Földvári Books

An Unrecorded Imperial Prague Ordinance with Bread Price Table (1571)

Maximilian II

[Satzung und Ordnung der Römisch-Kaiserlichen Majestät für die Stadt Prag. / Statutes and Ordinances of His Imperial Majesty for the City of Prague.] Der Römischen Kaiserlichen, auch zu Hungern vnnd Behaim Kün: Ma: ir. Vnsers Allergenädigisten Herren Satzung vnnd Ordnung, so bey jetziger zusamenkunfft vnnd irer Ma: Hofhaltung, auch künfftig von aller meniglich, frembden vnnd Einhaimischen, in aller Präger Städten bürgerpublich, vnnd bey vermeidung Ihrer Kai: Ma: ir vnnachlässicher straff vnnd vnagnad gehalten werden soll.

[Prague]: [Georg Schwartz], [1571]. First edition. Title page with woodcut imperial arms. Later marbled paper wrappers. [22] p. Title page lightly stained; paper uniformly toned. Otherwise a fine copy.

An unrecorded early official Prague imprint, an imperial ordinance of 1571 regulating civic life and markets in Prague and including the earliest printed Habsburg Brotordnung.

This unrecorded ordinance constitutes a comprehensive urban police and market regulation for the city of Prague, issued under Emperor Maximilian II and dated 8 February 1571. It belongs to the mature phase of sixteenth-century Policey legislation, through which the Habsburg monarchy articulated territorial governance by integrating public order, provisioning, public health, and economic regulation. (Pauser, 2002) Promulgated during a period of heightened administrative consolidation shaped by demographic growth, market expansion, and recurrent subsistence pressures, the ordinance reflects Prague’s position as the capital of the Kingdom of Bohemia and a principal imperial residence at the intersection of court consumption, regional supply networks, and international trade routes linking Bohemia with Austria, Hungary, and the German lands.

The volume opens with a title page bearing a woodcut of the imperial coat of arms, followed by a formal introductory proclamation. The text is arranged as a sequence of regulations addressing practical urban governance, moving from public order, fire prevention, night watch, sanitation, and social conduct—including restrictions on night movement, prohibitions on firearms, waste removal, and the treatment of beggars and the sick—to an extensive central section devoted to market regulation. This section covers bread, grain, meat, fish, wine, beer, inns, lodging, meals, stable fees, servants’ rations, and pricing, and includes a four-page tabular section on bread prices. The ordinance concludes with enforcement provisions and a formal dating and authentication formula, issued from the Royal Castle of Prague, signed “Maximilianus,” and authenticated by Vratislav II of Pernštejn, Bohemian supreme chancellor, together with Georg Mehl von Strehlitz, vice-chancellor, and Mikuláš Walter z Waltersperku, secretary of the Bohemian Court Chancery and royal councillor.

Of particular importance is the above-mentioned bread ordinance and its extensive conversion table, which to our knowledge represents the earliest printed Brotordnung from the Habsburg lands. While systematic bread regulation was long established across Europe, its earliest printed articulation in the German-speaking world is the Annaberger Brotordnung calculated by Adam Ries (Ein Gerechent Büchlein, Leipzig, 1536), and in England the Assize of Bread—a body of law originating in the thirteenth century and repeatedly printed, notably in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Like both the Annaberg regulation and the English assize, the Prague ordinance stabilizes bread supply not by fixing prices alone but by adjusting loaf weight in relation to grain prices.

Beyond bread, the ordinance places strong emphasis on market supervision and food supply more broadly. Anti-forestalling provisions prohibit the pre-purchase of goods for speculative resale. Wine and beer are regulated in detail, distinguishing Hungarian, Rhine, Austrian, and Bohemian wines with fixed maximum prices per measure and allowing higher pricing for imports, while additional rules govern sweet wines and certain beers. Meat and fish prices are set by type and weight, with certain species—notably salmon—exempted from fixed rates and valued seasonally by appointed officials.

Taken as a whole, the ordinance—grounded in the conventions of sixteenth-century Policey legislation—offers a closely observed record of everyday governance and reflects the scope and complexity of rule in a royal residence and administrative center, regulating not only townspeople but also court servants, noble households, and transient populations, while managing the interaction between urban markets and surrounding rural producers.

To our knowledge, neither this book nor its specific textual configuration is recorded in standard bibliographical or historical references. Typographical comparison with the 1571 Newe Zeittung. Ein gar grausam und erschröcklich Gesicht, welches inn der Hauptstat der Kron Behem, zu Prag (USTC 2212066; VD16 XL 180), a signed imprint of the Prague printer Georg Schwartz, demonstrates identity of Fraktur type; on this basis, the present ordinance can be attributed with confidence to his workshop, despite the absence of a printer’s imprint.

Literature: Heeffer, A. (2014). How algebra spoiled recreational problems: A case study in the cross-cultural dissemination of mathematics. Historia Mathematica, 41(4), 400–437.; Pauser, J. (2002). „sein ir Majestät jetzo im werkh die polliceyordnung widerumb zu veneuern“. Kaiser Maximilian II. (1564–1576) und die Landstände von Österreich unter der Enns im gemeinsamen Ringen um die „gute policey“. In W. Rosner (Ed.), Recht und Gericht in Niederösterreich: Die Vorträge des 17. Symposiums des Niederösterreichischen Instituts für Landeskunde (Studien und Forschungen aus dem NÖ Institut für Landeskunde, Vol. 31). St. Pölten: Niederösterreichisches Institut für Landeskunde.; Schnürer, U. (2006). Zur Wirkungsgeschichte der Brotordnung von Adam Ries. Informationen des Sächsischen Museumsbundes e. V., (32), 124–130. Dresden & Chemnitz: Sächsischer Museumsbund e. V.; Witthöft, H. (2006). Über Korn und Brot — Geld und Münze Rechte Zahl und aequalitas als gerechter Preis in Mittelalter und Neuzeit. VSWG: Vierteljahrschrift Für Sozial- Und Wirtschaftsgeschichte, 93(4), 438–479.

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Price: €12,000.00