Peculiarities of the emergence and development of the ironmaking market town Bela Peč

Abstract

What made the market town of Bela Peč in the northwesternmost part of Carniola, today in Italy (Fusine in Valromana), unique was that it developed from a settlement of ironmakers in the late-established territorial princely seigniory and that, being the only ironmaking centre in Carniola, it possessed the title as well as all elements of a full market town: the stratum of full-fledged burghers, the market town council and the elected market town judge, subordinated to the administrator of the seigniory of Bela Peč. The population of this relatively small market town first appeared in written sources at the end of the Middle Ages, in 1499, after which another few decades had to pass until it came to be considered a market town. Bela Peč therefore functioned in the same manner as any other market town with a well-developed autonomy and likewise retained its autonomous bodies until the French occupation in the early 19th century. The remaining ironmaking centres, on the other hand, fell under the jurisdiction of the higher mining judge for Carniola.