Sinistras Novitates. Abuzurile din locurile de vamă și reacția sașilor din Sibiu în 1391
Sinistras novitates. Abuses at Customs Places and the Reaction of the Saxons from Sibiu in 1391

Summary/Abstract: This paper analyzes the interaction between toll keepers and customs officials from Hungary and Transylvania and the merchants of Sibiu during the last decades of the fourteenth century and 1405. On 21 March 1391, King Sigismund of Luxemburg issued a charter of privileges allowing the merchants of Sibiu to pursue several actions while transiting customs places throughout the kingdom and at the same time abolished various rules and fines for tresspasses newly introduced by the tollkeepers that were considered erroneas or sinistras novitates. During the next fifteen years, the text of this privilege was reissued five times either by King Sigismund of Luxemburg or by the Voivode of Transylvania highlighting an ongoing tension between the merchants and the tollkeepers. The discussion of this issue in the context of corruption and anticorruption measures in the medieval period indicates a case of abuse, followed by complaints of the victims, and normative intervention by the royal authority.

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