Urbs - Magyar várostörténeti évkönyv 1. (Budapest, 2006)

Abstracts

GERHARD DILCHER The Meaning of the Notion of City for the Research of Urban History The most recent results on urban history are summarised in this article that may particularly be useful in the research of Hungarian urban history. Thus, applying the theoretical model of Max Weber's "idealtype" as starting point, the possibilities of a comparative investigation were discussed. The author's theoretical discussions centre round the medieval occidental town in Italy and Germany, whose development caused a break in the medieval constitutional order. The occidental towns do not appear as a multitude of provincial and individually different islands in the agrarian world, but as a union of towns along the Rhine or in Upper Italy. The urban government founded on urban freedom, a democratic constitution form did not fit into the noble-manorial order of the state. Therefore, it also brought conflicts with itself. As Max Weber already observed freedom brought about the establishment of a proper bourgeoisie and its proper law, different from the law of the land, a court of justice set up at least with the participation of the citizens and an own regime. Max Weber emphasised the foundation of the civil urban government as a revolutionary change. This constitutional system relies on the oath and calls itself coniuratio. It has its own officials and administration, which includes different functions and competences according to each field. At last, the article mentions another achievement of the European bourgeoisie that decisively formed our civilization: the accomplishment of peace, the exclusion of violence as a means of "conflict solution" among citizens. In these terms also the formation of the modern state can be detected in the history of medieval towns. ANDRÁS KUBINYI "Free Royal Town" - "Royal Free Town"? The author specifies the typology of the towns belonging to the crown goods, and defines the so-called free royal towns pertinent to this category. The clue of the surveyed questions is the tenninology used in the medieval Hungarian Latin for the denotation of towns, which permits several interpretations. After all, beside the towns belonging to the king some manorial towns also occur in the late medieval written sources. Some of these are so-called "free towns" (libera civitas), but there are also "free market-towns" within the category market-town (oppidum). The royal towns formed more categories, e.g. they