EN
The article attempts to reconstruct the budget of Krakow in the Middle Ages. Therefore, the account books (incomes and expenditures of the town) constitute the main source of the research. The condition of the preserved account books restricts the scope of the research herein to the turn of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth centuries, specifically, to the years 1390–1393 and 1395–1405. In the history of Krakow the afore-mentioned period was connected to the reinforcement of not only the role of the town as the most significant trade centre in the country but also the position of the town council as the most notable institution in its government. Owing to the in-depth analysis of the preserved account books, the author characterised main sources of incomes (i.e. property of the town, receipts from monopolies, administrative charges, taxes and duties), expenditures of the town (i.e. the expenses of the king and queen, the administration of the town, the trade supervisory body, the maintenance of the property of the town, and finally, the charity purposes), as well as their percentage share in the budget. In the conclusion the author explicated that the permanent debt of the historical capital of the Kingdom of Poland was linked to the fixed increase of the expenditures juxtaposed with the static earnings.