The Lesser Quarter Administration in the 16th and 17th Century in Expanded Commemorative Records on the Restoration of the City Councils
Abstract
The study describes the appearance and structure of city administration in the Lesser Quarter in the second half of the 16th century and during the 17th century. The reconstruction is based on unutilised sources - commemorative records on the renewal of city councils supplemented with the names of the heads of the individual city offices and city guilds.
Twenty-five such records from the periods of 1572-1580, 1630-1678 and 1694 are currently known, with a time lag of one year to five years between individual records. The character of the sources makes it possible to reconstruct the political careers of roughly nine-hundred burghers.
On the one hand, the personnel analysis enabled the identification of city offices listed in sources under different designations and to reveal the interconnection between them, especially the role of councillors who supervised the activities of lower municipal authorities. This made it possible to systematise the bodies of the Lesser Quarter administrative apparatus and to describe its individual levels.