Magdeburg rights (German: Magdeburger Recht, Polish: Prawo magdeburskie, Lithuanian: Magdeburgo teisė; also called Magdeburg Law) were a set of town privileges first developed by Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor (936–973) and based on the Flemish Law,[1] which regulated the degree of internal autonomy within cities and villages granted by the local ruler. Named after the German city of Magdeburg, these town charters were perhaps the most important set of medieval laws in Central Europe. They became the basis for the German town laws developed during many centuries in the Holy Roman Empire.[2] The Magdeburg rights were adopted and adapted by numerous monarchs, including the rulers of Bohemia, Hungary, Poland and Lithuania, a milestone in the urbanization of the region which prompted the development of thousands of villages and cities.[1]
Being a member of the Hanseatic League, Magdeburg was one of the most important trade cities, maintaining commerce with the Low Countries, the Baltic states, and the interior (for example Braunschweig). 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 or emperor. 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 a Gewährsmann/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's royal 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 | |
| Brest | 1390 | |
| Kaunas | 1408 | |
| Łódź | 1423 | |
| Kyiv | 1494 | |
| Grodno | 1496 | |
| Minsk | 1499 | |
| Mogilev | 1577 | |
| Vitebsk | 1597 | |
| Smolensk | 1611 | |
| Vinnytsia | 1640 | |
| Homel | 1670 |
The first town to be granted Magdeburg rights in Poland was Złotoryja in 1211. Soon many towns were vested with the law including Wrocław, Opole, Inowrocław, Sandomierz, Gniezno, Poznań, Bochnia, Głogów, Bytom, Sieradz, Kraków, Legnica, Opatów, Konin, Piotrków, Racibórz in the 13th century, whereas Szczecin and Stargard 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. It was combined with a set of civil and criminal laws, and adjusted to include the urban planning popular across Western Europe – which was based (more or less) on the ancient Roman model. Polish land owners used the location privilege known as "settlement with German law" across the country, even if there was no significant number of German settlers. Meanwhile, country people often ignorant of the actual German text, practiced the old common law of Poland in private relations.[4] Local variants of Magdeburg law were created, such as Środa law based on the rights granted to Środa Śląska by Henry the Bearded in 1235, Kalisz law, a variant of the Środa law, based on the rights granted to Kalisz by Bolesław the Pious before 1268, and Poznań law, a variant of Magdeburg rights, based on the rights granted to Poznań by Bolesław the Pious in 1253.
Following the formation of the Polish–Lithuanian union in 1385, Magdeburg rights spread to Lithuania, first granted to the chief cities of Vilnius, Brest and Kaunas, although more slowly than earlier in Poland, especially late in the east and in private towns. In the 15th and 16th centuries, the rights were granted to many other towns, including, chronologically, Trakai, Grodno, Kyiv, Polotsk, Minsk, Novogrudok, Rechytsa,[5] Slonim, Barysaw, Mogilev, Mazyr, Mir, Pińsk, Alytus, Nyasvizh, Šiauliai, Biržai, Lida, Kėdainiai and Vitebsk. Magdeburg rights in Lithuania were initially modeled after the Polish cities of Kraków and Lublin, and then after Vilnius.
Hundreds of towns in Poland and Lithuania, some now located in Belarus, Latvia and Ukraine, 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,[6] Zielona Góra, Tarnów, Olkusz, Sanok, Bydgoszcz, Rzeszów, Lwów, Będzin, Kielce, Krosno, Wieliczka, Częstochowa, Jarosław,[7] Przemyśl,[8] Chełm, Kazimierz Dolny, Łódź, Kamieniec Podolski, Łuck, Żytomierz, Rivne, Kowel, Siedlce, Leszno, Tarnopol, Rydzyna, Augustów, Płoskirów, Zamość, Daugavpils,[9] Brody,[10] Orsza,[11] Biała Cerkiew, Nowogród Siewierski, Czernihów, Nizhyn, Krzemieńczuk, Vinnytsia, Poltava, Stanisławów, Jēkabpils,[12] Suwałki, Białystok, Uman, Palanga, Telšiai, Cherkasy and Marijampolė.[13] The rights reached the easternmost cities of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, including Roslavl,[14] Smolensk[15] and Starodub,[16] now part of Russia. The advantages of the Magdeburg rights were not only economic, but also political. Members of noble families were able to join the city patriciate usually unchallenged. There were cases of changing the type of municipal rights, such as in Błonie from Magdeburg to Chełmno rights, and in Bielsk Podlaski and Tykocin from Chełmno to Magdeburg rights.
Most towns ruled by the Teutonic Order and Duchy of Masovia, as well as some cities under direct Polish and Lithuanian rule, obtained Chełmno 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 of Warsaw. In addition to this, many towns in the Duchy of Pomerania in modern north-western Poland and other Baltic port cities were granted Lübeck law, thus the original Magdeburg law was relatively rare in what is now northern Poland.
In the medieval Kingdom of Hungary, the first town to receive the Magdeburg rights was Székesfehérvár in 1237, followed by Trnava (1238), Nitra (1248), Levoča (1271) and Žilina (1369). Towns and cities including Bardejov, Buda, Bratislava and Košice adopted the Southern German Nuremberg town rights, rather than the Magdeburg rights.
In 1832, the city of Chernivtsi was granted Magdeburg rights by the Austrian authorities.[17]
The old towns of Kraków, Lviv, Vilnius and Zamość, considerably developed under the Magdeburg rights, are World Heritage Sites, and Kazimierz Dolny, Lublin, Paczków, Poznań, Przemyśl, Rydzyna, Sandomierz, Stary Sącz, Tykocin and Wrocław are also designated Historic Monuments of Poland.[18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] [27]
There are memorials to the Magdeburg rights in Kyiv, Minsk, Tetiiv, Veiviržėnai and Vinnytsia.