The Buda Decision. Lessons from the Quarrel between the Sibiu Tanners and Shoemakers
The Buda Decision. Lessons from the Quarrel between the Sibiu Tanners and Shoemakers

Summary/Abstract: The quarrel that erupted in the late 15th century between the tanners and shoemakers of Sibiu offers an opportunity for the late observer to draw interesting conclusions for both economic and legal history. The townsmen engaged in tanning the hides regretted that the craftsmen in charge of shoemaking tanned themselves the skins needed for their work. The tanners’ delegate accordingly turned to the town of Buda for a legal resolution. This referred to a generally applied legal custom, also supported by the rulers in the medieval period, in terms of which no craftsman could pursue more than one craft, even if he was skilled in several. As it appeared, the ruler wanted thereby to secure the livelihood of all townspeople. The principle of one craft – one craftsman, known and respected at Buda, appears also to have been part of the common guild regulation of the Saxons of Transylvania from the year 1376, and was thus effective at Sibiu as well. It was precisely because Buda had achieved for itself a leading role in urban jurisdiction in the course of the 15th century that the tanners of Sibiu turned to that town in 1494, and it was for the same reason that the burghers of Sibiu had the statute of 1376 transcribed by the judge and jurors of Buda. In 1495, this same statute was also transcribed, at the petition of the tanners, by the chapter of Fehérvár, the oldest and most illustrious such institution in the Kingdom of Hungary, and one whose authority as a place of authentication extended to the entire realm. A year later, moreover, the tanners’ guild provided for a confirmation of the statute by King Wladislas II himself. Thus, the effectiveness of the 1376 guild regulation had been justified at all possible levels – the only place where it still had to be asserted being the town of Sibiu itself.

• Details
• Contents