Iure Theutonico? German settlers and legal frameworks for immigration to Hungary in an East-Central European perspective

ABSTRACT The article discusses the strongly disputed and over-politicised presence of the Germans, the single most populous minority ethnic group in medieval East-Central Europe, and their impact on their host societies, notably the kingdoms of Hungary, Poland and Bohemia, and the duchy of Silesia. It examines the routes and reasons for the arrival of the immigrant population, the topography of settlement and the activities pursued; and it discusses the legal background to the arrival of immigrants and their co-existence with the majority society. In most of East-Central Europe, the arrival of the German settlers led to the adaptation of ius Theutonicum, a framework created by sovereigns to accommodate the immunities and obligations of the newcomers. In Hungary, it never took root. Instead, settlers were accommodated legally by means of the liberties of hospites, until this stratum of external and internal migrants was absorbed into peasantry and bourgeoisie, respectively.

their proportion within the total population. However, in the absence of censuses and other statistical sources for the entire medieval period, only indirect evidence is available on individuals or on settlers as a group. The movement of people was continuous, but their flow was uneven. In all the main polities of East-Central Europe between the eleventh and the mid twelfth centuries, new settlers who made it to the historical record were high status individuals who became closely attached to the ruling elite. Such persons arrived accompanying the queens who, as a rule, came from a foreign realm. For instance, Gisela, the wife of St Stephen, the first king of Hungary (1000-38), brought knights from her native Bavaria, and the ranks of such immigrants renewed with each royal marriage; 6 however, these persons were few and quickly absorbed into the elites of their new country of residence.
The term used for settlers from the eleventh century onwards in the Latin usage of medieval Hungary, both as individuals and as a group, was hospes. This word denoted a 'guest' in the sense of immigrants to a settlement or a region (not necessarily foreigners), who were attracted by the favourable conditions. 7 However, this usage was far from general. In Bohemia from the late twelfth century onwards, the word hospes denoted a status inferior to the locals and having restricted legal capacity (Rechtsfähigkeit). 8 Their status could only improve if they ceased to be treated as guests but were regarded as indigenous. The views we have of them were very much subject to the political agenda of the source in question. For instance, Otakar II Přemysl was accused of expelling the locals from the Malá Strana of Prague in 1257 in order to make room for the strangers: 'he expelled the Bohemians from the suburb and placed the foreigners there.' 9 In sources from various parts of Poland, hospites were simply aliens, primarily merchants on the move, whereas the settlers recruited to a new settlement were denoted with the term inhabitator or incola. 10 Whatever term was used for the settlers, their arrival was strongly conditioned by a demographic deficit that acted as a pull factor for newcomers. The land 'in the East' was famous for being extremely fertile but sparsely inhabited. Even as late as 1308 the author of Descriptio Europae orientalis, most probably a French Dominican friar, describes Hungary noting that 'this … kingdom seems to be completely empty because of its vast size.' 11 This 'emptiness' left plenty of room for people coming from the densely populated western and north-western parts of the Continent. Their expectant attitude is mirrored, for instance, in the song of Flemish settlers moving east, the so-called Uitwykelingslied that portrays people who were hoping for enough land, a warm welcome and good 6 See, e.g. the catalogue, Ramón Sarobe and Csaba Tóth, eds., Princeses de terres llunyanes. Catalunya i Hongria a l'edat mitjana wine. This is one of the very few sources that reflects on the intentions of the settlers themselves, although the centuries of transmission before it ended up in a nineteenth-century collection of poems probably left their traces on the text.
We want to ride to East-land / To East-land want we to go / All over the green heaths / Freshly over the heaths / There is a better place. 12 The variety of motives for leaving one's homeland and seeking a new one is difficult to trace, particularly in case of individuals. Crusades as a mass movement evoked the interest in 'East-land' in many who chose the land route to the Holy Land, through Moravia, Silesia and the Carpathian Basin. For Silesia and Poland, the Baltic crusades may have played a similar mediatory role. A rare example of a person known by name among the crusaders was a knight called Anselm, who after the First Crusade in 1103 gave up his residence in Braz (modern-day Belgium) to move to Hungary ('in Hungariam ire disponens') with his sons. Some scholars claim that he gave the name of his original home town to his new domicile, Broos (Oraștie, Szászváros) in Transylvania (modern-day Romania). 13 There are several further examples of the presence of individual German 'eponymous' settlers in Transylvania, whose names turned into place-names from the twelfth century onwards, the most famous being the German name of Sibiu (Nagyszeben): Hermannstadt.
