Cracow, the royal capital of ancient Poland: its history and antiquities/The Municipal Organization

by Leonard Jan Józef Lepszy

THE MUNICIPAL

ORGANIZATION

THE MUNICIPAL ORGANIZATION

THE medieval institutions of the city of Cracow are based on the provisions of the Magdeburg law. Their later shape, partly modelled on Lubeck, partly originating in mere adaptation to the local needs and circumstances, and the peculiarities of national character, was chiefly developed in the fourteenth century. Among other things, Cracow then lost the right of free choice of its aldermen: the king reserved it for himself, and about the middle of the fourteenth century the king transferred it to the waywode, or lieutenant-governor of Cracow, who was to appoint aldermen from among the assessors of the municipal jury. By this means, the political influence of Cracow's citizens was definitely checked, and this mode of election remained in practice till 1677, when the town got back its old electoral rights from King John Sobieski. The number of town councillors was not settled at first; it was not till the beginning of the fifteenth century that it came to be fixed at twenty-four, of whom eight formed the municipal board conducting the current affairs of the town. These were called "burgomasters," because each of them officiated for six—later on, only four—weeks as mayor of the town. The mayor was usually attended by liveried archers armed with swords. His insignia, the silver sceptre and the golden seal, date from the sixteenth century; they were the symbols of his power, and always used by him when personally assisting in the execution of legal enactments. The municipal elections were always kept with great solemnity and pomp. Sometimes even the king himself appeared in the council-hall; the waywode was always present ex officio, and was usually rewarded for this by a present of 25 marks in ready money; besides, guests were invited to take part in the solemn service at St. Mary's Church (festively decorated for that occasion), and in the banquet which took place, after the election, in the council-hall, adorned with garlands of flowers and scented with odorous herbs and incense. During this banquet music was played, the tables glittered with costly epergnes fetched for this occasion from the municipal treasury, and the company were entertained with choice dishes and wines.

The burgomaster presided at the sessions of the town council, and decided on many affairs; the more important ones, however, being reserved for the whole council. To these sessions the councillors were either summoned by writ or by the sound of a bell. The tocsin and the red flag on the tower—from which watchmen were looking out for any danger menacing the town, or fire breaking out—were still in use, in cases of fire, till thirty years ago. The oldest book of town records, preserved to the present day, into which all events and affairs were entered indifferently in succession, opens at the year 1301. The town council used the great seal (cf. illustration 5) for particularly important documents, and a smaller one, with the image of St. Wenceslaus, the original patron of the town—whose place was taken in the fourteenth century by the martyr-bishop, St. Stanislas—for those of minor importance. The City Arms show three square towers built of ashlars, crowned by the standing figures of the two patron saints, the middle one surmounted by the escutcheon with the Polish Eagle; on both sides of these towers there are escutcheons with the arms of the royal family, and below the middle tower, an open door with the usual hearse and a figure kneeling in it.

The mayor and the jurymen originally administered justice, later on this function partly passed to the town council. The jury decided on civil law-suits. In criminal cases involving a sentence of death, the proceedings were short. The witnesses heard, the criminal was delivered to the hangman and cast into the dark prison below the town hall. The executioner and his assistants now brought the accused to the torture-chamber called Kabat, where he was tormented in order to be moved to confession. Part of the municipal torture-engines is preserved even now in Matejko's house—41, St. Florian Street—to be seen daily; magnificent beheading-swords of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries are to be found in the collections of the National Museum. The torture was applied three times, and after this painful inquisition there followed the verdict; upon this, the criminal—as the formulas of judgment testify—was still to be tried by ordeal, and after this followed the execution, by hanging, or beheading, or breaking on the wheel, or burying alive (the spot being marked by a pole), or burning at the stake, &c. All such executions took place, in early times, in the Central Square, in front of the town hall (demolished in 1820). But at the close of the eighteenth century a gibbet was erected outside the town walls, where now Pedzichów Street runs, and from that time this was the place for executions. The condemned prisoner spent his last hours, before he was led there, either in the tower chapel of the town hall, or in what was called the delinquents' chapel (captivorum), now St. Anthony's, in St. Mary's Church. The Brotherhood of Our Lord's Passion—attached to the Franciscan Church—had the privilege of delivering a condemned person from death on Maundy-Thursday, which was done in a solemn procession.

