The present thesis sets out to explore the development of the urban fabric of late medieval Dubrovnik (Ragusa), by paying particular attention to Saint Nicholas’ sexterium. The time span covered starts at the very end of the thirteenth century, but more nuanced analysis has been carried out for the period from the middle of the fourteenth to the second half of the fifteenth century. The research for this dissertation has been based on the yet unpublished and rarely consulted volumes of the proclamations of real estate sales, the Venditiones Cancellariae series (no. 1 – 13), kept in the State Archives in Dubrovnik. The data regarding the urban and social topography of St Nicholas, gleaned from this particular source, was integrated with other already published sources pertaining to the urban and social landscape of late medieval Dubrovnik. The dissertation is arranged into six consecutive chapters: 1. introduction, 2. urban planning of the St Nicholas sexterium, 3. urban development of the sexterium through the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, 4. chapter on the Venditiones Cancellariae series, the legal grounds of sales of immovable property, and the use of registers real estate sales in historical research, 5. social space of St Nicholas and 6. conclusions. At the end of the dissertation one can find a transcription of characteristic records of the real estate sales discussed in the main text, the regesta of sales, illustrations, as well as the extensive list of bibliography consulted. The introductory chapter aims at outlining the main historiographical concerns of the present research, including the short overview of the recent trends in urban history studies of eastern Adriatic cities. Particular attention has been paid to the characterisation of the nature of archival sources utilised in the research. Principal motifs for the choice of the topic have been laid out, the most important being the unequal treatment of St Nicholas’ sexterium in comparison to other Ragusan administrative districts. Furthermore, the availability of comprehensive sources on the houses and their owners in the streets of this particular part of the city (primarily from 1417 and 1481) were the key reasons that lay behind the choice of the topic, given that their analysis can offer new insight into the urban and social topography of this city area. The second chapter is concerned with the urban development plan of St Nicholas’ sexterium in the last decade of the thirteenth century (as codified in the city’s statute of 1296), particularly regarding the hitherto suburbs of late medieval Dubrovnik, that were incorporated within the city walls. Special attention has been paid to structures (mostly churches) that predate the time of the laying out the orthogonal grid, and that were integrated into this new urban fabric. At issue here is a fundamental project of medieval urbanism in Dubrovnik, which is furthermore compared to the “boom” of suchlike undertakings in the Mediterranean and beyond. The aim of the comparison was to underline the similarities and differences that define the Ragusan project with regard to other analogous projects. In line with proposals already advanced, it is argued that the late-thirteenth-century deliberations did not devise only a new sexterium, but have also given new look to the principal communication in the city, that of the Placa street (modern day Stradun), which, consequently, made St Nicholas a desirable place for living and real estate investment. The chapter on the urban development is structured around different categories of buildings, namely public projects, church fabric and private dwellings. These building activities and campaigns (particularly the erection of the communal houses, large mendicant complexes, and buildings of public purpose) were roughly sketched on the basis of published scholarly literature. Considering the fact that the medieval residential architecture had suffered irreparable damages and loss in 1667 earthquake, the unpublished documents on the commissioning and furnishing of houses in the last decades of fourteenth century, from the Diversa Cancellariae series, have been consulted. As a result, a tentative reconstruction of a prominently placed house has been proposed, built under the project and supervision of Jean Antoine de Vienne, a prominent builder in the late trecento Dubrovnik. By pointing out to this particular example, common scholarly assumptions on the appearance of medieval houses in the St Nicholas’ sexterium (generally perceived as modest and unambitious) have been challenged. Given the prominence of the real estate sales registry books (Venditiones Cancellariae) for the present research, a separate chapter is devoted to its structure and its relevance for the research on urban and social topography of medieval urban fabric. The earlier research on the sales records in the State Archives in Dubrovnik has been scrutinised by giving prominent place to the unpublished research on these records carried out by Branimir Truhelka who, in the early 1940s, carefully drew up a catalogue of sellers, buyers, their properties and locations of houses for the period 1454 – 1482. Furthermore, this chapter is based on the research of yet unpublished sale records: the quantitative analysis of the categories of immovable sold, the reflection on the terminology employed in the documents analysed (such as casale, domus magna etc.), and the discussion on the prices of houses sold, and tax the owners of houses were obliged to pay annually to the owners