Urban and economic history
The early centuries of the Polish era, at least until the mid-seventeenth century, brought economic prosperity to Galicia. International trade routes continued to flourish connecting Galicia with the Ukrainian steppe in the east, with Cracow and central Europe in the west, with the lower Vistula and Baltic Sea to the north, and with the Hungarian kingdom to the south.
Protected by Polish military might and enriched by the growing wealth of the country’s grain exports, Galicia’s cities maintained prosperous commercial and artisan activity until the mid-seventeenth century. Most of the extensive literature dealing with this period focuses on specific cities and towns in Galicia. Two contemporary Polish social historians, Elzbieta Hornowa and Maurycy Horn, have, however, provided descriptions of demographic and socioeconomic developments in all Galicia’s cities and towns during the height of the Polish economy-the sixteenth and first half of the seventeenth century.[259]By far, the most important urban center in Galicia was L’viv, which in fact was the largest city throughout all Ukrainian territory during the era of Polish rule. As early as 1356, L’viv received from the Polish king the right of self-rule as outlined in the privileges of Magdeburg Law, and about 1435 it became the administrative center of the Rus’ palatinate. To enhance its importance, the city was heavily fortified. Accompanying the changes under Polish rule was an influx of German and to a lesser degree Armenian settlers, who dominated the city’s merchant and artisan classes until the late fifteenth century. Urban life was organized according to guilds whose number increased to thirty by the mid-seventeenth century. Among the city’s chief manufactures were iron works and weapons.
By the seventeenth century, most of the Germans and Armenians became polonized and the city took on a distinctly Polish character.
Only Roman Catholics (Poles and polonized Germans) enjoyed the urban privileges of Magdeburg Law, while the growing Jewish population was restricted to living in its ghettos and to engaging only in those economic activities (especially money lending and certain trades) permitted them by royal decrees. The Orthodox Ukrainians had no particular privileges, and they were limited to one section of the city (Rus’ka ulytsia) and especially to its suburbs. It was this generally unfavorable situation among the Ukrainians in L’viv that provided the stimulus to the brotherhood movement and Orthodox cultural revival of the sixteenth century.L’viv’s prosperity began to decline precipitiously with the second half of the seventeenth century. Although L’viv was besieged briefly by the Cossacks under Hetman Bohdan Khmel’nyts’kyi in 1648 and again in 1655, the city was not substantially affected by these campaigns.[260] The overall changes within Poland after the Khmel’nyts’kyi revolution, however, did have a deep effect on L’viv, and its economy declined, beginning with the second half of the seventeenth century, because of three factors: constant wars throughout Poland during its “period of ruin”; a change in trade patterns; and the unfavorable influence of the landowning nobility on Poland’s economic policies.
There are several volumes of documents dealing with L’viv during the era of Polish rule. The Polish scholar Aleksander Czolowski has published the earliest extant municipal register books from 1382 to 1448, while the Soviet historian laroslav Kis’ has published documents from the years 1507 to 1771.[261] Besides the several general histories of L’viv that contain much data on the Polish era,[262] Aleksander Czolowski has written a general survey covering the period before 1772, while Franciszek Jaworski, Wladyslaw Lozinski, and Lucja Charewiczowa have focused on specific periods.[263] Other subjects that have received attention are the legal system in L’viv,32 the attempts of the nobility to influence city life,33 the social structure of the population,34 and the respective fates of the Germans, Armenians, Jews, and Ukrainians.35 L’viv’s economy in particular has been the subject of much attention.
Soviet historians have prepared general surveys of economic development during the era of Polish “feudalism,”36 but the most valuable data come from several interwar Polish monographs on trade, financing, the price structure, artisans, and guilds during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.37 Although L’viv has by far the most well-developed literature, several other regions, towns, even villages in Galicia have documentary collections, general surveys, or detailed monographs about developments during the Polish32 Aleksy Gilewicz, “Przyj^cia do prawa miejskiego we Lwowie w latach 1405/1604,” in Studja z hislorji spoiecznej ³ gospodarczej poswigczone prof. dr. Franciszkowi Bujakowi (L’viv 1931), pp. 375-414.