For lesser transgressions, such punishments were appointed as mutilation of limbs, banishment from the town, whipping in public at the pillory, producing in a cage, dragging round the market-place, chaining to the wall of St. Mary's Church by the iron collar still to be seen there at the southern entrance: this last-named punishment was usually inflicted for offences against morality or against the ecclesiastical laws.

As late as 1794 the suburb of Kazimierz, which being then an independent town, had a municipal administration analogous to that of Cracow, took stock, among other things, of an execution cart with iron collars, three handcuffs of iron, two pairs of manacles for hands and feet, an "iron fiddle (as it was called) for neck and hands, a whip of thongs, and a scourge. Before the town hall of Kazimierz (illustration 9) there stood a pillory, built of ashlars, with four chains for feet and neck.

The sentence of imprisonment for life, or, as the formula runs, for "a hundred years and a day," was but rarely pronounced, because even such small transgressions as stealing a suit of clothes, or the like, were punishable by death. For vagabonds, or such criminals as had never been convicted of crime before, or those who managed to obtain the intercession of high officials or influential patricians, the sentence was expulsion, either in the form of temporary exile, say for "a year and a day," or total banishment for "a hundred years and a day."

To municipal justice, only citizens were subject, besides vagrants who had strayed into the town; but crimes done by noblemen, when the victim was a citizen, could be judged by the municipal court; the sentence in such cases, however, had no legal force till sanctioned by the Castle court. When this limitation was
9. OLD TOWN HALL, KAZIMIERZ. not observed, the burgomaster and the aldermen who bore the fault, were to lose their heads for it.

The judicial district of Cracow, as said before, did not extend merely to the city, but also to some suburbs, which, however, preserved a sort of independence. The suburb of Stradom was not subjected to Kazimierz jurisdiction till 1419, and even then with some limitations which were not completely abolished till 1505. Other districts, like the suburb of Piasek, preserved part of their independent judicial authority even after their incorporation in the town of Cracow.

The Supreme Court at Magdeburg was originally appointed as Court of Appeal; about the middle of the fourteenth century, Casimir the Great instituted a Supreme Court in the Castle of Cracow and ordained this to be appealed to in cases of controversy.

The last instance, however, for verdicts of the Superior Court as constituted by German law, was the Court of Commission for Little Poland, called the "Court of the Six Cities," which likewise resided in the Castle of Cracow. Whenever, then, anybody wished to make an appeal from a verdict of the Superior Court of German law, the king sent his affair to that Court, which consisted of twelve aldermen, two from each of the six towns of Cracow, Sandec, Kazimierz, Bochnia, Wieliczka, and Olkusz.

The Municipal Court judged on cases arising from money obligations, sureties, buying and selling of houses, guardianships; it also took into keeping citizens' moneys and wills; of the latter, those of persons of patrician descent were entered in the town records, whereas the testaments of other citizens were received into the books of the jury.

The Municipal Board watched over the interests of trade and commerce, and had the control of public morals. To its province also belonged: the city police, the economical enterprises of the community, and the financial administration. The houses, gardens, lands, fish-ponds, mills which were town property, also the brick-works at Zwierzyniec, the lime-kiln at Krzemionki, and the stone-quarry on Lasota Hill, were all tenanted by citizens, and the aldermen indemnified themselves, by the produce of these leaseholds, for the gratuitous exercise of their functions in council. This was the source of riches accumulated in the hands of such powerful patrician families as the Turzos, Morstins, Salomons, Schillings, later on the Cellaris, Montelupis, &c. Others, as the Wirsings—called Wierzynek in Polish—in the fourteenth and the Boners in the sixteenth century, take also a large part in the administration of the royal domains, and thereby rise to wealth and power. The numerous magnificent sepulchral monuments of Cracow citizens (illustration 10) are lasting records of their importance for civilization, and their activity in promoting the development of art.

To every newly elected king, the Council did public homage in
10. TOMBSTONES OF THE MONTELUPI FAMILY, ST. MARY'S CHURCH. the Central Square, and offered him a costly present; this solemn act was followed by wrestling-matches, masquerades, and games, by the side of the town hall; on this occasion also the king usually knighted some eminent burgess.

