Public Order Protection in the Medieval European Cities (XII-XIV cent.): Organizational and Legal Aspects

Abstract

The article examines the organizational and legal principles of the public order protection in the European medieval cities of the XII-XIV centuries. The author argues that in self-governing cities of medieval Europe in the XII-XIV centuries there existed some organizational models of public order protection which were standardized and got legal consolidation. The author focuses on three main models functioning in the Italian cities of that time. The first was based on the recognition and acceptance of the organizational principles and principles of public order protection existing in ancient Rome during the time of the Republic and Empire. The second model was based on the rules and principles that were formed according to the customary law of the medieval Italian lands. The third model was a synthesis of the first two. In the German and Flemish cities, where the influence of the Roman political experience in the XII-XIII centuries was insignificant, there existed different from the Italian model of the protection of public order organization. Having not experienced the influence of the Roman principles of public order protection, they kept to the practice that existed in the customary and written law of those nations in the Early Middle Ages. The political, legal and social realities of the German and Flemish cities in the XIV century greatly influenced the evolution of the public order protection models in them. The Polish, Lithuanian, Byelorussian and Ukrainian cities of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries used the model of the German municipal law. However, as the case study has revealed, the Ukrainian Magdeburgians did not copy the German models of public order protection organization, but developed their own organizational principles and traditions under the influence of the political, legal and social factors.