Municipal Magdeburg Law (Ius municipale Magdeburgense) in Late Medieval Poland

Maciej Mikuła, Ph.D. (2012), habilitation (2018), Jagiellonian University in Cracow, is Assistant Professor at that university. He has published monographs, editions and articles on law in medieval and early modern Poland.

• AcknowledgementsAcknowledgements to the English EditionNote on the English EditionList of Tables and IllustrationsAbbreviationsIntroduction1 The Towns and Cities of ‘Younger Europe’2 The Saxon-Magdeburg Law and the Municipal Law in the Kingdom of Poland in the 13th–16th Centuries3 The Magdeburg Weichbild in Poland: A Reassessment and a New Research Agenda4 Sources and Periodization of Urban Legal Studies5 The Evolution of the Legal Text and the Process of Adaptation of the Magdeburg Law6 The Trap of Legal Positivism, or the Instruments of Historical Legal Studies7 The Contents of This Study: An Outline8 In Search of Method9 Editor’s Note10 A Synopsis of the Contents of Ius municipale Magdeburgense1 Manuscripts and Printed Texts of the Silesian-Małopolska Compilation1 Sources and Contents of the Weichbild2 Dynamics of the German Text3 Latin Manuscripts and Jan Łaski’s Printed Text4 Conclusions2 Dynamics of the Latin Text of the Weichbild: the Sandomierz and the Cracow Versions1 Formal Features of the Latin Texts2 Divergences in the Latin Texts of the Weichbild3 Divergences from the German Base in the Latin Texts of the Weichbild4 Group I: versio Sandomiriensis5 Group II: Versio Cracoviensis6 The Wawel Variant of the Cracow Version7 Conclusions: The Adaptation of the Saxon-Magdeburg Law and the Evolution of the Legal Text3 Practical Consequences of Textual Divergences: From the Cracow Ms to Jan Łaski’s Statutes1 The Weichbild in Jan Łaski’s Statutes2 The Urban Community and Its Citizens3 Crime and Criminal Procedure4 The Family and Family Property5 Debtor and Creditor6 Conclusions4 Habent sua fata leges: Glosses, Annotations, and Additions1 Evidence of the Use of the Weichbild in Legal Practice2 Amendations and Additions3 Polish Equivalents of Latin Legal Terms4 Regulae iuris5 Glosses in Printed Copies of Jan Łaski’s Statutes: Persistence of the Weichbild’s Medieval Conventions6 ConclusionsConclusions1 The Significance Weichbild among Other Sources of the Saxon-Magdeburg Law2 The Demand for Latin Texts3 Versions and Variants of an Archetype Compilation4 Cracow – Home of the Urban Law Reform5 Adaptation of the Saxon-Magdeburg Law in Poland6 Practical Consequences of the Evolution of the Weichbild7 Annotations by the Weichbild Users8 The Road to a Single, Authoritative Law TextAppendix 1: Concordance Table of ArticlesAppendix 2: Divergences in the Latin Texts of the WeichbildAppendix 3: Agreement of the Latin Texts in Gniezno MS (Gn.) Baworowscy MS (BN 12607) and Działyńscy Codex IV (Dział. IV) with the Corresponding German TextsAppendix 4: Weichbild’s Edition of Gniezno MSBibliographyIndex

'Mikuła’s book is a meticulously researched study which sheds light upon the reception of Magdeburg municipal law, or the Weichbild, in medieval Poland [...] Mikuła is a thorough researcher who is well-versed in the minute details of his texts. The wide array of manuscript sources he consulted, as well as the careful analysis of the text in each manuscript, are extraordinary. Mikuła’s project is ambitious and, fortunately, has uncovered information which might have gone unnoticed. Mikuła carefully demonstrates the evidence which led him to his conclusions, painstakingly tracing and tabulating all the evidence held within the manuscripts [...] Mikuła’s work is a meticulously researched study of a topic which has received little attention from scholars in the Anglophone world.' Justin S. Kirkland, The Medieval Review, 22.09.09, September 2022. Read the full review here.