The position of the City delegates in the Diet of the nobility was precarious; they played the subordinate part of advisers or suppliants, and mutely witnessed encroachments of the nobles upon the rights and privileges of the towns, which became particularly frequent after an Act passed by the Diet of 1420. Being deprived of all possibility of active interference on behalf of the towns' interests, their only means to obtain an alleviation of burdensome duties, or the suspension or at least moderation of some oppressive provision, were either direct petitions to the king, or personal intercession with the senators and knighthood, which had often to be accompanied by arguments in hard cash. In spite of all this, the Cracow people, as annals report, are always ready for sacrifices in case of need, they pay taxes and grant subsidies to king and state, defend the town from enemies and keep the fortress walls, at the expense of the corporations, ready for defence.

The common citizen was treated with supercilious contempt by the rich and imperious alderman or patrician. Accordingly, the Commons (Communitas) were in constant feud with the Council; true, they send their forty representatives there (quadraginta viri) of whom twenty are elected from among the merchants, and twenty from the seniors of the guilds and to these it belongs to guard the interests of the people, and to have a share in the Council's decisions on common matters; but we find the Town Council continually trying to evade the obligation of submitting its accounts to the Commons, and debating municipal matters together with them. It was only for the election of two deputies to the Diet, and for resolutions on ordinances regarding taxation, that the Communitas was really called in and heard.

Casimir the Great had ordered that one half of the Council were to be taken from among the craftsmen; but soon these new-elected members amalgamated with the patrician body. The common people, however, were not so easily deterred from pursuing their social aims; they stood up unanimously for their right of sharing in the municipal administration. In 1410 the merchants of Cracow combine to form a separate group, and instantly take up, in union with the craftsmen, the contest against the Town Council. The conflict grows more and more acute in the opening years of the sixteenth century, till it ends in a refusal of the town-rates. King Sigismund I, in 1521, settles all these differences by clearly circumscribing the power of the Town Council.

The municipal books of accounts were kept in the form of simple notes. To the constant sources of income belongs, among others, the "scot," which comprises a rate not only from house-rent and from lands, but also from trade profits and personal income, and the fees for the night-watch. The inventories taken of the town's possessions afford us glimpses of the municipal household. Thus we possess an account of the City property drawn up by the municipal notary Urban Pyrnus; according to this, it consists, beside the real estates mentioned above as being tenanted by citizens, of shops and stalls in the market-places, of the bathing-houses, the so-called "clanging-house" (Garrulatorium) with a market-hall in which there were merchants' booths; in the same building the town brewery was placed. In the town-hall cellar, called "The Schweidnitz Cellar," the famous Schweidnitz beer was retailed. Besides, the town levied a tax called "grist-money" on every barrel of beer or wine that was imported, as well as on all drinks produced in the town.

Outside the town walls large pastures (Blonia) extended, where the citizens' cattle grazed, tended by municipal herdsmen. Even now a part of this fine meadow is preserved, whence we enjoy a beautiful view of Cracow and the Kosciuszko Hill; another part is divided between a race-course and a park for children to practise gymnastic and athletic sports in, founded by the late Professor Dr. Henry Jordan.

The taxes levied upon the City by the king were also taken on lease by the municipality. Of the City's monopolies the public scales yielded ample profit; on these not only the wares that were bought, but also the transit goods passing through Cracow had to be weighed. Besides these scales, there stood, in the market-place, a building containing the gold and silver smelting-works, which were used not only for commercial purposes, but also to coin money for Cracow circulation, and to prepare the materials for the highly developed goldsmiths' art to work upon. In later times the goldsmiths' craft had silver smelting-works of their own, administered by themselves.

The municipal cloth-cutting workshops, where the cloth was measured, and sorted, and marked according to its kind, occupied two buildings.

On all this duties were levied. Other less important sources of income were the bridge-moneys and customs duties, from which, however, the nobles, the clergy, and peasants coming to town to sell their dairy and farming produce, were exempt; the payments for grants of the freedom of the town, &c.

