1271 A province of twenty-four townsProvincia dvadsiatich štyroch miest

In 1271 King Stephen V confirmed the privileges of the Spiš Saxons and their towns as one self-governing body, the Province of the Twenty-Four Spiš Towns, with its seat at Levoča. Spišské Vlachy belonged to it. In practice that meant a town elected its own judge and council, ran its own court, paid its taxes as a lump sum instead of owing service to a landlord, and answered to the king rather than to a noble. That is the whole difference between a Spiš town and an ordinary village, and it is why these squares look the way they do.Roku 1271 potvrdil kráľ Štefan V. výsady spišských Sasov a ich miest ako jedného samosprávneho celku — Provincie dvadsiatich štyroch spišských miest so sídlom v Levoči. Spišské Vlachy do nej patrili. V praxi to znamenalo, že si mesto volilo vlastného richtára a radu, malo vlastný súd, platilo dane v jednej sume namiesto poddanských povinností a podliehalo priamo kráľovi, nie zemepánovi. V tom je celý rozdiel medzi spišským mestom a obyčajnou dedinou — a preto tieto námestia vyzerajú tak, ako vyzerajú.