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Even though the pre-modern urban society was the bearer of modernization, its functionality was based on firmly rooted and ostentatiously presented traditional principles, which was also reflected in the form and functioning of municipal institutions. As the Czech historian Josef Hrdlička emphasized in his work dedicated to the early-modern annual renewal ceremony of city council, it was precisely this election and installation ceremony that demonstrates the desirable values on which urban society structures were to be built – those that were old and traditional and represented continuity and also the newly accepted ones. In my presentation I would like to focus on the 16th century records describing city council renewal ceremony from the early modern Silesian town of Opava. In the following minutes, I will firstly introduce the approach of Czech historiography (respectively the approach of the aforementioned historian, Josef Hrdlička) towards this phenomenon and then I will introduce a mid-16th century manuscript - the Council Mirror of Opava (Ratesspiegel), where the description of the renewal ceremony of city council and the installation ceremony of other representatives of urban administration was recorded.