This is a German translation of a work first published in 1998 in Czech, by one of the leading Czech legal historians of the past sixty years. Jiří Kejř's long list of publications includes works on the legal contributions of Hussite reformers, the trial of Jan Hus, a history of the law faculty at the University of Prague, and a survey of the Hussite movement. The work under review is a synthesis of a lifelong interest and scholarship on the legal foundation and early development of cities in Bohemia, Moravia, and Lusatia, which later on, together with Silesia, were the main constituent territories of the Bohemian Crown.

Chapter I discusses the problem of defining cities, highlighting the ‘institutional’ among other defining attributes (e.g., physical or corporative). Chapter II addresses the terminology of settlements (villa, locus, civitas) and the description of personages (civis, burgensis, incola) used in sources of the Přemyslid age (ninth century C.E. to 1306) when cities first emerged and flourished in the region. Other chapters discuss the founding of cities, their economic prosperity, markets, administration, courts, citizenry, and the role of mendicant orders.

One of the most interesting and valuable parts of the book is a chapter on urban law. What might appear a fairly uncontroversial topic to some readers is shown by Kejř to be one of fundamental importance to other features of urban society. It touches on sensitive issues that were taken up by problematic, pre-World War II German Ostforschung. The older German scholarship proposed a widespread diffusion of German urban law and an array of other urban features to Bohemia and other lands that lay east of the Holy Roman Empire. Kejř accepts the influence of German legal traditions, stating that “urban law in our territory and further in Eastern Europe was without doubt influenced by German models.” However, at the same time, “we cannot deny that a number of tendentious conclusions were reached in the nationalist oriented specialized literature” (180).

In particular, Kejř acknowledges that it is not possible to identify “native elements” that developed into urban law in Bohemia; he underscores that German urban law was often adopted by Bohemian and Moravian cities after it was fully developed. It is also important to keep in mind, according to Kejř, that the adoption of German law was not arbitrary and needed authorization from the Bohemian Crown. The author then goes on at some length to discuss critically the path through which German urban law came to individual Bohemian, Moravian, and Lusatian cities and the development of families or groups of urban law in Central Europe. Among these groups is the Law of Leobschütz (located today in Poland; Głubczyce), which was rooted in Magdeburg Law, spread throughout northern Moravia and areas of Bohemia, and had its appellate court in Olomouc (German: Olmütz). In Southern Moravia, in contrast, no dominant path or family can be identified, according to Kejř. For example, the Law of Brno (German: Brünn), took on certain articles from the Law of Vienna, but the Law of Vienna was not adopted in its entirety and had no significant influence on the urban laws of bordering Moravia.

Tracing the origins and paths of urban law in Bohemia is even more difficult. Kejř states that Litomyšl (German: Leitmeritz) is often seen as the path through which Magdeburg Law entered Bohemia, but that the adoption of Magdeburg Law took place at a later date and no continual tradition can be identified. The origins of the urban law of the Old City of Prague, which served as a high court for a large region, has attracted considerable interest in both older and modern scholarship. Many have pointed to a royal privilege of 1315 to a village, which was later integrated into Prague, as evidence of the adoption of Nuremberg Law by the Old City; this is a view that has made its way into many general histories. Kejř notes that others have disputed the adoption of Nuremberg Law by the Old City of Prague based on the fact that no cases from Prague were appealed to or advice sought from Nuremberg. According to Kejř, later attempts to resuscitate the argument of the adoption of Nuremberg Law by the Old City of Prague are unconvincing. He argues that the most likely explanation is that the Old City represents a case of a city that had lively contact with foreigners and foreign legal systems, but which developed an urban law independently, though one influenced by German models.

In the end, Kejř provides us with a differentiated picture of the diffusion and appropriation of urban legal traditions in medieval Central Europe. While he (wisely) avoids direct, polemical confrontation with older German Ostforschung, unlike some other modern Czech historians, Kejř does not distance himself from modern German scholarship. Instead he provides a close examination of urban sources from the Bohemian Lands alongside insights gained from both modern German and European urban scholarship. It is fitting that this work appears in German translation in the prominent series Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für Vergleichende Städtegeschichte in Münster. This is not just a case of expanding knowledge of the early history of East Central European cities to a wider audience, but is also a long overdue recognition of a scholar who for decades, when it was difficult and unpopular, engaged fully in transnational and interdisciplinary debates.