granted to its inhabitants – the staple right, land provisions [6, p. 98]. However, royal
privileges allow us to trace the establishment of Lviv as a leading defense and strategic
center. Lviv fortifications are first mentioned in the privileges of Władysław II Jagiełło.
The purpose of recording the privilege in the Royal Chancellery of September 29, 1388
served to resolve the improvement of the walls condition. For that purpose, the Lviv
elder had to pay every third denarii of his income [7, p.51–52]. Another strategic
decision of Władysław II Jagiełło to improve the city's defense capacity was the
privilege issued on September 18, 1415, which contained information on the expansion
of land holdings to city dwellers, but obliged them to repair the buildings of the walls
and defense structures and to constantly strengthen them "for the convenience of the
state" [7, p. 62–64].
Under the reign of Władysław II Jagiełło’s successors – Władysław III
Warneńczyk, Kazimierz IV and Jan Olbracht, the grandiose construction of new
fortifications, walls and towers finished [6, p. 100]. The privileges of the kings-
successors of Władysław II Jagiełło were typologically similar and were granted for
the same purpose as Jagiełło’s did. For example, the privilege of August 29, 1447, Lviv
was allocated 20 hryvnias from the Lviv royal duties for maintenance of city
fortifications in the better condition [7, p. 104
–105].
In connection with foreign policy factors, since the middle of the 15
th
century, the
role of Lviv as a defensive center had considerably increased. We can trace the
information potential in the study of Lviv's defense capability and the causes of
document communication emergence in the following privileges of the Jagiellonian
dynasty [8
–15]. Let us trace the dynamics of granting privileges for exemption from
taxes, duties for the construction of fortifications from the Royal Chancellery of
Kazimierz IV, Jan I Olbracht, Aleksander Jagiellończyk, Sigismund I the Old presented
in Table 1.
The granting of the royal privileges for exemption from duties and taxes was
conditioned not only by the need to strengthen the city's defense capability, but also as
a result of the devastating Tatar attacks and the elimination of natural disasters that the
city often suffered. For example, such privileges were granted to Jan Olbracht for
burghers in 1499, who, in connection with the attack of the Turks and Tatars, exempted
the dwellers of Lviv for 15 years from the payment of any duties on the goods, and in
1494 exempted for 15 years from the new tax those who directly suffered losses from
the fire. [7, p. 142
–145].
It should be noted that one of the burdensome forms of taxation of the population,
besides paying duties and taxes in favor of the royal treasury, were the fees for the
maintenance of the army, their lodging, as well as the deductions to the royal army.
Here one can trace a separate category of royal privileges, which were granted to
exempt from these fees. For example, the recorded privilege of October 18, 1496
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