The first great wave of German immigration that established the 800-year presence of Transylvanian Saxons arrived in the mid twelfth century under King Géza II (1142-62). 14 They covered a remarkable distance, as on the basis of their dialect their original homeland has been traced back to the area of Luxembourg. 15 Likewise, the names of the first German burghers of Pécs, as attested by a list of names from 1181, derive from the Franco-German language border. 16 The analysis of personal names is also relevant to understanding the settlement process in Bohemia, but in a different way. Here the names of the settling agents revealed changing proportions of Czech and German locatores in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries in villages and towns alike. The fact that the length of the taxfree period for new settlers was relatively short (three to five years in most places) indicates that this option was sufficiently attractive. 17 Wherever attested by ethnonyms or by personal names, from the thirteenth century onwards most foreign newcomers in Hungary were Germans. Aside from the southern Transylvanian territories, they settled in greatest numbers on the north-eastern (Spiš/Szepesség/Zips) and western (Sopron/Ödenburg, Bratislava/Pozsony/Pressburg, Kőszeg/ Güns) fringes of the country, but also in Buda, the most significant new foundation. The majority of Buda's German inhabitants arrived from cities along the Danube, but there were also second-generation settlers from the northern or eastern fringes of the Carpathian Basin: Trnava (Nagyszombat, Tyrnau), Krupina (Korpona, Karpfen), Rodna (Radna, Rodenau). 18 Several documents attest that settlers were welcome irrespective of their ethnic background. Even Armenians and Jews are occasionally mentioned as hospites 19 and King Charles I's charter in 1324, inviting new settlers to Sopron is addressed to 'all persons of free standing, be they Christians or Jews'. 20 Rural or urban? Land use and settlement patterns To assess the impact of the new arrivals on indigenous society, it is crucial to know how they contributed to its operation. The mention of land in the poem quoted above indicates the prime importance of this resource for the migrants, which is corroborated by documentary and material evidence alike. In the sources, the process of settlement itself is often termed as melioratio or aedificatio terrae, that is, the improvement or 'construction' of the land, which clearly shows that the primary intention was to increase the extent and yield of cultivated areas. 21 The most lucrative way of 'improving the land' was by planting vineyards, as recorded in 1240 for Pest (part of modern-day Budapest), by both Theutonici and Saxones. 22 (The two names often appear interchangeably and do not refer to a clearly distinguished location of origin.) 23 Besides land reclamation, the newcomers were often expected to perform military duties. In a document from 1241, for instance, some persons describe their status as guests and people of free standing who arrived from Teutonia in the land named Zamar to act as guests (causa hospitandi), cultivated the deserted wasteland, and sent one well-armed warrior for every six households to the army with the count of Trencsén. 24 Military service was a prime duty for the Saxons of Transylvania who had to defend the southern border area. The first German settlements there were primarily rural and became gradually urbanised when the commercial importance of the region increased during the thirteenth and especially the fourteenth century. 25 This observation contradicts the frequently repeated statement that urbanisation in Hungary was an imported phenomenon, under German influence. 18  Documents on the expansion of cultivated land complement the results of landscape archaeology that have detected medieval fields and field systems in hilly areas, including north of Lake Balaton. In the higher hilly or mountainous areas in the northern and eastern fringes of the medieval Kingdom of Hungary, as well as in Bohemia and Moravia, terraced long strip fields on the hill slopes (lynchets) have been traced. 26 Land reclamation was not confined to territories inhabited by German settlers; the area affected by the transformation of the landscape was more extensive than that inhabited by Germans. Place-names alluding to forest clearings by cutting down or burning, such as Lehota, Volya, Praga, Zgorzelec, and so on, derived from Slavic languages, also indicate that the technique of transforming woodland to arable land was known and practised by indigenous people prior to the arrival of the Germans. These discoveries add further arguments to the discussion in Polish and German scholarship about the process of settlement. 27 It seems that the newcomers' main impact was a quantitative one, allowing for further expansion, but they were not the first in these regions to bring new lands under cultivation. The efficiency of tools and implements, including the deep plough that was introduced and promoted but not monopolised by the colonists, is another case in point. 28 As to the character of the twelfth-and thirteenth-century settlements, agricultural activity was predominant. In fact, rural and urban colonisation through the process of melioratio terrae was not distinguished at the outset but strongly intertwined and can be interpreted as a continuum, but the social status and wealth of the new arrivals may have varied. In the bigger towns or when the legal rearrangement of existing towns was on the agenda, as will be discussed below, wealthier settlers were expected. 29 The main difference between this wave of settlement and immigration to East-Central Europe in the late Middle Ages was that in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the main aim was no longer to colonise unsettled or unexploited lands, but to promote existing settlements. The settlers were therefore not typically peasants, but burghers, accustomed to and expecting to find an urban lifestyle in their new homelands.
Evidence from personal names and legal cases confirms that merchants mostly moved in from places that already had a pattern of regular trade with the target region. The main cities of origin were Regensburg and Cologne, with merchants using primarily the Danube route, and the land route through Prague and Brno (Brünn) as an alternative. There was a shift in the places that were the focus of settlement as well. Up to the 1350s for the average settlers who came in search of land and better living conditions, the peripheral areas of the Carpathian Basin were considered just as attractive as the medium regni. From the late fourteenth century, the typical settlers were Germans and Italians, who were first and foremost professional tradesmen, who consciously selected the commercially most significant settlements. 30 This shift went hand in hand with the increasing number of commercial privileges granted to towns: exemption from tolls and customs, rights of staple and the right to hold annual fairsall available to the residents of the given place, making a strong distinction between locals and foreign merchants (mercatores extranei). Likewise, in the 1255 customs tariffs at Győr, frequented by German and Hungarian merchants as well as Latini (immigrants from Romance-speaking areas) both by the River Danube and by land, different tariffs were set for the carts of each 'ethnic' group (de curru Teotonicorum / Ungarorum / hospitum Latinorum). 31 Such regulations made it advisable for merchants to settle or to send a family member or agent (factor) who established a branch of the enterprise there, enjoying the same advantages as the locals.