11. CONVENT OF THE NORBERTINE NUNS, AND KOSCIUSZKO MOUND. The town, from the earliest times, was divided into four quarters, called Castle Quarter, the Potters' Quarter, the Butchers' Quarter, and Slawkow. The large Central Square formed two marketplaces, the poultry market and the coal market. The police control over building matters and provision against fire were entrusted to the "quartermasters" (heads of the districts). These, e.g., together with the seniors of the corporations, estimated the value of houses, and drew up attestations on their being out of repair. The chief police magistrate—whose title was "warden of the town hall"—had to watch over public safety in the town, whose gates were closed every night. A position both distinguished and materially profitable was occupied by the town clerk (also called notary).

Towards the end of the fourteenth century the town got an aqueduct with a reservoir called Rurmus, which runs by the side of the present Reformates' Church. The conduit pipes were of wood, the administration was in the hands of a separate official called the "water-master," who had also to watch over the arrangements for cases of fire, which were very strictly regulated. Almost to the close of the eighteenth century only the inhabitants themselves were obliged to give help in cases of fire, and to keep the fire-engines in repair. Especially the bathing-men, the brewers, and the water-carriers, being those who had most to do with water, were under the obligation to come first to the rescue. In every house tubs full of water, fire hooks for pulling down burning roofs, and other tools, were to be constantly kept in readiness. The "water-master" always took the command over the men who assisted in quenching a fire.

The streets, as early as the fourteenth century, had a stone pavement, which nowadays is hit upon in digging operations at something more than three yards below the present level of the street.

A short account having thus been given of the municipal institutions and administration, mention must now be made of the organization of the craft guilds. They had their origin in German law, and therefore assumed the character of the German guilds. The living contact with the German guilds, the constant immigration of young journeymen into Cracow, had the effect that down to the middle of the sixteenth century the majority of the guilds consisted for the most part of German elements. German was almost exclusively used as the official language of business transaction and correspondence, and all the usages observed by the German guilds are, with slight local modifications, to be found at Cracow.

Each craft guild had its own special ordinances and privileges; the ordinances were decreed by the guilds themselves, and sanctioned by the Town Council; the privileges were either conferred by the Town Council or granted by the king. After the accession of a new sovereign, every craft guild was anxious to have its old privileges recognized, and, if possible, to obtain some new ones. We get a full idea of Cracow workshops—and thus of all German workshops in the late Middle Ages—from a famous MS. in the Jagellonian University Library, called Codex Picturatus, and written by Balthazar Behem, notary of the town. He registered in it all the most important statutes of Cracow town, and an
12. A MERCHANT.
(From the Codex Picturatus of B. Behem.) illuminator, by his order, adorned the book with highly interesting miniatures illustrating the Cracow craft guilds, partly by realistic pictures of the interior of workshops (illustration 12), partly by allegorical symbols.

To the Corporation also belonged the journeymen, who, in course of time, got an administration of their own. Every guild appears as an independent company of limited authority, originally responsible for all delinquencies committed by its members, and exercising judicial power within its sphere; it watched over the members' morals, their religion, and steadiness and fairness in the exercise of their profession, and was the outward representative of their interests. Fellow-feeling, obedience, and scrupulous observance of all prescriptions and ordinances made the basis of the importance of these organizations. The guild looked after the welfare of the community, it exercised a severe control over the granting of licences, and on those who disobeyed it had power to impose fines or bodily punishments; these were dealt out with a scourge of thongs. Refractory persons were taken to the town hall prison, and there judged by the City Court. For journeymen there was another punishment, called "driving," which consisted in the prohibition to receive them, issued not to Cracow masters merely, but also to those of other towns.

From the sixteenth century onward frequent differences arose between employers and journeymen about advance of wages, duration of the day's work, Monday rest ("Crispin's holiday"), and the like; these causes of discontent often occasioned strikes, which were sometimes only settled by intercession of the municipal authorities.

The prices of manufactures were regulated by ordinances of the waywode and the town council (in the usual medieval way—best described in the first chapter of J. A. Froude's great work); thus e.g., the saddler had the price of a Turkish or a plain Italian saddle which he made fixed beforehand; so had the tailor for a lady's satin robe à l' Italienne, or a brocade one with lacework trimmings and tight sleeves. This circumstance of course would have no favourable influence on the quality of what was produced for the appointed price.