33 See n. 23 above.
34 S.T. Bilets’kyi, “Sotsial’na struktura naselennia L’vova v seredyni XVII st.,” in Z istori'i zakhidnoukrams'kykh zetnel’, vol. IV, ed. I.P. Kryp”iakevych (Kiev: AN URSR 1960), pp. 314; Maurycy Horn, Lwowska ludnosc rzemieslnicza ³ jej walka w pierwszej potowie XVII wieku (w latach 1600-1648), Zeszyty Naukowe Wyzszej Szkoly Pedagogicznej: Historia, vol. I (Opole 1960).
35 On Germans, Armenians, and Jews during this period, see chapter 10, notes 15- 18, 86, 88, and 90. On the Ukrainians, see Ivan Krypiakevych, “L’vivs’ka Rus’ v pershii polovyni XVI viku,” Zapysky NTSh, LXXVII (L’viv 1907), pp. 77-106; LXXVIII (1907), pp. 26-50; LXXIX (1907), pp. 5-51; Ivan Kryp”iakevych, “Rusyny vlastyteli u L’vovi v pershii pol. XVI st.,” Naukovyi zbirnyk prysviachenyi profesorovy Mykhailovy Hrushevs’êîòè (L’viv: Vydannie Komitetu 1906), pp. 219-236; and the more popular Mykola Holubets', Za ukrains’kyi L’viv: epizody borot’by XIII-XVIII v. (L’viv: Novyi chas 1927).
36 laroslav P. Kis’, Promyslovist’ L’vova uperiodfeodalizmu (XIIl-XIX st.) (L’viv: LU 1968); V. Inkin, Narys ekonomichnoho rozvytku L’vova u XVIII st. (L’viv 1959).
37 Lucja Charewiczowa, Handel sredniowiecznego Lwowa (L’viv: ZNIO 1925); R.
Zubyk, Gospodarka financowa m. Lwowa w 1. 1624-1635, Badania z Dziejow Spolecznych ³ Gospodarczych, vol. VII (L’viv 1930); Michal Wjsowicz, Kontrakty Iwowskie w latach 16761686 and Stanislaw Siegel, Kontrakty Iwowskie w latach 1717-1724, Badania z Dziejow Spolecznych ³ Gospodarczych, vol. XIX (L’viv 1935); Stanislaw Hoszowski, Ceny we Lwowie w XVI ³ XVII wieku, Badania z Dziejow Spolecznych ³ Gospodarczych, vol. IV (L’viv 1934), translated into French as Les prix d Lwow (XVIe-XVIle siecles). Oeuvres etrangeres de 1’Ecole pratique des Hautes Etudes- Vie section, vol. I (Paris 1954); Lucja Charewiczowa, Lwowskie organizacje zawodowe za czasdw Polski przedrozbiorowej (L’viv: ZNIO 1929); Wladyslaw Lozinski, “Kupiectwo Iwowskie w XVI w.,” Biblioteka Warszawska, XLVIII, 3 (Warsaw 1981); M. Kowalczuk, Cech budowniczych we Lwowie za czasdw polskich (do roku 1772) (L’viv 1927); Tadeusz Marikowski, Lwowski cech malarzy w XVI-XVII wieku, Biblioteka Lwowska, vol. XXXVI (L’viv 1936).See also Ivan Krypiakevych, ‘‘Materialy do istori'i torhovli L’vova,” Zapysky NTSh, LXV (L’viv 1905), 45 pp.
era. These include Berezhany,38 Brody,39 Drohobych,40 Jaroslaw,41 Krosno,42 Lesko,43 Mshanets’,44 Przemysl,45 Sambir,46 and Sanok.47
38 M. Maciszewski, Brze'zany w czasach Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej: monografia historyczna (Brody: F. West 1911).
39 Ivan Sozans’kyi, “Z mynuvshyny m. Brodiv (prychynky do istorii mista v XVII v.),” Zapysky NTSh, XCVI1 (L’viv 1910), pp. 5-25, XCVII1 (1910), pp. 10-30, CI1 (1911), pp. 88-115, also separately (L’viv: NTSh 1911).
40 Helena Polaczkowna, ed., Ksiqga radziecka miasta Drohobycza 1542-1563, Zabytki Dziejowe, vol. IV, pt 1 (L’viv 1936); la.D. Isaievych, “Do kharakterystyky remesla i torhivli v Drohobychi v 30-60-kh rokakh XVIII st.,” in his Z istoriizakhidnoukrains’kykh zemel', vol. IV, ed. I.P. Kryp”iakevych (Kiev: AN URSR 1960), pp.
