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Published: 2025-12-15
Vol. 17 (2025)

The Royal Urban Tax (Szos) in Late Medieval Poland: Origins and Organizations

Michał Schmidt Logo ORCID
Section: Artykuły
https://doi.org/10.31261/SPiP.2025.21.07

Abstract

The article examines the szos królewski (royal urban tax) – the principal urban tax in late medieval Poland – a subject previously studied in detail only by Stanisław Kutrzeba and Michael Ludwig. Kutrzeba derived the szos from fourteenth-century voluntary contributions made by royal towns, which gradually became compulsory. Ludwig, by contrast, saw its origins in extraordinary state taxes known since the thirteenth century, which, due to the privileges of the estates, came to apply solely to royal towns. Drawing on documentary evidence and analogies from neighbouring regions, this study supports Ludwig’s interpretation. The article also explores the mechanisms of szos collection in the fifteenth century. According to earlier scholarship, the tax was initially decreed by the king and, from the mid-fifteenth century, fell under the authority of the Sejm (the Polish representative assembly), thereby extending to all towns. However, analysis of primary sources reveals that the king and the Sejm shared fiscal authority – sometimes in conflict – and that full control by the Sejm was not achieved until the late fifteenth century. Contrary to Kutrzeba’s conclusions, the szos in the fifteenth century was paid as a lump sum, with the towns themselves responsible for its collection. The frequency of szos levies increased markedly after the death of Władysław Jagiełło, mirroring the pattern of land taxation. The growing regularity of tax collection in the latter half of the fifteenth century led to the emergence of a fiscal apparatus in which royal clerks served as collectors and starosts oversaw enforcement. During this period, szos rates and their relationship to land taxes became standardized, a process formally completed by the end of the century. After roughly fifty years of development, the szos królewski had become an integral element of the Polish fiscal system.

Keywords:

towns , szos , taxation , fiscal system , Poland , fifteenth century

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Schmidt, M. (2025). The Royal Urban Tax (Szos) in Late Medieval Poland: Origins and Organizations. Średniowiecze Polskie I Powszechne, 17, 167–199. https://doi.org/10.31261/SPiP.2025.21.07

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Vol. 17 (2025)
Published: 2025-12-18

ISSN: 2080-492X
eISSN: 2353-9720
Publisher
Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego | University of Silesia Press
Licence CC Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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