The life of craft guilds, their organization and history, are illustrated by the beautiful requisites and insignia preserved in the National Museum, the Communal Archives, and the halls of the several guilds. Numerous books and documents throw much interesting light on their professional ability and productiveness. The guild's moneys and important documents were kept in a safe—called the guild's chest—usually under double lock. There also the old seals of the guild were preserved, which bore inscriptions in German, Latin, or Polish, and, in the middle, the guild's arms, with the tools and insignia of the trade. Thus, the painters had for their arms, in imitation of those of Prague, three small escutcheons, white with black dots in a field gules, the crest a virgin kneeling, with waving hair and veil, the left hand leaning on the hip, the right one grasping a spear. The goldsmiths followed those of Breslau in having for arms an image of St. Eligius (the "St. Loy" of Chaucer's Prioress) in the act of manufacturing a chalice in embossed work. Each guild had its own patron: the painters St. Luke, the potters our first parents (because man was the first piece of potter's work, being made of earth); the joiners of course had St. Joseph; and the "gentle craft" of shoemakers SS. Crispin and Crispinian. With images of these saints they adorned their documents, their corporation insignia, and other implements. A sample of these is a magnificent glass bumper which belonged to the sword-cutlers' guild, dating from 1603, with the arms in beautiful enamel, and a representation of Christ's passion.

The seniors of the guilds, of whom one was chosen "Master of the Guild" every year, conducted all business affairs, administered the property of the guild, entered in its books the names of newly received apprentices—none but Catholics of legitimate descent being admitted—and of the journeymen when they got the freedom, on which solemn occasion the new freeman usually presented to the corporation either a votive tablet with the image of its Patron, or a large piece of coin. The journeymen, when freed, usually went on their travels, wandering on foot through foreign towns, especially in Germany, where they improved their professional knowledge. At the meeting-houses of the guilds, social entertainments took place from time to time, in which both masters and journeymen joined. On such occasions, the pewter vessels and plate of the guild were used, of which the town archives still preserve a considerable store. Invitations for these solemn banquets were sent round by a messenger bearing the badge of the guild; some are still extant: the goldsmiths' badge, being a large ring of bronze and silver, is particularly remarkable for the beauty of its execution; it is adorned with an image of St. Eligius in relief. In the councils as well as at all other meetings of the craft guilds, their religious character was manifested, which may be a proof of their descent from the pious brotherhoods. Every guild possessed, in one of the numerous churches, a chapel or at least an altar of its own, maintained and adorned at the guild's expense. Control was exercised over the members' regular attendance at divine service, and neglect of this duty was severely punished. At religious processions, like that on Corpus Christi Day, all craft guilds displayed extraordinary splendour; the members appeared corporately, in holiday clothes, and armed. The seniors, with badges and maces, marched ahead, followed by the brethren of the guild, in closed ranks, with ensigns spread and swords drawn. This custom of taking part in the Corpus Christi procession is observed by some of the guilds down to the present day; the butchers lay special stress even now on maintaining the old tradition. After every procession, or other solemnity, an entertainment was given to the members at the expense of the guild. There was a great parade of the craft guilds on the occasion of the coronation of a king, or a marriage in the royal family, or the triumphant entry of some victorious general. The guilds, marching in arms, gave quite the appearance of a well-equipped body of troops ready for fight—thus reminding the spectators of the important part they had played in the past in defending the city from enemies. For in those times they were the proper defenders of the town walls, providing the bastions with ammunition and implements of war; they all belonged to the rifle company and practised shooting at the municipal range. The fortified walls of the town had gates, which are mentioned by name in the very oldest book of records: St. Florian's Gate, the Slawkow Gate, St. Stephen's, the Shoemakers', the Vistula, and St. Nicholas', or the Butchers' Gate; at a later time, we also hear of New Gate and Castle Gate. Between the gates and beside them the wall was surmounted by bastions built of brick and provided with loopholes; there were forty-six such towers, of different shapes, some of them very artistic in execution. They communicated with each other by an internal wall. Besides these, there were deep trenches running round the town, parallel with the external wall. The earth cast up from these was either strengthened by brickwork to make a regular dam, or merely shaped into a rampart. In the years 1809-1820 the fortress walls were pulled down, except the chief part to the north side, which is still standing (illustration 14). The town of Kazimierz was not only independent of Cracow as a city, but also as a
13. VIEW FROM THE MUNICIPAL GARDENS. fortress, being surrounded by a wall of its own, with gates and towers. Of these fortifications, however, hardly any relics worth mentioning have been preserved—whereas of those of Cracow we still possess considerable remains, being, in fact, the most interesting part of the whole, viz., the barbican to the north of St. Florian's Gate (illustration 16), this gate itself, and the towers of the Lace-makers, the Joiners, and the Carpenters, with their connecting wall (illustrations 14, 15). All these probably date from the fifteenth century; thus we know that the barbican was only erected in 1498, King Albert (of the Jagellons) contributing the sum of 100 marks towards the building of it. This barbican, a very fine building, usually called Rondel ("the round bastion") by the people, is one of the very few monuments that are preserved of medieval fortress architecture—like that of Carcassonne in France, It is a round outwork enclosing in its
14. THE JOINERS' TOWER, OLD CITY WALL. powerful walls a large court, and formerly communicating with St. Florian's Gate by means of a covered gangway. In this sort of building, whose 'name seems to point to Arabic origin, we see one of the oldest means of systematic defence against fire-arms (illustration 16). In its outline it is an arch, with two slanting walls adjoining on the side of the town. The loopholes in the middle, on the ground-floor, were designed for cannon. Round the upper story there is a gangway running, widened by a row of
15. ST. FLORIAN'S GATE. consoles; this was occupied by riflemen and other defenders practised in arms. Channels (called "moucharabies") between the consoles made it possible to pour down boiling pitch or water, or to throw stones on the enemy when they approached too near. Seven small turrets, surmounting the gangway, served as sentry-boxes. Access to the barbican was defended by a portcullis and a
16. BARBICAN OUTSIDE ST. FLORIAN'S GATE.
(Remains of fifteenth-century fortifications.) drawbridge. The barbican, according to the notions of the time, was a very solid piece of fortification, which could also be used as a fortress by itself.

