Wprowadzanie prawa magdeburskiego w miastach województwa kijowskiego od końca XV do pierwszej połowy XVII wieku

Abstrakt

INTRODUCTION OF MAGDEBURG LAW IN THE CITIES AND TOWNS OF THE KYIV VOIVODSHIP FROM THE LATE 15TH TO MID-17TH CENTURIES

The process of introducing the regulations of Magdeburg Law in the Kyiv Voivodship was somewhat belated in comparison with other regions of East-Central Europe through which a tumultuous wave of urbanization resulting from the colonization based on German town law rumbled from the 13th to the 15th cent. That wave did not reach the Kyiv region which was ravaged by numerous Tartar incursions at that time. The reception of Magdeburg Law in the Kyiv region was a long process. It started in 1498 when the Grand Duke of Lithuania Alexander Jagiellon used this law to charter the City of Kyiv, and lasted until the mid-17th cent. The Union of Lublin (1569) became an important incentive to activate urbanization processes in the region. Around the mid-17th cent. there were 290 cities and towns in the Kyiv Voivodship, of which almost a third had been formally established under Magdeburg Law. The chartering documents of 60 of them survive today. Th e vast majority of the privileges introduced by Magdeburg Law were granted to the cities and towns of the Kyiv Voivodship after the Union of Lublin, i.e. over the last 30 years of the 16th and the first half of the 17th cent. Around the middle of the 17th cent. there were 14 cities and towns in the region which belonged to the royal demesne. Over the period discussed in the paper the regulations of the new law were introduced in several dozen private towns in the Kyiv Voivodship – both in the already existing ones, and in the newly established ones. In most cases, chartering privileges were granted by various representatives of the local princely families. The popularization of Magdeburg Law had a positive impact on the life of the local people and gave a strong boost to the region’s economy. All of the cities and towns in the Kyiv Voivodship played an important role in the defensive system of the Polish state. Towards the end of the 16th cent. Magdeburg Law also reached the left-bank lands of the Kyiv region where its privileges continued to be granted and substantiated until the end of the 17th cent., regardless of the fact that by that time these lands we no longer a part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.