The Kremnica Town Book of Accounts: The Economy of a Mining and Mint Town in the Kingdom of Hungary

Abstract

The town of Kremnica was founded by the merger of several smaller existing mining settlements, which were organized around the economic centre in Cremnychbana. Legally, the foundation date of the town is 17 November 1328, when King Robert granted it basic privileges including the privilege to expand its urban territory within a radius of two miles and the privileges of selfgovernance and judicial selfgovernment through the election of a mayor and twelve members of the town council known as aldermen (Geschworene , in German) (Juck, 1984, pp. 115–116, no. 136: 17 November 1328).¹ Due to the extremely rich and profitable gold deposits there, a mining and mint chamber was established in Kremnica (and not in the nearby older and more traditional town of Banská Štiavnica). This fact indeed suggests the vital importance of the newly founded town. Kremnica’s gold production soon found its way onto the world markets in Italy, and to some extent, it affected the supply of precious metals and thus their European prices in the 14th century. At the same time it participated in the economic development of major business centres in late medieval Europe (Štefánik, 2011–2012, pp. 22–28). In the first century of its existence, the town grew at an unprecedented rate and became the head of the union of six and, after the accession of Banská Belá in the 15th century, of seven mining towns in Central Slovakia: Kremnica (German Kremnitz); Banská Štiavnica (Schemnitz); Banská Bystrica (Neusohl); Ľubietová (Libethen); Nová Baňa (Königsberg); Pukanec (Pukkantz); Banská Belá (Dilln) (Bolerázsky and Vozár, 1965, pp. 93–94; Štefánik and Lukačka, 2010, pp. 220, 228 note 199).