Unsuccessful Experience of Self-Administration: the "Francs" in the Kingdom of Leon and Castile, 11th - 13th Centuries)

The article concerns the social and legal content of the category "franci", which is used to refer the people from over the Pyrenees in the medieval documents of Toledo, the region of the Kingdom of Leon and Castile. The scope of the study is the attempt to estimate the importance of the written record of the privileges for the shaping of community which is ordered and able to reproduce and maintain its structure. "Franci" of Toledo didn't organize the community of that sort. Value of the status, which had full members of urban community (concejo), was higher, especially in combination with the privileges of the clergy and chivalry. The preference of way to assimilation with local community rather than preservation of the social and legal isolation seemed well justified.