The village of Mlynica

In later times, it most often occurs under the name Mühlenbach. The Hungarian form Malompatak and the name used for the 1st Czechoslovak Republic Milbach were derived from this German name. Since 1948, after the eviction of the German population, only the Slovak form - Mlynica - has been used. The etymology of the name of the village suggests that it is derived from the stream on which the mill or more mills once stood.

From 1412, the town belonged to the Union of 11 Spiš towns that remained in Hungary, after the backup of 13 Spiš towns from the Union of 24 Spiš towns to the Polish king Žigrnund of Luxembourg. Due to the fact that Mlynica, together with the other 10 Spiš towns, became the property of the Zápoľský family around 1465 - the owners of Spiš Castle and hereditary Spiš counties, their development was not favorable. Gradual pruning of the privileges of 11 Spiš towns by landowners Zápoľskovce, later Turzovcarni (1531 - 1636) and Čákyovcarni (1638 - 1848) resulted in the descent of these towns to the level of other serf villages belonging to the domain of Spiš Castle. The landowners treated the towns as private property, they could sell them or back them up. This happened, for example, to Mlynice at the beginning of the 17th century, when the Turz family. for a time they backed up to Marek Horvát from Strážky and in the 1930s to Štefan Tököly from Kežmarok. The designation of Mlynice as a town (oppidum) in documents from the 16th to the 19th century was only formal.

It can be understood as a certain reminiscence of its membership in the privileged Union of Spiš Towns in the 13th - 15th century.

The church was already standing in Mlynice. in the middle of the 13th century. From the beginning, he was probably dedicated to St. Margita, a virgin and martyr of Antioch. In the first half of the 15th century it was rebuilt in the Gothic style. In the 16th century, during the Reformation, it fell into the hands of the Evangelicals as one of the first in Spiš (1545). It was returned to the Catholics in 1672, but the Evangelicals and the Germans maintained their dominance in Mlynice for a very long time. According to the canonical visitation of J. Sigray from 1700, only 11 Catholics and 134 Evangelicals lived in the town. They all reported to the Germans. The patron saint of the church was St. Margita. At the beginning of the 18th century, however, the patronage of the parish church was probably changed for some time, because in the canonical visitation of J. Peltz from 1731, the place of St. Margita is mentioned as the patron saint of the church in Mlynice, St. Martin. Since the middle of the 18th century, canonical visitations mention the original patronage of the local church - St. Margita. In 1830, the local evangelicals built their own church.

The self-government in Mlynice already existed in the 13th century. As in other Spiš towns, the mayor and oaths headed the community. The emergence of one's own administrative activity can be expected here at the beginning of the 15th century at the latest. At that time, Mlynica verified his documents and, with the seal that contained in his field, most likely the patron saint of the local church, St. Margita. Her painting also got into the younger typography, from which the imprints of the seals have already been preserved. Although the oldest imprint of the seal from the younger typography was found on documents from 1685, its content gives an opportunity to postpone its origin to the beginning of the 16th century. This is evidenced above all by the shape of a goblet, in which the figure of the crowned Saint Margita standing on a dragon is inserted, holding a cross in her right hand and probably a book in her left. The legend in the circle reads: SIGILLVM * GE * MVLLENBACH (Seal of the village Mlynica), while the inexperienced engraver engraved the letters L and C on the opposite side. This seal was used by Mlynica until the second half of the 19th century. In 1856, the village had a new seal made - only the inscription s. with the German text AMTS SIEGEL DER GEMEINDE MUHLENBACH 1856. Then, at the beginning of the 20th century, the Budapest engraver Ignác Felsenfeld made a stamp for Mlynica with the Hungarian text MALOPATAK KÖZSÉG SZEPES VÁRMEGYE + 1906 +.