Before the eighteenth century, ethnicity was not a criterion for determining nationality. However, there was an awareness of ethnic diversity within one state, and of the fact that it could enrich them. Among the early medieval countries of Central Europe, Hungary stood out from the very beginning due to its ethnic mosaic. This was the legacy of the period when Hungarian tribes belonged to the world of the Great Steppe, where the emerging political relationships were held together by a charismatic leader or a dynasty with sacred legitimacy. The cessasion of the factors made these ties disappear as well, yet they may have left traces in the collective memory, as in the case of Attila. The individual tribes dispersed and found their place in new relationships, usually multi-tribal ones.
Such was also the tribal character of Hungarian union, which, besides the Finno-Ugric Magyars, included the Kabars, a faction of the Khazars, who rebelled against their tribesmen, and the Székelers, who, as alleged bearers of the tradition of Attila, could have been descendants of the Huns, relatives of the Onogurs, i.e., Proto-Bulgarians. Both these groups underwent a fast process of Magyarization, and in the new place they settled at the borders of the state, creating its first defensive line. This role was also played by later arrivals to the Carpathian Basin: Pechenegs, Cumans and not discussed in this article: Saxons, Muslims and Ruthenians. They were the first contributions to the Hungarian ethnic mosaic. The other source were Slavic or Slavic-Avar natives inhabiting these lands at the time of the arrival of the Hungarians. The appearance of the Hungarians was not tantamount to the extermination of this population, which became part of the emerging Hungarian society but which, as a peasant population, occupied the lower strata of the social hierarchy. Moreover, the existing elites cooperated with the invaders, and their descendants became part of the Hungarian elite, such as the Hont-Pázmány family or the Miskolcs. Contacts between newcomers and natives added new elements to the Hungarian historical tradition, such as the memory of Roman shepherds, in whom Gyula Kristó saw Frankish (Salzburg) shepherds (also in the spiritual sense) operating in the Duchy of Pannonia.

The paper is a narratological analysis of the 79th chapter of the Hungarian Chronicon pictum and the 52nd Chapter of Gesta Hungarorum, which describe a duel between the Hungarian prince Béla and the Pomeranian prince. The author opts for a symbolic interpretation of both the aforementioned chapters. He casts doubt on the historicity of the duel. He suggests that the figure of Mieszko, mentioned in the chronicles, was not an actual, historical ruler of Poland. According to the author’s interpretation, Mieszko was only an embodiment of the Piast dynasty and all rulers of Poland. Next, the author compares the duel scene with the duel scenes in contemporary narrative sources. He concludes that this scene fits into the literary motif of an exiled prince who, being in exile in a foreign kingdom, saves it by defeating the army of a pagan invader. He stated that this scene fits into the literary motif of an exiled prince who, being in exile in a foreign kingdom, saves it by defeating the army of a pagan invader.

Al-Biruni is one of the key figures of the scientific world in the Middle Ages. An erudite man who worked in many disciplines, including mathematics, astronomy, law, history, geodesy, etc., he was also an excellent astrologer who left a rich scientific legacy. Unfortunately, most of his works were not translated into Latin, which meant that he was not a well-known figure in the Christian culture of the Middle Ages. Likewise, his scientific works remained unknown, among them The Book of Instruction in the Elements of the Astrological Art. In this work, Al-Biruni presents the basics of astrology as well as issues from the disciplines included in the quadrivium, thus demonstrating his scientific competence as a medieval astrologer. He also addresses here the key issues of astrology, without overlooking those of particular relevance to every human being, that is, health and disease, which is the main concern of Sylwia Konarska-Zimnicka’s article.

The medieval medical treatises that have survived to the present day generally contain little information about topics that can be called strictly gynecological-obstetric, which causes us to believe that such topics were of no great interest to medieval authors. Rare are medieval works that exclusively and in detail treat of infertility, pregnancy, and childbirth. In her article, Anna Głusiuk examines selected medical treatises whose authors’ treatment of these subjects exceeds several brief sentences. The works of Rhazes, Trota of Salerno, Constantine the African, Aldebrandin of Siena, Taddeo Alderotti, Gentile da Foligno, and Michael Savonarola are invaluable sources of information in that they reveal the state of medical knowledge in the Middle Ages related to, among other topics, infertility, pregnancy, and childbirth. In her analysis, Głusiuk emphasizes that some of them are compilations of earlier works, while others, despite containing numerous references to existing treatises, bring in many new contributions of their authors in the forms of insights, observations, and reflections.

