tinguished and materially profitable was occupied by the town clerk (also called notary).
Towards the end of the fourteenth century the town got an aqueduct with a reservoir called Rurmus, which runs by the side of the present Reformates' Church. The conduit pipes were of wood, the administration was in the hands of a separate official called the "water-master," who had also to watch over the arrangements for cases of fire, which were very strictly regulated. Almost to the close of the eighteenth century only the inhabitants themselves were obliged to give help in cases of fire, and to keep the fire-engines in repair. Especially the bathing-men, the brewers, and the water-carriers, being those who had most to do with water, were under the obligation to come first to the rescue. In every house tubs full of water, fire hooks for pulling down burning roofs, and other tools, were to be constantly kept in readiness. The "water-master" always took the command over the men who assisted in quenching a fire.
The streets, as early as the fourteenth century, had a stone pavement, which nowadays is hit upon in digging operations at something more than three yards below the present level of the street.
A short account having thus been given of the municipal institutions and administration, mention must now be made of the organization of the craft guilds. They had their origin in German law, and therefore assumed the character of the German guilds. The living contact with the German guilds, the constant immigration of young journeymen into Cracow, had the effect that down to the middle of the sixteenth century the majority of the guilds consisted for the most part of German elements. German was almost exclusively used as the official language of business transaction and correspondence, and all the usages observed by the German guilds are, with slight local modifications, to be found at Cracow.
Each craft guild had its own special ordinances and privileges; the ordinances were decreed by the guilds themselves, and sanctioned by the Town Council; the privileges were either conferred by the
