Registrele de socoteli ale orașului Cluj de la sfârșitul secolului al XV-lea: întregiri și interpretări

Abstract

Following the diplomatic sources written in urban contexts, account books represent one of the richest and most diverse sources of information concerning the governance and everyday life of any medieval town. This situation is also fully valid for the small Transylvanian corner of Eastern Central Europe, where a handful of urban settlements of German foundation had developed and flourished in the Late Middle Ages. Through a few historical records of this nature, dating from the last years of the 15th century, the town of Cluj – at this point jointly administrated by its Hungarian and German communities – resembles in their employment with the predominantly Saxon towns of Sibiu, Bistrița, Brașov and Sighișoara. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to typologically frame the preserved fragments of the medieval accounts of Cluj, part of them already put in circulation since the end of the 19th century, while another, more modest in scope, was completely unpublished so far, as well as to give all these sources a new and updated critical edition.