Procedure, rules and meaning of political assemblies in Late Medieval Central Europe

Abstract

SUMMARYThis article discusses procedure, rules and meaning of political assemblies in Poland, Hungary and Germany in the second half of the fifteenth century. During the reigns of Casimir IV (1447–92), Matthias Hunyadi (1458–90) and Frederick III (1440–93), general assemblies were regularly called by the ruler in order to negotiate and decide matters of the realm together with the political community. With regard to current debates about the ways to study pre-modern ‘cultural political history’, this article describes and compares logistic and institutional conditions, including aspects concerning the composition, procedures and contemporary pictures of the assemblies.