A Silesian Town and the Hungarian Monarchy: Economic Contacts between Wrocław and Hungary, ca. 1250-1500

It is generally accepted in the scholarly literature that the economy of East Central Europe developed significantly between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries. 1 As part of this process the economies of the “Third Europe” (Hungary, Bohemia, and Poland), as Jenő Szűcs referred to it, continued to tighten their ties with Western Europe. 2 Long-distance trade played a leading role in this process. From the turn of the thirteenth century, the integration of the continent progressed in the field of financial and credit interrelations, prompted particularly by holding great trade fairs. 3 Although this period was not always profitable for all the states in the region (e.g., the Kingdom of Hungary was devastated by the Mongols in 1241–1242 and the anti-Hussite campaigns and internal wars heavily impacted the Kingdom of Bohemia from 1419 to 1436), comparing the state of these countries and the quality of their economies in the middle of the thirteenth century and towards the end of the fifteenth century shows plainly that they went through a long period of development.