St. Florian's Gate (illustration 15) is a square structure fitted into the wall; above the pointed arch of the gateway there is a protruding upper story, with pitch-holes between consoles. The roofing, and the Polish eagle on the front wall, are modern. Two projections in the sides of the tower remain as traces of the gangway that connected it with the barbican.

Of the towers, the first one, at the outlet of Hospital Street to the east, is perhaps the richest and most graceful. It belonged to the lace-makers' guild. It is a semicircular structure on a foursquare basis of quarry-stones; the surface is ornamented with glazed bricks, stone fragments, and indented friezes; there are several moucharabies. The wall adjoining this bastion had few loopholes and a narrow, covered gangway with some few fissures; access to this gangway was gained by a door from the tower. The wall on the other side of St. Florian's Gate, towards the Joiners' Gate, was built on a different system, having an open gangway on the inside with numerous loopholes and pinnacles, which were all walled up in later times.

The leisure hours of the citizens were not all given to military exercise; they also indulged in various games. Christmas, Shrovetide, and Easter pageants are mentioned in the records of the guilds. But few of these have been preserved down to our times, and most of them are known by name only. The so-called "horse of Zwierzyniec" is a merry pageant, performed on the octave of Corpus Christi Day by the guild of the raftsmen: a man in the quaint disguise of a Tartar, carrying a wooden figure of a horse in trappings tied to his waist, and thus clumsily imitating a horseman, stalks about among the crowd, dealing out blows more jocular than painful with a mace ending in a cloth knob. This may be a fragmentary remnant of the popular religious drama of the Middle Ages; others interpret it as commemorating the Mongolian invasion of 1241.

The source of Cracow's prosperous development in the Middle Ages was its transit-trade. By its geographical position, the town became a crossing-point of commercial routes to all parts of the world. Checked as its progress was by the legislature of the country, it could not quite rise to the position of a world emporium; still, it attained high importance, and was able, for a long time, to occupy a leading place in Polish commerce. From the south, the commercial road from Hungary led across the Carpathians and through Sandec directly to Cracow; heavyfreighted wagons rolled upon it from Kassa (Kaschau) and all the wine-growing and mining districts of Northern Hungary, carrying copper, iron, oil, wax, and furs—and went back to Hungary again, laden with cloth of Flanders, Cracow, and Silesia, and salt of Wieliczka. From Cracow both Polish and foreign merchants started with wares Hungarian, Polish, and Oriental, on the most important route to Torun (now Thorn in Prussia), and continued their voyage on the Vistula to Gdansk (Danzig).