The processes outlined above can also be followed in settlement patterns and morphology. In the early centres of secular or ecclesiastical power, the loose and irregular topography made it much easier to integrate the newcomers: they were able to settle in a group without upsetting any existing arrangements or having to contend with a strong demand for adaptation. For instance, groups of hospites speaking Romance languages settled in separate streets or suburbs called vicus Latinorum around the most important royal residences, those of Esztergom and Székesfehérvár, as well as in Wrocław from the middle of the twelfth century onwards, whereas in Prague early German settlement units have been identified on the right bank of the Vltava.
New villages and towns on land cleared by settlers often have a distinctive ground plan that reflects their origin: plots were measured out on both sides of a road that served as the main thoroughfare of the settlement, and the land that belonged to each plot was added at the back immediately behind the residential section (Waldhufendorf). The main street served as a marketplace that often gained a broader, spindle-like shape to accommodate this function better, as in Košice (Kassa, Kaschau), the main commercial centre of north-eastern Hungary, or Prešov (Eperjes), its northern neighbour. The spaces of these markets (usually held weekly) became the centres of villages and eventually of emerging towns, where the parish church, the town hall and other public buildings were placed. Such an arrangement facilitated the settlers' participation in and control of trading activity. If a settlement proved to be successful and attracted further colonists, the street system became more complex, with new streets opened up parallel to the original main street. At a later stage, the marketplace may have been extended to a regular oblong shape, as in Sroda Sląska (Neumarkt), a town in Silesia named after its original Wednesday market days. 32 The initially undecided character of settlement, that over time might remain rural or develop into a town, was a common feature in all main target areas of settlement. 30  If many people were expected to settle within a short period of time, because an urban foundation or extension was envisaged, a grid plan was seen as the ideal solution. Hundreds of larger and smaller settlements with such a street pattern were established in Silesia, Bohemia, Moravia, and the Polish lands during the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries. 33 The almost total absence of the regular grid plan from Hungary, 34 which was otherwise typical of planned towns created as greenfield development or remodelling early urban centres, can most likely be explained by differences in the legal framework of the process of settlement that will be discussed in the next section.
These observations relate to settlement structures as a whole that were connected in their genesis to population movement, but not to any particular ethnic group. In other cases, names of streets or quarters attested in the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries refer directly to German inhabitants. In Székesfehérvár, a vicus Teutonicalis was situated centrally within the Castrum, perhaps laid out as early as 1249, after the royally mandated relocation of the suburban population. 35 In Zagreb, conversely, Germans resided outside the fortified area of Gradec; their quarter (vicus Theutonicorum seu sutorum) was set on fire in 1375. 36 The vicus Theutonicalis of Pécs, an episcopal see, is attested in 1444 as well as in the defters of 1546 and 1554, following the Ottoman occupation of the city. 37 These names testify both to the presence of German inhabitants and their mixed settlement with others: such names would have made no sense in places where Germans were in the majority or where they were completely absent.
A civitas Theutonica existed as a separate part of the town beside the civitas Hungaricalis, among other places, at Vác, an episcopal seat on the Danube Bend, 38 with an archaeologically attested buffer zone between the two. 39 At Visegrád, the royal residence of the Angevins for much of the fourteenth century, a civitas Teutonicorum appears, although its location is not clear. 40 In both of these cases the separate topographical position was combined with separate administration, in juxtaposition rather than subordination. 41 Migrating skills: the case of the mining towns The most direct import of legal, social and technical development took place in the mining towns wherewith the exception of salt-miningthere was hardly any local tradition to build on. The need for a new skilled workforce that could run the mines triggered the 33  immigration of settlers whose local customs were readily guaranteed by the rulers both for practical reasons and because of the strong negotiating position of the newcomers. 42 Moving to newly opened mines was advantageous for both the settlers and the owners of the land where the resources lay. For the miners, ores were more accessible, and the work was therefore more profitable than at places that had been exploited for a long time; for the landlords, the special skills and knowledge of the newcomers were indispensable.
