15th and 16th centuries, the rights were granted to many other towns, including, chronologically,Trakai,[10]Grodno,Kyiv,Polotsk,Minsk,[11]Novogrudok,[12]Rechytsa,[13]Slonim,[12]Barysaw,Mogilev,Mazyr,Mir,[12]Pińsk,Alytus,Nyasvizh,[14]Šiauliai,Biržai,Lida,[14]Kėdainiai andVitebsk. Magdeburg rights in Lithuania were initially modeled after the Polish cities ofKraków andLublin, and then after Vilnius.[11]
Hundreds of towns in Poland and Lithuania, some now located in Belarus,Latvia andUkraine, were formerly governed on the basis of the location privilege known as the "settlement with German law", excluding local variants of Magdeburg rights, with some of the more notable cities being, chronologically,Lublin,[15]Zielona Góra,Tarnów,Olkusz,Sanok,Bydgoszcz,Rzeszów,Lwów,Będzin,Kielce,Krosno,Wieliczka,Częstochowa,Jarosław,[16]Przemyśl,[17]Chełm,Kazimierz Dolny,Łódź,Kamieniec Podolski,Łuck,Żytomierz,Rivne,Kowel,Siedlce,Leszno,Tarnopol,Rydzyna,Augustów,Płoskirów,Zamość,Daugavpils,[18]Brody,[19]Orsza,[20]Biała Cerkiew,Nowogród Siewierski,Czernihów,Nizhyn,Krzemieńczuk,Vinnytsia,Poltava,Stanisławów,Jēkabpils,[21]Suwałki,Białystok,Uman,Palanga,Telšiai,Cherkasy andMarijampolė.[22] The rights reached the easternmost cities of thePolish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, includingRoslavl,[23]Smolensk[24] andStarodub,[25] now part ofRussia. The advantages of the Magdeburg rights were not only economic, but also political. Members of noble families were able to join the citypatriciate usually unchallenged.[8] There were cases of changing the type of municipal rights, such as inBłonie from Magdeburg toChełmno rights, and inBielsk Podlaski andTykocin from Chełmno to Magdeburg rights.
Most towns ruled by theTeutonic Order andDuchy of Masovia, as well as some cities under direct Polish and Lithuanian rule, obtainedChełmno rights, a local variant of Magdeburg rights, which prevailed in the area roughly corresponding to today's northeastern quarter of Poland, including the current Polish capital ofWarsaw. In addition to this, many towns in theDuchy of Pomerania in modern north-western Poland and other Baltic port cities were grantedLübeck law, thus the original Magdeburg law was relatively rare in what is now northern Poland.
In the medievalKingdom of Hungary, the first town to receive the Magdeburg rights wasSzékesfehérvár in 1237, followed byTrnava (1238),Nitra (1248),Levoča (1271) andŽilina (1369). Towns and cities includingBardejov,Buda,Bratislava andKošice adopted the Southern German Nuremberg town rights, rather than the Magdeburg rights.
In 1832, the city ofChernivtsi was granted Magdeburg rights by the Austrian authorities.[26]
The old towns ofKraków,Lviv,Vilnius andZamość, considerably developed under the Magdeburg rights, areWorld Heritage Sites, andKazimierz Dolny,Lublin,Paczków,Poznań,Przemyśl,Rydzyna,Sandomierz,Stary Sącz,Tykocin andWrocław are also designatedHistoric Monuments of Poland.[27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36]
There are memorials to the Magdeburg rights inKyiv,Minsk,Tetiiv,Veiviržėnai andVinnytsia.
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