Rozwój dystryktu miejskiego w średniowieczu na przykładzie niegdysiejszych dóbr biskupstwa miśnieńskiego pod Zgorzelcem

Abstract

Expansion of municipal jurisdiction in the Middle Ages as exemplified by the former estates of the Bishopric of Meissen near Zgorzelec (Görlitz) In the paper, two questions are raised: concerning the scope of immunity of the estates of the Bishopric of Meissen in eastern Upper Lusatia (so-called Zagozd), and how and when the former estates of the bishopric were absorbed by the judicial district (weichbild) of the town of Görlitz. The status of the bishopric’s estates has been reconstructed as immune from the jurisdiction of worldly powers, also in the field of high (criminal) justice, from at least the mid- or late twelfth century. This status was probably kept by those estates also when they were transferred to the hands of the knights after the decomposition of the domain of the bishopric. The end of the immunity of the former episcopal estates was brought about only by the active enforcement of their own jurisdiction by the townsmen of Görlitz in the 1370s.