The importance of the kingdoms of Bohemia and Hungary in silver and gold production became paramount from the thirteenth century onwards. Both countries, just like Silesia and Poland, utilised the expertise of German miners, who had already developed advanced techniques of building shafts and tunnels as well as employing waterwheels for draining water in the mines of the Upper Harz mountains and the Erzgebirge. German mining experts were much in demand in all parts of Europe from the silver-lead mines of Devon and Cornwall to the Moravian and Silesian mining centres of Jihlava (Iglau), Opawa (Troppau), Złoty Stok (Reichenstein) and the richest of all, Kutná Hora (Kuttenberg) in Bohemia; and later in Serbia and Bosnia as well. 43 German miners most probably arrived in Hungary through Moravia and Bohemia, judging from the influence of the laws and liberties of Jihlava and Kutná Hora on the legal standing of miners. The places in the kingdom where silver-mining was first practised on a considerable scale were Rodna in Transylvania 44 and Banská Štiavnica (Selmecbánya, Schemnitz) in Upper Hungary (Slovakia). 45 The presence of German settlers, who introduced the technology of underground mining instead of the initial extraction of ores from the surface, can be attested at both places before the Mongol invasion (1241-2).
For Rodna, the earliest explicit evidence is supplied by an eyewitness of the invasion, Master Roger, at the time canon of Oradea (Várad, Wardein). According to his Carmen miserabile, the leader of the Mongols came 'to wealthy Rodna, a town of Germans among high mountains and the king's silver mine, in which a huge crowd of people stayed'. The 'mayor' (comes) was captured and forced to join the invaders' army allegedly 'with his 600 selected German warriors'. 46 This large self-governing community of German miners issued a charter in a property transaction under its own seal as early as 1268. The names of all the persons mentioned in this document, both parties and the judges and jurors, were German. 47  connected to civic life as well as mining operations, resembling the regulations of Jihlava, has survived copied into the town book of Žilina (Zsolna, Sillein) in German translation from c.1378. 48 Other early mining towns were situated in Upper Hungary: Banská Štiavnica, Krupina and Zvolen (Zólyom, Altsohl), in the catchment area of the River Hron (Garam). These towns were either sites of mines, or residences of the proprietors of shafts, or transit centres along the routes of metal export. Similar privileges were granted up to the 1260s to six more places, the most important of them being Banská Bystrica (Besztercebánya, Neusohl) with its rich copper deposits. Together with the episcopal seat of Nitra (Nyitra, Neutra) chartered in 1248, these settlements formed the backbone of the policy of Béla IV (1235-70) of developing the infrastructure of this valuable gold-, silver-and copper-mining area. 49 As far as it is possible to judge from the names of the elite families, these towns remained German-dominated throughout the Middle Ages, even if the population in the surrounding countryside and probably many of the workers in the mines and the smelting workshops were Slavic-speaking, and some of the royal officials were Italians.
The arrival of significant numbers of German settlers, both individually and in organised groups, between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries, coincided with fundamental changes in the landscape and the settlement network. In Silesia and Poland, the structure of agricultural production changed because of extensive forest clearance, leading to a strong emphasis on grain production. This was present, but less important in Hungary, where mining and viticulture and wine-production became the driving forces behind economic expansion. Mining as well as a sharp increase in craft production, particularly in textiles, characterised Bohemia and Silesia as well. To what extent these changes were caused or catalysed by the presence of the German settlers, and what other forces may have been at play, can be better understood after considering the legal and societal frameworks.

The legal framework
Legal standing, rights and customs of the German settlers Legislation stands in a reciprocal relationship with processes on the ground, and the settlement movement ('colonisation') was no exception. The following considers the changes over time and space with regard to the initiators and beneficiaries of this process, with special attention to the terms Theutonici, Saxones and their derivatives, and their meaning in the given context. Was 'German' understood as a legal status, an ethnic affiliation, or something else?
The question needs to be considered in combination with an examination of the various terms employed for settlers. As explained above, in Hungary the main term was hospes, and thirteenth-century sources clearly indicate that it was a free status worth fighting for. A unique source, the Regestrum Varadiense, a formal record or protocol of judiciary ordeals at the Chapter of Oradea from the first decades of the thirteenth century, registered a series of cases where the legal status of various social groups was challenged by their neighbours or superiors. 50 The trials reflect the great social transformation of the thirteenth century in which the bonds of personal connection were replaced by new forms of liberties and duties. Several of the entries concern hospites whose liberties were attacked by less privileged groups. The cases offer a cross-section of hospes-groups of various origins. In 1213, for instance, a person living at Zonuk (Szolnok), one of the county centres and an important port for the trans-shipment of salt, claimed that 'he was the son of a Latin hospes and free from all duties' ('se filium Latini hospitis esse et absolute liberum'). 