of the terrains (angaridium, terraticum). Moreover, the data obtained from these analysis was compared to the urban topography of the sexterium as it appeared at the time. The starting point was a database of all the properties sold in Dubrovnik (ca. 1352 – 1454, including the Truhelka’s work that covered the period from 1454 to 1482), that altogether comprised more than 1500 registered sales of immovable property within the city walls. Furthermore, by combining different sources it was possible to locate a considerable number of privately- or church-owned terrains on which houses were build, as well as to identify the exact location of approximately one third of the owners mentioned in the sales. These results were encouraging to identify the most prominent sellers and buyers in the context of spatial organisation of their dwellings. In that sense, the in-depth scrutiny of the Venditiones Cancellarie registers offered valuable insight into the population residing in the sexterium. Following the basic remarks on state of research concerning the societal groups in late medieval and early modern Dubrovnik, further analysis have been concentrated on individuals and families that owned multiple houses. For instance, members of the Turčinović family, Radoslav, and his sons Cvjetko and Matko (joined in fraterna), owned several houses in the Fourth (present day Dropčeva) street. Similar grouping of houses of the same owner in particular streets of the sexterium, or directly on its principal street (Prijeki put) can be established for Petar Primović (Petrus Primi) in the first half of the fifteenth century, as well as for Miho Zizer (after 1440s). Primović’s case stands out for his debts constrained him to sell a number of houses he gradually accumulated, which testifies to the diverse social processes that have shaped the housing market and, concordantly, the ownership landscape. As can be deduced from the coeval sources (both literary and documentary), the amassing of houses was multipurpose: it secured the prosperity of the family in case their business (primarily trade) devitalises, while the renting of properties could also insure additional income for the family members. Finally, we should not fail to acknowledge the representational potential these houses could have embodied, particularly when – as in cases described – their owners were not members of urban nobility, but of the burgeoning class of citizens. In order to trace these processes, several prominent cases have been analysed, all of which include members of the confraternity of St Anthony, that had gathered the wealthiest non-noble citizens of late medieval Dubrovnik, mostly traders and merchants (colloquially called the “Antunines”). Analogous analysis has been conducted for other professional groups, in particular for the goldsmiths and stonecutters. Among these, several prominent individuals who possessed a number of houses were identified, such as goldsmith Radosav Utišenović and stonecutter Mihoč Radišić. Other artisan groups, on the contrary, were recorded far less as sellers or buyers of houses. Although the sources preserved enable locating of their houses as well, no patterns of their grouping in the streets of St Nicholas city district can so far be proposed. The solely exception, as tentatively advanced, could be that of the goldsmiths, residing in the south-west part of the sexterium. More generally speaking, it has been proposed that no far-reaching conclusions concerning the members of the professional groups can be drawn from the sales’ registries since the individuals who owned multiple houses were an exception, and that the grouping of the members of the Antunine confraternity does not have equivalents in other parts of the city. The sales of houses have been discussed in relation to their location and status of their owners, and, on the basis of a considerable number of documents, several cases can be made. First, regarding the social status of these owners, the most prominent locations were occupied by wealthy merchants, members of the Saint Antony confraternity. In that respect, the thesis has deepened the research on these distinguished Ragusan citizens. On a more general level, the view that is commonly accepted in the scholarly literature – that of St Nicholas sexterium as a “popular neighbourhood” – holds true only to a certain extent. In fact, this label can be attached to this peculiar district of medieval Dubrovnik in earlier phases of its development, while the analysis of its social structure in relation to transactions of real estate properties reveals a somewhat different picture. The contrast of the censuses of 1417 and 1481, both of which are benchmarks for the scrutiny of urban and social transformations in St Nicholas through the period under consideration, revealed several key change. As can be deduced for the comparison of northern part of the sexterium, a higher number of the houses owned by the members of urban nobility is recorded. Second, there was a greater number of property belonging to the church institutions in the 1480s. The gradual increase of prices of houses (although a more in-depth analysis of the market is still needed), as well as the increase of urban nobility in the district could point to social zoning during the fifteenth century. This research has, therefore, laid ground for the scrutiny of the social topography of Dubrovnik in the consecutive periods, and the analysis of the outcomes of the processes traced in this dissertation for the sexterium in the sixteenth century and beyond.