Implementation of Magdeburg Rights in Poland
The Law of Magdeburg implemented in Poland was different from its original German form. It was combined with a set of civil and criminal laws, and adjusted to include the urban planning popular across the Western Europe – which was based (more less) on the ancient Roman model. Polish land owners used the location privilege known as "settlement with German law" across the country usually with no German settlers present. Meanwhile, the country people often ignorant of the actual German text, practiced the old common law of Poland in private relations.
Notable Polish towns governed on the basis of the location privilege known as the "settlement with German law" issued by Polish landlords included Biecz, Frysztak, Sandomierz, Kraków, Kurów, Minsk, Polotsk, Poznań, Ropczyce, Łódź, Wrocław, Szczecin, Złotoryja, Vilnius, Trakai, Kaunas, Hrodna, Kiev, Lviv, Czernowitz (currently Chernivtsi in Ukraine), Brody, Lutsk, Volodymyr-Volynskyi, Sanok, Sniatyn, Nizhyn, Bardejov, Humenné and Krupina, among many hundreds of others. The advantages were not only economic, but also political. Members of noble families were able to join the city patriciate usually unchallenged.
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Famous quotes containing the words rights and/or poland:
“What men value in this world is not rights but privileges.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)
“It is often said that Poland is a country where there is anti-semitism and no Jews, which is pathology in its purest state.”
—Bronislaw Geremek (b. 1932)