Přehled o publikaci

The second issue of the section on towns and burghers in Idea i państwo presents towns in the constituent parts of the Bohemian Crown other than Bohemia: firstly in Silesia, the largest Crown Land after the Kingdom of Bohemia, then in the Moravian Margraviate and finally in the two Lusatian Margraviates. There are fewer cities here in total than in Bohemia but in some Crown Lands (Silesia, Upper Lusatia) they played a greater role than the Bohemian ones on the national scale. Moreover, the demographic or economic potential of Olomouc, Znojmo, Brno or Igława, Zgorzelec and Bautzen, Gubin and Luckau, Świdnica, Lwówek Śląski and above all Wrocław placed them ahead of most of the royal Bohemian towns. The first chapter, as in the previous issue, presents some general concepts. Among such is the impact of towns on the cultural landscape around them. What is more, the chapter presents the still rarely recognised internal tensions in the towns, particularly intriguing at the time of the birth of the Lutheran Reformation, although not always with a confessional tinge (this concerns especially the Moravian centres). Finally, the issue focuses on the burghers – their yearning for social advancement and infiltration into the ranks of the nobility, and finally, selected patrician families or their prominent representatives in Prague, Kutná Hora, Cheb (Eger), Louny and, above all, Wrocław, Świdnica and Görlitz. The state of research did not allow for a similar presentation in relation to Moravian towns and burghers. Then, as in the previous issue, the individual centres are presented arranged according to the individual Crown Lands. Priority was given to those with a more or less confirmed status as capital cities within a given region (Wrocław for Silesia, Olomouc for Moravia, Bautzen for Upper Lusatia, Gubin and Luckau for Lower Lusatia), although these were not always the largest centres (e.g. Görlitz was larger than Bautzen, and it is possible that Olomouc was smaller than Brno). A certain pattern was used to describe the towns, presenting their overall picture, then the legal and political foundations of how they functioned in the form of privileges, then the buildings bearing the signs of transformations happening between the mid-15th and 16th centuries. These include town fortifications and public buildings with town halls at the forefront, town houses (churches of religious congregations in towns are mentioned in passing, as they will be covered in the volume devoted to the clergy). In many places, the work presents the results of previous research, but is often in polemical disagreement with them (e.g. in relation to the town hall in Luban or the city gates of Brno), and sometimes proposes new interpretations (e.g. the ideological programme of the Rybisch House in Wrocław, the significance of the town halls of Bolesławiec and Lwówek Śląski, the meaning of the inscriptions on the fortifications of Görlitz, a comprehensive interpretation of Świdnica after the rebuilding of its defence system at the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries), or it poses questions that have not yet been answered (e.g. with regard to the meaning of several town halls in Lusatian towns or the Wrocław epitaph of the Rindfleisch family). To a hitherto unknown extent, the fabric of urban buildings has also been explored, although this is the most difficult subject to research due to the limitations of accessibility to the buildings, which are usually privately owned. In reconstructing and interpreting the image of Wrocław to an extent hitherto unknown, use has been made of iconographic sources, mostly published at best and commented on in a perfunctory manner.