Page:Cracow - Lepszy.djvu/61

 THE MUNICIPAL ORGANIZATION suppliants, and mutely witnessed encroachments of the nobles upon the rights and privileges of the towns, which became particularly frequent after an Act passed by the Diet of 1420. Being deprived of all possibility of active interference on behalf of the towns' interests, their only means to obtain an alleviation of burdensome duties, or the suspension or at least moderation of some oppressive provision, were either direct petitions to the king, or personal intercession with the senators and knighthood, which had often to be accompanied by arguments in hard cash. In spite of all this, the Cracow people, as annals report, are always ready for sacrifices in case of need, they pay taxes and grant subsidies to king and state, defend the town from enemies and keep the fortress walls, at the expense of the corporations, ready for defence.

The common citizen was treated with supercilious contempt by the rich and imperious alderman or patrician. Accordingly, the Commons (Communitas) were in constant feud with the Council; true, they send their forty representatives there (quadraginta viri) of whom twenty are elected from among the merchants, and twenty from the seniors of the guilds and to these it belongs to guard the interests of the people, and to have a share in the Council's decisions on common matters; but we find the Town Council continually trying to evade the obligation of submitting its accounts to the Commons, and debating municipal matters together with them. It was only for the election of two deputies to the Diet, and for resolutions on ordinances regarding taxation, that the Communitas was really called in and heard.

Casimir the Great had ordered that one half of the Council were to be taken from among the craftsmen; but soon these new-elected members amalgamated with the patrician body. The common people, however, were not so easily deterred from pursuing their social aims; they stood up unanimously for their right of sharing in the municipal administration. In 1410 the merchants of Cracow combine to form a separate group, and instantly take up, in union with the craftsmen, the contest against the Town Council. The conflict grows more and more acute in