51 The Latini were the first settlers treated as a group, attested from the late eleventh century onwards, often settling in episcopal cities and in the two oldest royal centres, Esztergom and Székesfehérvár. Some bore French-or Walloon-sounding names (Gean, Rubynus, Iakmynus, Godynus and so on) and had contacts with Flanders or Burgundy until the late thirteenth century. The Latini were among the earliest promoters of urban self-governance and literacy, possessing seals with the inscription 'sigillum Latinorum'. 52 Returning to the Regestrum, in 1221 a group of castle warriors of Borsod (north-east Hungary) accused some people living in a nearby village of neglecting their duties, upon which they defended themselves, stating that 'they were free and the sons of Bohemian hospites' ('se esse liberos et filios hospitum Boemorum'). In yet another case the queen's German guests, from Újvár County, namely Germans from the 10 villages ('reginae hospites de provincia Noui Castri, scilicet Teutonici de decem villis') lodged a complaint against their reeves (villicos). 53 These three examples refer to hospites of three different ethnic backgrounds (in two cases already in a second generation) trying to break loose from the administrative system of the royal counties. The special legal status which they fiercely defended served as one of the main sources of municipal liberties in Hungary. 54 After its early appearance for individual settlers in the late eleventh century, hospes gradually became a technical term for the privileged legal standing of settler communities, and then of any autonomous communities, irrespective of their origin; this included the right of free movement, and of electing their own judge, council and priest. It was a significant transformation when privileges given to German (and other) settlers started to be accorded to the territory that they inhabited rather than to single persons or groups. The first such document marking this path was the famous privilege of the Saxons of Transylvania, the Andreanum, issued by Géza II's grandson, King Andrew II in 1224. It treated the entire territory inhabited by the settlers, from Orăştie ('Waras') in the west to Baraolt ('Boralt') in the east as uniform, irrespective of the urban or rural character of the settlements and defined rights and duties in terms of the entire community. In Bohemia and Poland no generic term comparable to that of the hospites in Hungary was coined, although prerogatives were bestowed on specific groups of settlers. The earliest such instance was probably when Vratislav II (1061-92), duke and later king of Bohemia took the Germans settled in the suburb of Prague under his protection. This may have been an oral agreement; the first written reference to it is in the charter of Duke Sobeslav II (1173-8). The text emphasised the spatial, legal and ethnic division between Germans and Bohemians: I place in my grace and protection the Germans who remain in the suburb of Prague, and it is my wish that just as the same Germans are separate from the Bohemian nation, thus may they be distinguished from the Bohemains by their law and custom.
Sobeslav gave them the right to elect their own parish priest and judge, and limited their military duties to defending the homeland, particularly Prague. The document underlined the judicial autonomy of the Germans when it regulated the procedure in court cases between Germans and Bohemians, as well as 'Romans' (Latini) and Jews. We should note, however, that the word hospes is used here in the meaning of 'stranger, alien': 'Newcomers or aliens (hospes) whosever they may be coming from whatsoever land with the Germans who would wish to remain in the town, may have the law and custom of the Germans.' 56 Many of these prerogatives are similar to those given by charters of privilege to settler communities, including but not limited to Germans in Hungary. 57 Such were the 'hospites dwelling near the castle of Vukovar, namely Germans, Saxons, Hungarians and Slavs' ('hospites iuxta castrum Valkow commorantes, videlicet Teutonici, Saxones, Hungari et Sclavi') 58 or 'our hospites, Hungarians as well as Germans, residing in the suburb of the castle of Stari Tekov' ('hospites nostri tam Hungari quam Teutonici in suburbia castri de Bors commorantes'). 59 Even the compiler of a forged charter of the abbey of Hronsky Benadík (Garamszentbenedek) felt it appropriate to include 'men of whatever nation, namely Saxons, Hungarians, Slavs or others' ('cuiuscumque nationis homines, Saxones videlicet, Hungari, Sclavi seu alii'). 60 Such phrases become less frequent from the second half of the thirteenth century when the prerogatives granted to the named groups became the basis of the privileges for all inhabitants of an entire settlement.
These rights accorded by the sovereigns fulfilled important practical functions. The free election of a parish priest by an ethnic community that spoke a different language from the surrounding population served the basic need of providing pastoral care (preaching and 56  confession) in the vernacular. This liberty developed locally in East-Central Europe, without precedent in the regions from which the settlers came. There was a gradation of differences, for example, whether the chosen priest had to be presented to the bishop, as in most Hungarian towns, or was fully independent of him, as in Sobeslav's charter to the Germans in Prague. The terms referring to the basis of election were essentially the same as in case of the judge: by common consent (communi consilio); the greater and more reasonable part choose (maior et sanior pars eligat)thus implying that the same members of the community elected both priest and judge. 61 This right throughout the Middle Ages and beyond made an important contribution to the distinct identities of local communities.
