1st Edition

Towns between Empires Good Governance and “Police” in Case Studies from Transylvania, Wallachia, and Moldavia, 1500s-1800s

Edited By Pakucs, Julia Derzsi Copyright 2025
338 Pages
by Central European University Press

Towns between Empires contains contributions regarding urban administration and governance in the historical regions that are now in Romania, and that fall under the early modern concept of good governance. Chapters give insight into the concepts and solutions applied by urban governments to political, social and economic issues that were under their care and control. The authors approach... Read more
List of Figures and Tables, List of Acronyms, Introduction - Mária Pakucs-Willcocks and Julia Derzsi Part I. Respublica—Political Constructs and Governance 1. Defending the Town's Interest: The Council of the Centumviri and the Administration of Justice in Early Modern Cluj - László Pakó 2. Urban-Rural Relationship in the Light of Political Statutes at the End of the Sixteenth Century - Julia Derzsi 3. The Main Square outside the Town Walls and the Ruling Elites of Alba Iulia at the End of the Sixteenth Century - Em.ke Gálfi Part II. Urban Elites and Nobility in Market Towns 4. A Salt-Mining Town in Transylvania: The Political Elite and Urban Governance of Dej between 1541 and 1600 - Anikó Szász 5. A Gold-Mining Town in Transylvania: The Political Elite of Baia Mare and the Structure of the Local Government in the Second Half of the Sixteenth Century - Petra Mátyás-Rausch 6. Residenza de nobili: Nobility in the Administrative Structures of the Market Town of Caransebe. (Sixteenth-Seventeenth Centuries) - Adrian Magina Part III. Town Books and Town Statutes in Early Modern Transylvania 7. Representations of the Urban Political Order in a Written Context: The First Protocol Book of Sibiu (1522-1565) - Mária Pakucs-Willcocks 8. A Szekler Town in Transylvania: The Statutes and Town Book of Târgu Mure. in the Seventeenth Century - Árpád-Botond György Part IV. The Many Faces of the Urban Elites: Identity and Representation 9. The Saxon Patriciate of Bra.ov in the Early Modern Period - Andor Nagy 10. Medieval Urban Autonomy of Câmpulung Muscel and Its Realignment in the Modern Period - .tefan Ionescu-Berechet Part V. Public Order and Public Safety in Towns 11. Keeping the City Alive: Managing Public Health Crises in the First Half of the Eighteenth Century in Sibiu - Oana Sorescu-Iudean 12. Shaping a Phanariot Town: Good Order in Eighteenth-Century Bucharest - Constan.a Vintil. 13. The Role of Police in the Good Governance of Ia.i from the Seventeenth to the Mid-Nineteenth Century - Dan Dumitru Iacob 14. Scientific Expertise as a Tool for Urban Administration: Chemical and Bacteriological Analyses ordered by the Municipality of Bucharest, 1877-1914 - Simion Câl.ia, Glossary, Bibliography, List of Contributors, Index

Biography

Mária Pakucs-Willcocks is a senior researcher at the “Nicolae Iorga” Institute of History and a research fellow of the New Europe College in Bucharest. Her research has focused on trade and merchants between Transylvania and the Ottoman Empire, on urban history and political discourse. Most recent publications the edition of the customs accounts of Sibiu, Zwanzigstrechungen aus dem Archiv der Stadt Hermannstadt (1536-1623) (2023).|Julia Derzsi is a senior research fellow at the Romanian Academy, at the Institute for Social Sciences and Humanities Sibiu. Her main research interests are institutional, economic and urban history in premodern Transylvanian, particulary Saxon towns. Her previous publications include Delict .i pedeaps.: Justi.ie penal. în ora.ele s.se.ti din Transilvania în secolul al XVI-lea (2022).