The Archbishop of Gniezno, Bodzanta of Kosowice, of the Szeliga coat of arms, is one of the most controversial figures of late fourteenth-century Poland. He began his career as the governor of Kraków-Sandomierz during the reign of Casimir the Great. He held this office for over 20 years, while also developing his career as a clergyman. His service as a canon in Kraków, a scholastic in Wiślica and finally as provost of the collegiate church of St. Florian in Kleparz were successful. In 1382, by the appointment of king Louis of Hungary, he became the archbishopric of Gniezno, where he remained until his death in 1388. The controversy surrounding Bodzanta stems from his unstable policy during the interregnum following the death of Louis of Hungary. In addition, Jan of Czarnków left in his chronicle an unfavourable opinion about the archbishop, representing him as incompetent and his actions as destructive for the Polish Church.
The aim of this article is to highlight the conflict between Bodzanta of Kosowice and prince Władysław Opolczyk, which took place in 1387. The analysis is based on a newly discovered letter of the archbishop to parish priests in the Wieluń region, found in the collections of the Jagiellonian Library. The conflict was caused by the receipt by the prince’s officials of questionable benefits from villages belonging to the clergy of that region. The archbishop defended the local clergy, imposing an interdict on Wieluń and threatening the ruler with excommunication.
This study fills a gap related to relations between the most important personages in the Kingdom of Poland at the end of the fourteenth century. In addition, it verifies the state of research on the history of such towns as Krzywarzeka. The attitude and determination of the archbishop in curbing the prince’s decisions and actions contradicts the opinion about Bodzanta’s weakness throughout his pontificate.

In his article, Michał Rzepiela discusses the semantic distribution of the noun castrum, the most common term in Polish medieval Latin to refer to castles and castle-town complexes. The material basis for the research presented here has consisted of two corpora of Polish medieval Latin, the corpus of the general language eFontes and the corpus of works by Jan Długosz, developed in the Laboratory of Medieval Latin of the Institute of Polish Language of the Polish Academy of Sciences. In the first part of the article, after introductory remarks devoted to the specificity of the corpora of ancient languages, Rzepiela quotes comparative data on the frequency in the sources of the noun castrum and other nouns related to the study of castles, and raises the issue of the semantic precision of this kind of vocabulary. Next, he discusses the relationships between the castle and the city when the two function within one architectural complex. Rzepiela argues that a study of these relationships must be alert to the collocations co-created by the noun castrum. Based on the list of ten most common words – “partners” in colocations with castrum, identified in the corpora – he describes the most important functions of the castle in the urban space. The analysis points to the following uses of the castle: its the judicial function, its function in determining objects in the urban topography, its role as an employer for the inhabitants of the city.

The paper aims at presenting the possibilities of graphical representation of the problem of the administrative organization of the town. In the textual part it presents the main organs of the town administration, which began to be formed in the Middle Ages, but took their final form mainly during the 16th century. In addition to the institution of the mayor, special attention was paid to the collective organs of the town administration, which were the town (inner and outer) council, as well as the later formed elected municipality. The functioning and staffing of these institutions were followed until the middle of the 18th century (until 1755) when, as a result of the state’s efforts to unify the administrative organisation of the royal towns, Banská Bystrica lost several unique elements of the organisation of its self-government (e.g. the nomination of candidates for the post of mayor by the burghers who owned a house on the main square or the annual election of the mayor).
Two mind maps and three illustrative graphic schemes were created for the purpose of the study. The first mind map introduces the research of town administration in the medieval period. As many of the mechanisms for the election of individual officials and members of the collective organs of town administration were unknown for that period, this method of visualisation proved to be a suitable means of introducing the subject. The second mind map depicts the administrative conditions of the town in the first half of the 18th century. In this case, a large amount of data was already available for the treatment of the issue, so the mind map served as a means of clarifying, or supplementing, the specially drawn and appropriately simplified graphic scheme. Finally, the periods of the 16th, 17th and first half of the 18th centuries were treated separately, by means of separate graphic schemes of the administrative mechanisms. Through the three schemes it was possible to clearly trace the most important development processes and significant changes in the functioning of the basic mechanisms of the town’s administrative apparatus.
Illustrative visualisations through various schemes and mind maps prove to be a welcome aid to study as well as research in the field of the history of administration. Visualisation of the problem of the town administration can help to better understand its workings as well as to raise questions for further historical research.