The election of a judge was an even more important element of self-governance, particularly in the light of judicial autonomy received by the settler communities. Gradation was present in this respect, too: the main difference between hospes-rights and charters given to fully fledged urban communities was the right to judge major criminal offences. This was a fundamental distinction for any medieval European urban community. 62 In the settlements of East-Central Europe, judges had another function as well: to represent the sovereign's interest vis-à-vis the local population. This obligation is clearly formulated in a charter of 1338 settling the discord over the election of a judge in the Slavonian Koprivnica (Kapronca), a small town with a mixed Croatian, German and Hungarian population. The ban (the 'viceroy') of Slavonia defined the judge as 'one who must maintain fidelity and justice first and foremost to the king, our natural lord and in turn to the ban of the whole Slavonia, and second, to the community of the aforesaid burghers and settlers' ('qui primo et pre[senti] domino regi, domino nostro naturali et per consequens bano tocius Sclavonie, deinde universitati predictorum civium et hospitum de Koproncha fidem et iusticiam debeat conservare'). 63 Some early charters of privilege in Hungary also included references to the 'German way'. The villicus (or reeve) of Németi (now part of Satu Mare, the place-name literally meaning 'of the Germans') was obliged in 1230 to join the royal army with four archers 'after the manner of the Saxons' ('more Saxonum'); 64 and tithes of corn at Trnava were specified in 1238 as being rendered in the manner of the Germans, in sheaves left in the field ('more Teutonicorum in capeciis'). 65 In this case the mode of payment, favourable to the settlers, was extended to anyone living at the settlement, irrespective of ethnicity. The issue of the tithe was of universal concern when founding new settlements. 66 There were very few instances among charters issued by the kings of Hungary that favoured one ethnic group over another. Such a distinction was applied in Krupina when Béla IV renewed its charter in 1244: 'the testimony of Hungarians alone must not be accepted against them, but together with the Saxons and Teutons it should gain force' ('testimonium Hungarorum tantum contra eos non admittatur, sed mixtorum cum Saxonibus vel Teutonicis vigorem obtineat'). 67 In two small towns near Krupina, Dobrá Niva (Dobronya) and Babina (Bábaszék) the condition was modified in 1254: 'testimonies should be presented by Hungarians and Germans together' ('ex Hungaris et Teutonicis simul testimonia proferantur'). 68 Communities of miners in Banská Bystrica enjoyed even greater liberties than other settlers, and were free to practise their own customs, even when these conflicted with local norms. King Béla IV, who was keen on eradicating judicial duels, 69 nonetheless not only allowed duels in his 1255 charter to Banská Bystrica, but also determined that if the plaintiff was 'one of them, or has the same liberties and origins' ('de ipsis vel libertatis ac nacionis eorum'), the duel was to be fought with swords and rounded shields, 'following the custom of the Saxons' ('prout Saxonum optinet consuetudo'). 70 Apparently the king found it so important to secure the goodwill of these expert miners that he was ready to suspend a principle that he had enforced in every other town.

'German right' (ius Teutonicum)
The customs and liberties of German and other settlers discussed above were fundamentally different from the 'German right' (ius Teutonicum) that became a standard element of settlement charters issued in increasing numbers in Silesia, Moravia and Bohemia from the early thirteenth and in the Polish duchies from the mid thirteenth century. (There were also variants of the term such as ius, mos, consuetudo, libertas, statutum Theutonicorum or Theutonicale.) Charters bestowing this status were meant to regulate and encourage the settlement process. The early phase of this process is connected to settling colonists on monastic land, as reflected by the donation charter of the Cistercian abbey of Lubiąż (Leubus) issued in 1175. This contains a paradigmatic sentence that will recur, mutatis mutandis, in many dozens of settlement charters in the next two centuries: 'Every German who will cultivate the lands of the monastery or inhabit them being settled by the abbot shall be free from all Polish law forever without exception' ('Quicumque Teutonici possessiones monasterii coluerint vel super eas habitaverint per abbatem in eis collocate, ab omni jure Polonico sine exceptione sint in perpetuum liberi'). 71 Legal historians suggest that the origin of the settlement charters, the Lokationsurkundenthe name deriving from locatio, the technical term for transforming legal conditions by settlementgoes back to rights and financial conditions gained by settlers who reclaimed land in Holland and Flanders in the tenth and eleventh centuries. However, very little concrete textual evidence is available to test this theory. We find better evidence in the written agreements from the landowners, first and foremost the archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen, given to settlers who migrated eastwards in the twelfth century. 72 From here the practice of issuing Lokationsurkunden 'colonised' the documentary practice gradually as far as Galicia, with significant transformations on its way. Remarkably, no such documents have come down to us from the central territories of Germany, only from the eastern border zone, from the diocese of Magdeburg and the area into which it expanded. It was also during the twelfth century that the appointment of an agent for settlement (locator, advocatus) developed and became institutionalised.
