Aristocratic Residential Town in the Late Medieval Bohemia I–II

The aristocratic residential town is perceived primarily as a social space – a stage for a wide range of ties and relations between the Lord on the one hand and the urban community as a whole, corporations and individuals on the other. The universal categories of order (ordo) and the common good (bonum commune) also co-shaped the relations between the Lord and the townspeople; serf loyalty (fidelitas) had its pendant in the profile of the ‘good Lord’ caring for the subjects entrusted to him by God. The probe into the environment of aristocratic residential towns simultaneously reflects the forms and expressive means of communication in medieval society and their shades, the ways of searching for a modus vivendi in relations between socially unequal partners.