The Town Hall is an old word that came to us from European countries in ancient times. However, today it is very rarely used and, therefore, raises questions related to its interpretation. More details about the fact that this is the town hall will be described in the article.
Let's turn to the dictionary
Let’s find out what is said about the meaning of the word “town hall” in the explanatory dictionary. Two interpretations are given there.
The first of them is the name of the previously existing governing body - city or city. It could also be called a merchant council or city council. For example, in Russian History, written by N. I. Kostomarov, it says that when the Senate was established, the former significance of the town hall was lost, although it itself was not destroyed, and the gubernatorial power extended to the commercial estate.
The second version of the interpretation states that this is the name of the building in which the meetings of the said body take place. Example: “The first thing that caught my eye when entering the city was the town hall, which was a magnificent three-story building of light gray color with a large antique clock.”
According to the third option, this is the name of one of the Posad agencies that existed in Russia before the adoption of the judicial reform of 1864 - the estate court. It was created in accordance with the "Provincial Institutions" in 1775. Example: “According to the“ Course of Russian History ”by V. O. Klyuchevsky, the device was given to the court rather complicated. So, for example, town halls were introduced - estate courts, where the cases were essentially mixed, and divided by estate ”.
Synonyms and Origin
For a better understanding of the fact that this is the town hall, we will consider the synonyms and origin of this word.
Among the synonyms you can find such as:
- building;
- municipality;
- City Hall
- rathaus;
- City Council;
- local government body;
- city council;
- government.
According to etymologists, the word under study came to the Old Russian language from Polish, where it has the form ratusz. From Old Russian, it fell into modern Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian. And in Polish, it appeared from the Old High German Râthûs, where it was formed from the addition of two words: Rat (council) and Haus (house). That is, there it literally meant "the house in which the city council met."
Occurrence
Initially, the town hall-townhouses, as the name implies, appeared in German cities, where trade was developed. Later they spread to other countries. At the first stage, it was an organ of merchant management, and then of the city, posadsky. Then the buildings themselves, where such bodies were sitting, began to be called the town hall.
Already in the Middle Ages, the presence of the town hall testified to the presence of self-government in the city, its independence. Moreover, the more luxurious the town hall was decorated, the richer and more powerful this settlement was. By tradition, many of the town hall buildings were built with towers that housed clocks and belfries: for example, a beffroy.
To conclude the study of the question that this is a town hall, we will consider it as a room.
At first there was a tower
Beffroix - in Western Europe this word denoted the veche tower and the tower of the city council. It comes from the French beffroi, which translates as "bell tower". For many cities of the Middle Ages, such towers served as a symbol of their liberty and solidarity.
Beffroix was originally a watchtower that housed the alarm bell. Over time, they began to place halls where deputies of the town hall sat. The city treasury, seals and documentation were also stored there. And also there were prisons, trading floors, arsenals. Due to the fact that it’s difficult to place all this in the tower, a special building was attached at its foot. So gradually the beffroy was transformed into a town hall.
The most common beffroix were in the area of the Historical Netherlands. There, tall and lushly decorated towers were erected both near the town hall and at some distance from them. Today, more than 50 beffroys in Belgium and France are on the UNESCO World Heritage List.