The earliest explicit reference in East-Central Europe to the establishment of urban settlements under these conditions relates to Złotoryja (Goldberg, 1211) in Silesia and Bruntál (Freudenthal, 1213) in Moravia. As the toponyms and the texts of the charters indicate, both were mining towns that needed to attract a skilled workforce. The novelty of the conditions ('novum et honestum institutum') provided by the sovereign is clearly spelled out in the Bruntál charter: 'We confirm the settlement of your town according to the right of the Germans which has before been unusual and out of the ordinary in Bohemian and Moravian lands' ('Nos locationem vestre civitatis secundum ius Teutonicorum quod hactenus in terris Bohemie et Moravie inconsuetum et inusitatum extiterat … confirmamus'). 73 The duke of Silesia, Henry the Bearded, simply requested a copy of the liberties of the citizens of Magdeburg accorded to them by Archbishop Wichmann in 1188, and added a corroborating clause for Złotoryja (Aurum): 'Let it be known, moreover, that those customs which we have conferred on our hospites of Aurum, those written by Lord Wichman, archbishop of Magdeburg, are to be observed for ever' ('Sciendum autem, quod has instituciones a domino Vicmanno Magdeburgensi archiepiscopo rescriptas [ospitibus] nostris de Auro contulimus in perpetuum observandas'.) 74 The next Silesian town to be chartered by Henry the Bearded iure Theutonico, Lwówek Śląski (Löwenberg, 1217) followed the 'classical' model: the duke commissioned two advocati, Thomas and Hartlieb, to establish a town in the border forest between Silesia and Moravia. He also determined the number of plots to be created and switched a neighbouring village, Ujazd Gorny (Ober Mois) to 'German right' and added it to the territory of the new town. 75 These pioneering charters were followed in quick succession by new foundations. In Silesia alone before the end of the thirteenth century almost 400 places received Lokationsurkunden, several of which (Wrocław, Środa Śląska/Neumarkt, Głubczyce/ Leobschütz and Lwówek Śląski and Złotoryja mentioned above) later became eponymous points of reference for legal filiations of charters granting rights. 76 The issuing of settlement charters spread eastwards rapidly, and with this spread the formulations became more professional, even standardised. In 1257 Bolesław the Chaste chartered Kraków and Dukes Przemysław and Bolesław chartered Poznań, setting precedents for Greater and Lesser Poland, respectively. 77 Historians have debated the 'German-ness' of the ius Theutonicum conferred on the chartered sites, and the participation of German settlers in spreading it. It is difficult to estimate the proportion of Germans in each town or villagewithin broad margins one can assume that it decreased from west to east. The proportion of German inhabitants, however, was not connected with the spread of the use of ius Theutonicum, nor its validity. As František Graus has aptly remarked, 'the term ius Theutonicum emerged by the thirteenth century in the western Slavic territories neighbouring the German lands', not in the Holy Roman Empire itself. 78 Recently Sławomir Gawlas took up a similar issue: Thus the question arises to what extent one can simply speak of the reception of models already in existence, and to what extent local conditions and local needsespecially the interests of the respective rulers and territorial overlordsinfluenced the outlook of the newly created towns. 79 Furthermore, it was just as important to state which former rights ius Theutonicum replaced as to specify the new conditions it introduced. Ruthenia, the easternmost region where charters of settlement iure Theutonico were regularly issued, is a case in point for the versatility of the concept, and the utilitarian approach of the sovereigns. 80 Here both the rights that were abolished and the range of people affected by this change were extremely diverse. The standard phrase for the transfer was: 'from Polish, Ruthenian and whatever other right we transfer [them] to German right, removing there all Polish, Ruthenian and whatever other rights' (' … de iure Polonico, Ruthenico et quovis alio in ius Theutonicum transferimus, removentes ibidem omnia iura Polonicalia, Ruthenicalia et quovis alia'). In the charter of Sanok (1339), those subjected to ius Theutonicum were Theutunicus, Polonus, Ungarus et Ruthenus; in the charter of Lviv (Lvov, Lemberg) in 1356, Kazimir the Great, after moving the city from Ruthenian law to ius Magdeburgense, extended this legal standing 'to Armenians, Jews, Muslims, Ruthenians and other people' ('Ormenis, Iudeis, Saracenis, Ruthenis et aliis gentibus'). 81 Lviv often served later as a model or court of appeal for other towns in Ruthenia. The expression 'by the German right of Magdeburg which is used in our city of Leona otherwise Lviv' ('iure Teutonico Maydeburgensi, quo civitas nostra Leona alias Lwow utitur') occurs for instance in the privileges for Horodok (Grodek Jagiellonski) and Peremyshl (Przemyśl). 82 The other broad set of questions pertains to the rural or urban character of ius Theutonicum. In brief, ius Theutonicum could be given to colonising peasants and burghers alike, but it was not a coherent legal system that the settlers brought with them. It denoted a social standing that the locals as well as migrants could acquire. It may be easier to determine what it was not, as it was often defined in opposition to ius Polonicum or any other local, vernacular legal system with its burdensome set of obligations and duties. Rationalising and standardising obligations, originally fitted to the needs of the 78  German settlers, made moving attractive for them. Afterwards, it depended on local developments whether these settlements could establish themselves as towns. 83 One might assume that reference to the city of Magdeburg would imply a legal system of urban character, but this was not necessarily the case. While in Silesia and Moravia direct contact with Magdeburg could be maintained, in the eastern part of Poland and in Ruthenia ius Theutonicum Magdeburgense was not a specifically urban model. Rural privileges also transferred villages 'from Polish and Ruthenian right into German right, which is the right of Magdeburg' ('de iure Polonico, Ruthenico in ius Theutonicum, quod est ius Magdeburgense'). 84 The mention of Magdeburg became 'immaterial', as 'a symbol of a new order, a model for re-organisation of settlements, and also of re-establishing lordship'. 