Consuetudine orale e tradizione scritta nella prassi giuridica delle comunità sassoni di Transilvania (secc. XII–XVI)
Consuetudine orale e tradizione scritta nella prassi giuridica delle comunità sassoni di Transilvania (secc. XII–XVI)

Summary/Abstract: Institutions are one of the essential driving force behind an economic system, and can represent a key to explain the economic success or failure. In a medieval society, the existence of efficient and preeminent judicial institutions guaranteed the political representation, the economic affairs recognition, the economy government, the market formation and protection, the conflicts resolution. The evolution of normative production of Transylvanian Saxons perfectly follows this scheme, keeping in mind the lateness caused by the political and geographical perifericity of this region. During the medieval centuries the transylvanian saxon communities obtained or provided themselves with efficient juridical institutions and tools (among which the Privilegium Andreanum granted by Andrew II of Hungary in 1224, the Codex Altemberg in 1481, the Statuta jurium municipalium Saxonum in Transylvania by Mathias Fronius in 1583). This is an element that contribute to explain the transylvanian hospites extraordinary political, economic and social development during the Middle Ages. Law particularity, administrative liberty and economic privileges allowed the progressive constitution of a coherent political structure, up to the Universitas Saxonum Transsylvaniae recognition in 1486. But when institutions operate in appropriate way and for a long time, often the renewal and the adjustment to a new political and economic context become difficult: the institutional conservatism can slow down the economic growth. In this way the Universitas Saxonum Transsylvaniae with its Statuta jurium municipalium Saxonum in Transylvania represented the most elevated moment in the political, economic and juridical life of Transylvanian Saxons; but Universitas and Statuta marked a final point too, contributing in substantial way to an excessive consolidation both of autonomy and privileges of the saxon hospites between the end of the XVIth and the second half of XIXth centuries, first in the autonomous Principality of Transylvania and then in the Habsburg Empire.

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