1522-1526

LTKnygoje tiriamos XVI a. trečiajame ir ketvirtajame dešimtmečiais Vilniaus miestiečių bendruomenėje vykusių visuomeninių susidūrimų ištakos ir eiga, svarstomos jų pasekmės. Lyginami įvykiai Vilniuje ir kituose Vidurio Rytų Europos šiaurinės dalies miestuose. Viduramžių Vilniaus miestiečių bendruomenėje savivalda buvo aristokratinio pavidalo, taryba, pagrindinė savivaldos institucija, buvo sutelkta miestiečių bendruomenės aukštesniojo sluoksnio, patriciato, rankose. Likusi bendruomenės dalis tolydžio stiprėjo ir XVI a. pirmaisiais dešimtmečiais ėmė siekti dalyvauti miesto savivaldos institucijos ir ypač miesto finansų priežiūroje. Yra užuominų, kad mieste galėjo kilti riaušės, bet ginčus sprendė valdovas Žygimantas Senasis. Jo sprendimu besivaidijančioms pusėms teko iš dalies nusileisti, taryba prarado kai kuriuos valdžios mieste svertus, o bendruomenė gavo teisę dalyvauti prižiūrint miesto finansus bei rengiant miesto gyvenimo taisykles. Bet miesto taryba liko patriciato rankose. Pažymėtina, kad tuo pačiu metu regiono miestuose nuvilnijo bemaž tapatūs Vilniui visuomeniniai neramumai, tokia pati buvo jų dalyvių sandara bei siekiai. Bet tiesioginės įtakos Vilniaus miestiečiams nepastebėta, bene jauniausios Vilniaus miestiečių bendruomenės, savivaldos teises gavusios tik 1387 m., visuomeninė raida buvo itin sparti. [Anotacija knygoje]

ENDevelopment in all spheres within the burgher community in Vilnius, which had just received the right of self-government in 1387, was very rapid. Already by the turn of the i5th-i6th centuries, Vilnius had caught up to other more established cities with self-government rights, often 100-150 years older, in other neighbouring states in the Kingdom of Poland, the State of the Teutonic Order and Livonia, in terms of the social structure of its burgher community, social structure and the type of self-governance employed. By the 1520S-1530S however, clashes between different layers within the burgher community were breaking out in Vilnius, after which the mode of self-government in the city changed significantly, laying the foundations for legislating and entrenching the changing political leverage held by different layers of the burgher community in the near future. These clashes show that Vilnius, standing on the threshold of the modern period, had to handle matters needing4 to be resolved within the burgher community, which led to disturbances to life in the cities of the afore-mentioned lands. These cities also did not escape harsh clashes between the ruling layer and the burgher communities (in the narrow sense) in the 1510S-1520S. An increase in social conflicts within the burgher community in Vilnius occured in 1522-1526, but a resolution for their regulation was passed only in 1536 (which is why the period under research is written as 1522-1526/1536 in the text). These conflicts are already widely known in historiography, their course has been recounted numerous times, albeit sometimes in a fragmented manner. Participants in the conflicts have been identified at the burgher community level, but no attempts have been made to disclose the social content within these layers.Most attention has focused on relating the contents of the concluding document to arise from the conflicts, namely, the 1536 privilege of Sigismund the Old to Vilnius. Researchers were similarly limited, and continue to be held back, by the condition of sources on the history of Vilnius regarding the Late Middle Ages and the beginning of the early modern period. Books of acts of the city's self-government institutions were destroyed in 1655 when the Russian army occupied and looted Vilnius. This led to the loss of the most important data about the life of the Vilnius burgher community during the period under discussion. This loss is only partly compensated by information about the Vilnius burghers and their activities found in other Lithuanian and neighbouring countries' source collections, such as the Lithuanian Metrica and the archives of Vilnius' religious institutions, cities where residents of Vilnius visited and self-government institutions. As a result, the main source for this research were the privileges and decrees issued by the grand dukes of Lithuania in 1387-1536 to the Vilnius burgher community. A list of these sources is given in the text. They offer a good illustration of the development of self-government in the Vilnius burgher community, while the privileges and decrees of 1522-1526/1536 were directly intended to regulate relations between different layers of the burgher community. The identification of these particular layers in all the inscriptions (inscriptio) and in other parts of the documents is a key element of the research.The first task was to clarify the social structure existing within the burgher community in Vilnius in the period under discussion, and to recognise what type of people made up these layers as mentioned in sources. The chapter "The burgher community and self-government in 1387 to the early 16th century" aims at familiarising readers with the Vilnius burghers and who made up their community As in other self-governing cities, the Vilnius burghers engaged in wholesale and retail trade, the repurchase (rent) of state customs duties and taverns, various crafts and other business. Wholesale traders in Vilnius operated in the broader East European (Rus'ian) and Central East European (Kingdom of Poland, State of the Teutonic Order, Livonia) space, with some individual traders reaching the fairs in Leipzig, Frankfurt am Main and Antwerp. In the beginning of the 16th century we start to see Vilnius craftsmen assembling into guilds; five had been founded by 1536. Special unifications of the Vilnius burghers were known as mead fraternities. It has been noted that in the ruler's early privileges and decrees, before 1452, the recipients are referred to as burghers (rives et incolae, местичи). From 1492 (no privileges or decrees survived from the years 1453-1491), another recipient appears alongside the burghers - the council (consules, рада), often being mentioned ahead of the burghers. From this we can presume that up to at least the middle of the 15th century, the ruler or his office did not envisage any particularly clear distinctions within the community of the Vilnius burghers' self-governing body. [From the publication]