85 In the case of Ruthenian towns ius Theutonicum Magdeburgense features only in documents from the fourteenth century onwards, and had no direct relevance to the actual law of Magdeburg, or even to a 'family' of this law. As Olha Kozubska aptly summarised, ius Theutonicum could be interpreted 'as a strategy for establishing communities, urban or rural. Membership [of] the community and a share in the settlement's commodities, land first of all, were closely interrelated'. 86 In contrast to the Slavic-speaking territories of East Central Europe, a specific trait of Hungarian urbanisation was that wherever references or comparisons to the privileges or liberties of other cities as legal models were made, these referred to places within the borders of the country. The royal charters given to towns did not follow any external pattern, but were created with respect to local conditions, and often absorbed elements of local customary law. Apart from the two main models, Fehérvár and Buda, charters of privilege often used towns in the close neighbourhood as points of reference, and not foreign cities. 87 Particularly conspicuous is the absence of references to the city of Magdeburg and Magdeburg law. Even an exception, that of Žilina, one of the northernmost towns of medieval Hungary inhabited mainly by Germans and Slavs, confirms this rule. The town was originally founded under German law, with Cieszyn (Teschen) as its mother-town. King Louis I (1342-82), however, considered this as an undesirable anomaly and in 1369 obliged the local authorities to choose a mother-town within the boundaries of the kingdom. On this demand, the choice of Žilina fell on Krupina. 88 An often-misinterpreted allusion to Magdeburg law can be found in the Ofner Stadtrecht, the law book of Buda (the German name of Buda was Ofen). According to the law book's first chapter, the legislation 'complies in some parts and pieces with Magdeburg law' ('mit helet in etlichen dingen oder stugken Maidpurgerischen rechten'). 89 However, hardly any articles were copied directly or verbatim: Magdeburg was mentioned rather as a point of reference that imbued the articles of local customary law with widely recognised authority. 90

Patterns and perspectives
How did the settlement of Germans as a 'minority' have an impact on the society and economy of East-Central Europe? 'Minority' is naturally a question of scale: it certainly applies to the region as a whole, but with significant differences according to time frame, polity and settlement, where occasionally Germans formed the majority. The term 'impact' is all the more appropriate, since much of what has been discussed above was not directly or solely carried out by the German immigrants, but their presence enabled, triggered or was used as a pretext to carry out certain measures.
First, although there has been little room here to discuss details of topography and material culture, it may be stated that the landscape and the settlement network fundamentally changed between the mid twelfth and the mid fourteenth centuries. Old centres created for exercising military and administrative power gave way to new towns geared towards regional exchange and long-distance trade. Scattered farmsteads and settlements of serfs bound to county centres were replaced by nucleated villages, and the villages created by the new settlers followed this model, too. 91 The social standing of the peasantry improved in the regions affected by immigration and internal colonisation. The landowners themselves, especially those of large ecclesiastical estates, discovered the advantages of the new system, and offered or sold to the local rural population the same status as the settlers had. The main advantage was establishing fixed and clearly defined duties or obligations between inhabitant and lord, as opposed to unlimited demands. At the outset, it was often undecided whether the settlements created or inhabited by the settlers should be urban or rural in character. The basic agenda was to attract new manpower, not to 'import' fully-fledged burghers. Settlements were gradually urbanised, particularly after the transformations of the thirteenth century, which necessitated a denser and more commercially oriented urban network.
Second, the need to arrange and channel the movement of external and internal migration established mechanisms that for centuries defined social structures in the region. In the initial period, the liberties the sovereigns or landlords offered to a substantial number of settlers served the purpose of increasing the population or importing special skills. Some of the liberties granted to the settlers may have originated in their homeland, but most of them developed in their new places of residence where new needs for expansion or protection arose. In the Western Slavic areas and Ruthenia, the main mechanism for creating this new legal setup was the locatio under the guidance of a scultetus (Schultheiss) in villages and advocatus (Vogt) in towns. Founding new towns or upgrading existing ones, even episcopal seats, to fully-fledged cities was achieved in this way. 92 usually professional tradesmen. They went to places with an existing German population, where they regularly participated in local government and promoted German literacy in administration and cultural life. Seignorial impact was less decisive; the settlers were attracted by business opportunities rather than land or tax allowances granted by the rulers or landlords.
Finally, why has the question of settlers and settlement grown beyond the realm of scholarly historical research? Discussion of immigrants to East-Central Europe, especially in the context of the eastward movement of Germans, was over-politicised by the national historiographies of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, both from the 'settlers" and the 'receivers" points of view. Generations of historians aimed, explicitly or implicitly, at constructing historical or natural right to the land 'of their forefathers'. 98 However, as the discussion above has demonstrated, the movement of migrantseastwards or otherwisewas not unified and planned. Instead, it often meant discontinuous, smallscale, diverse movements of individuals and small groups; but, at the same time, it was part of a pan-European process and needs to be appreciated in that context. The settlers, whichever language they spoke, were not representatives of 'nations' who carried out conscious actions in the interest of their respective 'states'. A balanced view cannot give credit to one-sided interpretations, derived from the viewpoint of the 'colonisers' and the 'colonised', the 'majority and the 'minority': the appearance of foreign settlers can neither be considered a heroic cultural expansion, nor a cunningly planned aggressive act.