Zipser Willkür
Zipser Willkür, alternatively known as Zipser Recht as well, was the official German town law of the Zipser Germans or Zipser Saxons, an ethnic German group which settled in the Szepes County, Kingdom of Hungary, now Spiš, northeastern Slovakia starting in the Middle Ages. This particular law is the oldest German town law which was used in medieval Slovakia, thereby applying town privileges where it was in effect.
Historical background
The Zipser Willkür provided a certain degree of local autonomy granted by the Hungarian monarch to the urban settlements inhabited by the Zipser Germans in their komitat in the former Kingdom of Hungary during the medieval period. The law was ratified by King Louis I of Hungary. The capital of the Zips komitat was Levoča. Its earliest text is preserved by a codex which also contains the Georgenberg Chronicle.The Zipser Germans have been living on the current territory of Slovakia since the 12th century, being part of or involved in, as other constituent groups of the German diaspora in Central and Eastern Europe, the Ostsiedlung process. They are also related to another German community from Central-Eastern Europe with medieval roots, more specifically the Transylvanian Saxons in Transylvania, central Romania.