Das mittelalterliche Krakau. Der Stadtrat im herrschaftsgefüge der polnischen Metropole, by Marcin Starzyński, tr. Christian Prüfer and Kai Witzlack-Makarevich

This recent book by Marcin Starzyński offers a new and comprehensive study of the emergence and evolution of the municipal government in medieval Cracow, one of the biggest and busiest centres of trade and commerce in the Polish kingdom. The book is intended to re-examine the social and organisational processes which stimulated the growth of a new town of Cracow and paved the way for the rise of an autonomous community governed by the town council. Starzyński’s principal interests lie in the reconstruction of the mechanism that made it possible for the town council of Cracow to take shape and acquire full control over the city government in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Providing a complex reinterpretation of these processes, Starzyński looks at the origins of Cracow’s government, the formation of the oldest town council, discussing its competences, legal framework and composition. His study spans more than two centuries of Cracow history. The starting-point of his research is the organisation of the new town of Cracow that was granted the Magdeburg city rights in the mid-thirteenth century.

Ancient history · Art · Economic history · Economics · Economy · Fifteenth · Government (linguistics) · Humanities · Political science · Reinterpretation · Historical and Cultural Studies of Poland · Historical Geopolitical and Social Dynamics · History · Medieval European History and Architecture · Public Administration