Sometimes they shipped their merchandise as far as the renowned town of Bruges, where the Hansa facilitated all transactions; not seldom they went even farther, viz., to the coasts of England. From the ports of Flanders they brought the famous cloths, also fish, wine, southern fruits, and works of art; no wonder, then, that some of the bronze plates, illuminated MSS., pictures, and products of applied art in Poland, turn out to be of Flemish origin. As early as during the reign of Casimir the Great, the merchants of Cracow had entered into close contact with the German Hansa, and at Lubeck they took part in its councils.

Another route leading from Cracow to the North connected Cracow with Great Poland, and, in its continuation by way of Stettin (Szczecin in Polish), with Flanders. To the east, the commercial routes from Cracow ran to the cities of Red Russia, reaching the colonies on the Black Sea, even to Kaffa, where the Genoese and Venetian vessels disembarked their cargo; from these, Cracow merchants chiefly took silks and spices. The expeditions to these far-off eastern ports were dangerous undertakings—although freedom of trade was guaranteed by privileges obtained from the Ruthenian princes—and they required brave and experienced men, able to face any danger. The armed caravans, generally combined into what was called a trading company, moved, in a long row of heavy wagons, through immeasurable steppes and wild forests in constant readiness for a fight, under the guidance of the most experienced member of the troop. Thus Nicholas Morstin, a Cracow merchant who led a caravan in 1386, had some hard fighting in Roumania (then called Wallachia), in order to save his cargo, and he lost all his goods by a sudden assault of the Lemberg Armenians.

From Cracow there was also a road leading to the capital of Silesia, which was Cracow's constant rival for commercial superiority. Owing to this contest, the use of the Breslau route was not without danger. In 1344, Bolko, Duke of Opole (Oppeln in Prussian Silesia), took by surprise some Cracow merchants on their journey to Breslau for St. John's fair, and plundered all their goods to the value of about 200,000 ducats. The Breslau road led further to Prague, where Cracow merchants were allowed to trade by a privilege granted by Charles IV in 1378. These commercial relations with Bohemia had a direct influence on the Cracow mint: in imitation of the Prague model, the groschen became the monetary unit.

In 1306, Cracow was granted exclusive and unlimited stapleright for all transit goods: this of course placed the Cracow merchant in the important position of mediator, and considerably increased his significance. It was the rich merchants who made up the patrician class, and it was at their instance that Casimir the Great permitted the Cracow citizen to buy lands like a nobleman. These merchants also did banking business, and lent money to monarchs, even to the Emperor Charles IV himself. Later on, even the great families of nobility took part in commercial transactions: thus, e.g., the merchants of Nuremberg, in 1457, concluded a treaty with Gregory of Branice, Andrew of Tenczyn, John of Melsztyn, and John of Tarnow, by which they undertook to furnish 6,000 marks' worth of cloth and 2,000 marks' worth of damasks and silks. Through the mediation of Cracow merchants also the oak and yew of the forests of Little Poland (fit for the building of ships and the making of bows), the lead and salt of the neighbouring mines, and the produce of the country in linen, wax, and leather, got into the export trade. In 1410 the merchants formed a company, the more effectively to defend their rights. A danger that menaced them was the Prussian merchant, supported as he was by the iron hand of the Black-Cross Knights of the Teutonic Order. Owing to these, the early fifteenth century became a time of disturbance unfavourable to trade. The peace of Torun in 1466 ends the most glorious period of Cracow commerce. The leading part in Poland's commerce was now taken by the Prussian towns, Danzig above all.

The victorious progress of the Ottoman power, manifested in the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks, cuts off all connection with the East. There is a revival of the Cracow market in the fifteenth century, as it enters into new commercial relations with the Franconian merchants, those of Nuremberg taking the part of mediators between the East and the West. The discovery of America in 1492 brings about a thorough revolution in the world's commerce; colonial produce enters on the market, and the modern development of prices sets in. Polish commercial policy did not prove sagacious enough to meet these new conditions, and thus led to the decline of commerce and of the general prosperity of the towns.

17. HEAD OF CHRIST, KEYSTONE OF A WINDOW ARCH IN ST. MARY'S CHURCH.