Untitled - Vytauto Didžiojo universitetas

The towns of the Žemaitija Duchy managed to get over a third of the patents
of rights – as many as 26 – while the other district cities got less – 19 for Vilnius,
14 for Kaunas, 9 for Grodno, 2 each for Novogrudok and Minsk and one each
for Brest and Pinsk. The national towns won the most rights of self-governance,
because the central government expected that, by enlarging the rights of the
townspeople, newcomers with expertise in trade and production would move into
the towns, which had acquired self-governance. The efforts of the royal estateowned
towns to receive rights were curtailed by the Administration of Estates,
which did not want the ruler’s treasury to lose income. Thereby not a single estate
town or township in Brest and Grodno, which had been active in the townspeople
movement, was able to gain self-governance rights successfully. Privately-owned
towns got involved in the townspeople movement later, thus only three managed
to get their owner’s consent and right of rule. Not a single one of the Grand
Duchy’s church towns was able to gain a patent of self-governance rights.
Once the laws on towns were issued and municipalities established, conflicts
erupted in most of the towns that had previously never had self-governance rights
between the townspeople, the elderships and the Administrations of Estates. The
reason was that the townspeople would rely on the Law on Towns and frequently
ignore the other laws passed by the Sejm directing obedience and performance of
duty until the Grand Duchy Court of Assessors passed a separate ruling. Even the
institutions of the central government frequently had difficulties in calming such
conflicts. The transitions encouraged townspeople to begin collecting taxes on
their own and handing them over directly to the state fund. This reduced income
for the elderships. Civil Military Commission commissioners often rescued the
eldership and estate administrators, because they were all convinced that certain
rights of self-governance had been granted erroneously. Elders often blocked
the execution of directives from central governmental institutions, since their
intention was to safeguard their incomes.
Townspeople, in their own minds, felt that any sorts of obligations to an
estate conflicted with their acquired freedoms and rights as per the Laws on
Towns passed by the Four-Year Sejm. Freedom, as townspeople understood it,
was first and foremost offered security from elderships and manor administrations
interfering into the community’s internal affairs. The residents who had accepted
town rights identified their rights and freedom with having the exceptional or
even privileged status of townspeople within the town’s territory – the Law on
Towns assured such. The handing over of all town residents to rule by magistrates
caused noticeable growth of antagonisms between those town’s citizens who had
accepted town rights and the societal groups which paid no heed to the law or
were unable to accept town rights by law. The Jews met with much antagonism
from townspeople and, in different instances, this was no more than met by
241