‘Due to disagreements, great, mighty and opulent cities fell into misery and destitution’: A City in Premodern (East) Central Europe and the Collapse of Traditional Community?

In referring to the sociological concept of community as a cultural field with a complex of symbols, this article examines social and organizational principles of an early modern city and explores the processes that might have contributed to the gradual metamorphosis of the medieval burgher community into modern urban society. The issue is demonstrated, in particular, through an analysis of so far sporadically studied and little known (East) Central European urban sources. Terra incognita to most comparative urban historians, (East) Central Europe in this article embraces historical territories of the Bohemian Lands, Habsburg Hungary, and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth with overlaps to the Holy Roman Empire.