The article is devoted to the analysis of the real estate market in late medieval town of Chrzanów on the basis of the purchase and sale contract. A period of almost one century in the history of the city has been studied, which has allowed certain trends in real estate turnover to be observed. The analyses have included the dynamics of real estate turnover in the city, which is considered an indicator of the prosperity of a given centre. Another element examined has been the location of the properties traded, which has made it possible to show which parts of the city were of greatest interest to buyers. An analysis of the social and occupational structure of the participants in the property market has showed which groups participated to the greatest extent in the market, with sufficient capital to purchase property in the city. Some observations have also been made concerning house prices in the town.

City walls were the obvious border of the medieval city, a function that in the modern city is fulfilled by a belt of bastion fortifications. It is necessary to consider the conditions that determined the line of this border. These are both natural (the course of rivers, the location of lakes and ponds, the lay of the land) and anthropogenic, the latter resulting, for example, from the city’s location in the immediate vicinity of a medieval and early modern center of fertile agricultural areas and villages or populous suburbs surrounding the city walls with a tight loop. A good illustration of this phenomenon is given in some modern descriptions of cities (Bartłomiej Stein’s for Wrocław, Friderico Lucae’s for Wołów), but more common are historical cartographic materials and occasionally also the results of archaeological research. The conjectural course of the waters, as in Środa Śląska, sometimes provides the basis for a reconstruction of the original functional layout of the city. More obvious, although worth noting, are the spatial systems of cities conditioned by the course of the river (Bytom Odrzański, Krosno Odrzańskie).
The spatial layout of cities was also conditioned by their location in foothill areas. It is easy to see how this factor influenced the development of Bolków and Bystrzyca Kłodzka, located in the Kłodzko region. The mountainous location was, on the one hand, a complication for the founders of cities, while on the other – a chance for a more effective sculpting of the city’s position.
As the case in Wrocław shows, the development of suburbs could have been hampered by intensive use of suburban villages, especially those located south of the city. This for a long time prevented the area from being transformed into suburbs. It was different north of the center, where the street network began to be organized at the beginning of the eighteenth century.
The last phenomenon discussed in the article is the extremely intensive development of the suburbs of Kąty Wrocławskie and Jelenia Góra, which weakened the defensive functions of these cities. In Brzeg, this function was sustained thanks to a series of demolitions of the suburban villages.

Gryfina, wife of Leszek the Black, duchess of Kraków, Sandomierz and Sieradz and, after her husband's death, a lady of Sącz, was a very important figure in the history of Poland in the 13th century and is certainly an interesting subject for scientific research, but her biography, by Agnieszka Teterycz-Puzio, deeply disappoints the reader and does not meet the requirements for scientific monographs. Few sources on Gryfina have survived and absolutely nothing is known about various parts of her life. This calls into question the possibility of writing a biography of Gryfina. Teterycz-Puzio seems aware of this, but does not draw critical conclusions from this knowledge. Above all,
however, Gryfina's biography shows that Teterycz-Puzio lacks the basic skills that are necessary for a historian of Middle Ages. Teterycz-Puzio is unable to read Latin source texts with understanding, lacks basic source knowledge, is unable to construct a bibliography correctly, and is even unable to make effective use of the cited scholarly works.
Teterycz-Puzio's book should not have appeared as a scientific monograph, as it should have been rejected at the publishing review stage.

The article is a polemic with some theses of Andrzej Marzec's review regarding the book titled In the Foreground. The Attitude of Polish Magnates and Nobility towards Interregnum after the Death of Louis of Anjou (Wydawnictwo UMCS, Lublin 2020, pp. 586; the review was published in vol. 13, 2021). In the first part, the controversy concerns the image of Sigismund of Luxembourg's actions in Poland in the autumn of 1382. The author cites sources and clarifies the interpretation of questionable texts (the location of the name Brysk, the Budziejowice document (in Bohemian: České Budějovice), Jan of Czarnków's account of the meeting in Zvolen) and is critical of the allegations made by the Reviewer. The second part of the polemic concerns the influence of the Duke of Masovia Siemowit IV on the political situation in Greater Poland before March 1383 (Bartosz of Odolanów's action, the beginnings of the civil war, the Kalisz negotiations). In the last part of the article, the author critically analyzes the reviewer's argumentation about the presence of the Masovian thread in the politics of the time, emphasizing its hypothetical nature.

The polemic between the two authors did not lead to the common position regarding the issues discussed. Therefore, there is nothing left to do but to send the interested readers off to form their own opinions as to whose arguments seem more convincing to them before reading the works of both authors.