Magdeburg rights
Magdeburg rights (
Provisions
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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 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
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
Implementation across Europe
The Law of Magdeburg implemented in Poland was different from its original German form.[4] 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.[citation needed] Meanwhile, country people often ignorant of the actual German text, practiced the old common law of Poland in private relations.[4]
Notable Polish, Lithuanian, Belarusian and Ukrainian towns formerly governed on the basis of the location privilege known as the "settlement with German law" issued by Polish and Grand Duchy of Lithuania landlords (since the 16th to 18th centuries by
See also
References
- ^ )
- ^ a b Peter Stearns. "Magdeburg Law 1261: Northern Germany". World History in Documents: A Comparative Reader. New York University Press, 1998. Retrieved 28 February 2014.
- ^ "Magdeburg Rights granted to Minsk 510 years ago". Belteleradiocompany. 29 July 2009. Archived from the original on 5 June 2011.
- ^ )
External links
- Media related to Magdeburg rights at Wikimedia Commons