30-39; la.D. Isaievych, “Administratyvno-pravovyi ustrii Drohobycha v dobu feodalizmu (do kintsia XVIII st.),” in Z istorii Ukra'ins'koi RSR, vol. Vl-VII (Kiev: AN URSR 1962), pp. 3-20; idem, “Gorod Drogobych v XVI-XVII1 vv.,” Goroda feodal’noi Rossii: sbornik statei pamiati N.V. Ustiugova (Moscow: Nauka 1966), pp. 160-167. See also chapter 2, n. 121.41 W.A. Wagner, Handel dawnego Jarosktwa do polowy XVII w., Prace Historyczne... Uniwersytetu Jana Kazimierza we Lwowie (L’viv 1929).
42 Anatol Lewicki, Krosno w wiekach srednich (Krosno 1933); Antoni Prochaska, “Starostwo krosnieriskie w XVII-XVI1I wiekach,” Przewodnik Naukowy i Literacki, XLVII (L’viv 1921).
43 Adam Fastnacht, “Ludnosc miasta Leska w XV i XVI wieku” Rocznik ZNIO, IV (Wroclaw 1953), pp. 77-116.
44 Mykhailo Zubryts’kyi, “Selo Mshanets’ Starosambirs’koho povita: materiialy do istorii halyts’koho sela,” Zapysky NTSh, LXX (L’viv 1906), pp. 114-167; LXXI (1906), pp. 96-133; LXXIV (1906), pp. 93-128; LXXVII (1907), pp. 114-170.
45 Jan Srnoika, ed., Ksigga lawnicza, 1402-1445 (Przemysl: Gmina Miasta Przemysla 1936); M. Horn, “Zaludnienie miast ziemi przemyskiej i sanockiej w drugiej poiowie XVI i pierwszej poiowie XVII wieku,” Roczniki Dziejmv Spolecznych i Gospodarczych, XXXI (Poznan 1970); Maurycy Horn, Ruch budowlany w miastach ziemi przemyskiej i sanockiej w latach 15501650 na tie przeslanek urbanizacyjnych, Zeszyty Naukowe Wyzszej Szkoly Pedagogicznej, Seria B: Studia i Monografie, vol. XXIII (Opole 1968); M. Horn, “Lokalizacja cechow i specjalnosci rzemieslniczych w miastach ziemi przemyskiej i sanockiej w latach 1550-1650,” Przeglqd Historyczny, XLI, 3 (Warsaw 1970), pp. 403-427; idem, “Rzemiosla skorzane w miastach ziemi przemyskiej i sanockiej w latach 1550-1650,” Kwartalnik Historii Kultury Materialnej, XX, 1 (Warsaw 1972), pp. 71-101; idem, “Rzemiosla metalowe w miastach ziemi przemyskiej i sanockiej w latach 1550-1650,” in Wyroby rzemieslniczne w Polsce w XIV-XVIII wieku, Studia i Materialy z Historii Kultury, vol.
XLV (Wroclaw: ZNIO 1971), pp. 23-68; Marjan Ungeheuer, Stosunki kredytowe w ziemi przemyskiej w poiowie XV wieku, Badania z Dziejow Spolecznych i Gospodarczych, vol. VI (L’viv 1929). See also the general histories of Przemysl, chapter 2, notes 110- 111.46 Anna Dorflerowna, ed., Materialy do historii miasta Sambora 1390-1795, Zabytki Dziejowe, vol. IV, pt 2 (L’viv 1936); R. Rybarski, Kredyt i lichwa w ekonomiji samborskiej w XVIII w., Badania z Dziejdw Spolecznych i Gospodarczych, vol. XXX (L’viv 1936); V.F. Inkin, “Rozvytok feodal’noi renty v sambirs’kii ekonomii u druhii polovyni XVI-na pochatku XVII stolittia,” Visnyk LDU-Seriia istorychna, 4 (L’viv 1967), pp. 79-91. See also n. 44 above.
47 Wladyslaw Kucharski, ed., Dokumenty z ziemi Sanockej (Sanok 1908); idem, Sanok i sanocka ziemia w dobie Piastdw i Jagiellonbw (L’viv 1905); Przemyslaw Dobkowski, Ziemia sanocka w XV stuleciu, 2 vols (L’viv: Wschod 1931); Alojzy Winiarz, “Ziemia sanocka w latach
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