Trade and crafts in the town of Varaždin in the XV. century

Medved, Jasmin. (2012). Trade and crafts in the town of Varaždin in the XV. century. Diploma Thesis. Filozofski fakultet u Zagrebu, Department of History. [mentor Nikolić Jakus, Zrinka].

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Abstract

This paper deals with the most important economic aspects of the medieval town of Varaždin -trade and crafts. For successful economic development of the city, including trade and crafts, there were the necessary preconditions: good transport links, the support of Hungarian-Croatian kings who provided the town with the administrative and judicial independence from the local feudal lords, relieved it of some taxes, and enabled and supported the large annual trade fairs in the city that attracted professional traveling traders and residents from near and far surrounding of the town. Town administration regulated and protected trade and oversaw the proper conduct of trade activities. In medieval Varaždin anyone could engage in retail or wholesale trade with their surplus of goods, in the hope that such activity will generate some income. In trade, as their primary activity, were engaging many small grocery retailers. There were also traders of salt, and some prominent citizens of Varaždin traded with luxury goods. Butchers were probably dealing with the sale and exports of livestock and leather, and many domestic traders were joining together for the purpose of trade and sharing the profit and damage. Of the foreign traveling traders we recorded mainly those who were selling luxury cloth, for their customers who were mainly wealthier citizens of Varaždin. Under the concept of craft we should mean the set of all non-agrarian professions in the town, which include the productive and non-productive professions (services). In Varaždin the most important and numerous were the crafts that are prevalent in most medieval towns: metal, textile, leather and food types of crafts. The most important and numerous were the butchers. They had their own street where they cut and sell meat and were the first craftsmen in Varaždin, who have joined together to protect their corporate rights. Their association was called “fraternity”, because the guild did not yet exist in the city (the first guild was formed in the mid XVI. century). The most numerous members of non-productive activities were servants, ordinary workers and various city officials who were dealing with successful functioning of town and administration. At the end of the paper, are presented the various measures, types of currencies and taxes that were valid in the medieval Varaždin. Finally, we conclude that the trade and crafts in the town of Varaždin in the XV. century were enough developed to allow the town to be self-sufficient and export-oriented in its closer and further surroundings, financially secured, easy accesible to traders from afar, and thus attractive to new settlers who were looking for their existence.

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