Religious segregation and space division in the towns of Red Ruthenia in the 14th-16th centuries

Abstract

Red Ruthenia became part of the Kingdom of Poland after the conquest of the principal-ity of Galicia and Volhynia in the mid-14th century. This political change initiated major cultural, social and economic changes. As a result of migrations, colonization, urbanization, creating the structures of the Catholic Church, importing Polish models of social organization and progressing westernization the country developed complex and peculiar ethnic, religious and social relations, becoming a culturally unique entity. Ethnic heterogeneity was particularly visible in towns, which were founded according to the German Law. In urban communities the relations between different groups of settlers developed into hierarchies, with the Catholic commune taking the dominant position over groups of other denominations. The latter were able to preserve their identity through various organizations working along the lines of communes or religious and legal communities. In the segregationist social structure of the town they had their separate positions, having a degree of autonomy or just a different legal status and representative institutions. Religious divisions were more important than ethnic identity in shaping the social hier-archy. The ordering of religion-based categories: Catholics-schismatics-Jews reflected the hierarchy of power and prestige which was the main principle organizing social life. It generated a hierarchy of status inequalities which applied to civic rights, economic concessions, the right to work in some professions and enter their professional corporations, the freedom of manifesting religious differences. This scale had two thresholds: one concerned the discrimination of non-Catholics — members of the orthodox Church (mostly Ruthenians, but also Greeks or Walachians) and monophysite Armenians; the other one marked the exclusion of non-Christians (mainly Jews, but also Karaites and Tartars). The status of full citizens was attainable to Catholics, i.e. Germans and Poles, and also to Hungarians, Italians and other immigrants from the West. A wide range of religious and ethnic groups was represented only in the largest towns. In smaller ones there were usually just members of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. Some of such towns later acquired a third religious community, due to the increased influx of Jews since the late 15th century; they usually also had more Ruthenians among their inhabitants. In small towns the rules discriminating non-Catholics were less rigorously applied; status inequality was not so conspicuous in those towns where the Catholic group was weak and unable to exercise its privileges. Multi-ethnicity, co-existence and segregation were also expressed physically. The topog-raphy of Ruthenian towns was highly marked with ethnic features; places and buildings were identified by the names of ethnic groups connected to them. Urban space was not heterogeneous; it was divided, although the separation was usually not complete. One can trace the acquisition of particular territories by particular groups and the emergence of borders, not necessarily linear or even visible ones. Minority niches that emerged in urban topography became ethnic streets and quarters, functioning as space relinquished by the town to non-Catholic groups, granted, allowed, licensed for the purpose of dwelling and working. Ground was particularly strictly rationed in the largest towns, which were usually dominated by the Catholic commune. A conspicuous example of rationing space is Lviv (Lemberg), the largest town and the capital of the country. Here, non-Catholic communities were settled in separate streets and quarters. Segregationist topography was planned when the new Lviv was founded according to the Magdeburg Rights in 1356 and the town got a new regular layout. The dominant Catholic commune was allocated the market square and the ground along the main axis between the gates, while Armenians, Ruthenians and Jews were pushed to peripheral northern, eastern and south-eastern areas, separated from each other. Within a few decades after the foundation of the town it turned out that the placement of non-Catholic communes did not result in their complete separation, especially as regarded Christian communities. Inhabitants and property mingled, especially on the edges of quarters, which did not have stable demarcation lines and where people of different faiths were neighbours. Segregation was blurred by property dealing between members of different communes, which the town council did not counteract efficiently. In the early 16th century long-term conflicts over space surfaced in Lviv. The Ruthenians and the Armenians, in addition to other emancipation postulates, demanded a right to buy property outside their quarters. The escalation of those conflicts and increased rivalry over ground were certainly fuelled by the growth of the population squeezed inside the fortifications. The municipality managed to uphold the spatial restrictions imposed on the non-Christian commu-nities until the first half of the 18th century. Although segregation was not rigorous, the life of the minority communes was concen-trated in their quarters, which had their unique ethnographic characteristics. It was in those “licensed” streets and quarters that the minority communes located their institutions, replicating those of the dominant commune: temples, hospitals, schools, cemeteries, guilds, brotherhoods, or even — separate in the case of the Jewish community — bathhouses, butcheries and bakeries. Non-Catholic enclaves were situated in less attractive parts of the town, far from the market square and thoroughfares, on the outskirts, near places that badly affected the quality of life, such as the brothel, the executioner’s house or the gunpowder depot. A marginal social position was reflected in a marginal position in physical space; the map of the town was a projection of its society. The group layout of urban topography emerged in the largest towns; in smaller towns spatial segregation was not so strict or was not practiced at all.