CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2021
| Author | Čermák, Matěj |
|---|---|
| Title | The issues of hostageship in Late Medieval Bohemia and Poland |
| Summary | This thesis tries to analyse and compare the institution of hostageship in the customary law of late medieval Bohemia and Poland that has been long omitted by modern research. Hostageship became an important institution in its time which shaped the life of kings, aristocracy, and clergy as well as townsmen for several centuries and thus it is a pity that so little is known about its development the Central Europe. This thesis tries to change this situation and shed more light on this forgotten institution. For the Bohemian part, the research is conducted on the Epistolary of the House of Rožmberk based on the best-preserved noble archive in Bohemia for the fifteen century. As for the Polish part, mostly municipal law books, such as “The judicial books of Łęczyca” from 1385—1419, are examined. They contain many records of disputes about hostageship and their potential settlements. The objective of this study is twofold: first, I aim to clearly explain and compare the individual terms that appear in the Bohemian and Polish documents concerning hostages, and second, based on case studies, I will analyse how the institute of hostageship worked in practice, with an emphasis on the issues of aristocratic honour in the two late medieval settings. |
| Supervisor | Nagy, Balázs |
| Department | Medieval Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2021/cermak_matej.pdf |
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