Łaski's Statute(s) ( pl, Statut(y) Łaskiego, lat, Commune Incliti Poloniae regni privilegium constitutionum et indultuum publicitus decretorum approbatorumque), of 1505, was the first codification of law published in the

Kingdom of Poland The Kingdom of Poland ( pl, Królestwo Polskie; Latin: ''Regnum Poloniae'') was a state in Central Europe. It may refer to: Historical political entities *Kingdom of Poland, a kingdom existing from 1025 to 1031 *Kingdom of Poland, a kingdom exist ...

. The printing in 1506 was the first illustrated printing in Poland.

History

Łaski's Statutes were drawn up by

Chancellor Chancellor ( la, cancellarius) is a title of various official positions in the governments of many nations. The original chancellors were the of Roman courts of justice—ushers, who sat at the or lattice work screens of a basilica or law cou ...

and

Primate Primates are a diverse order of mammals. They are divided into the strepsirrhines, which include the lemurs, galagos, and lorisids, and the haplorhines, which include the tarsiers and the simians (monkeys and apes, the latter including huma ...

Jan Łaski Jan Łaski or Johannes à Lasco (1499 – 8 January 1560) was a Polish Calvinist reformer. Owing to his influential work in England (1548–1553) during the English Reformation, he is known to the English-speaking world by the Anglicised form Jo ...

(hence they are named for him) and consolidated nearly all the legislation that had earlier appeared in Poland. Łaski had been asked to codify existing

Polish law The Polish law or legal system in Poland has been developing since the History of Poland (966–1385), first centuries of Polish history, over 1,000 years ago. The public law, public and private law, private laws of Poland are Codification (law), ...

by the ''

Sejm The Sejm (English: , Polish: ), officially known as the Sejm of the Republic of Poland (Polish: ''Sejm Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej''), is the lower house of the bicameral parliament of Poland. The Sejm has been the highest governing body of t ...

'' (

parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

), meeting in 1505 at

Radom Radom is a city in east-central Poland, located approximately south of the capital, Warsaw. It is situated on the Mleczna River in the Masovian Voivodeship (since 1999), having previously been the seat of a separate Radom Voivodeship (1975–1 ...

. The Statutes, in 720

folio The term "folio" (), has three interconnected but distinct meanings in the world of books and printing: first, it is a term for a common method of arranging sheets of paper into book form, folding the sheet only once, and a term for a book ma ...

pages, comprised two parts. The first, confirmed by

King King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen, which title is also given to the consort of a king. *In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contemporary indigenous peoples, the tit ...

Aleksander Jagiellon Alexander Jagiellon ( pl, Aleksander Jagiellończyk, lt, Aleksandras Jogailaitis; 5 August 1461 – 19 August 1506) of the House of Jagiellon was the Grand Duke of Lithuania and later also King of Poland. He was the fourth son of Casimir IV Jagie ...

and thus carrying the force of law, collected all manner of legislation—privileges, statutes and edicts promulgated by the king or adopted by the ''

'', as well as treaties, such as

peace treaties A peace treaty is an agreement between two or more hostile parties, usually countries or governments, which formally ends a state of war between the parties. It is different from an armistice, which is an agreement to stop hostilities; a surre ...

that had been entered into with the

Teutonic Order The Order of Brothers of the German House of Saint Mary in Jerusalem, commonly known as the Teutonic Order, is a Catholic religious institution founded as a military society in Acre, Kingdom of Jerusalem. It was formed to aid Christians on ...

. The second part discussed the legal system, primarily

Magdeburg law Magdeburg rights (german: Magdeburger Recht; also called Magdeburg Law) were a set of town privileges first developed by Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor (936–973) and based on the Flemish Law, which regulated the degree of internal autonomy within c ...

, and included text from the ''

Sachsenspiegel The (; gml, Sassen Speyghel; modern nds, Sassenspegel; all literally "Saxon Mirror") is one of the most important law books and custumals compiled during the Holy Roman Empire. Originating between 1220 and 1235 as a record of existing loc ...

'', '' Weichbild'' and

Lübeck law The Lübeck law (german: Lübisches (Stadt)Recht) was the family of codified municipal law developed at Lübeck, which became a free imperial city in 1226 and is located in present day Schleswig-Holstein. It was the second most prevalent form of ...

.Galeria Kształtowanie się społeczeństwa obywatelskiego: Statut Łaskiego
but with less content) The Statutes showed a certain bias in promoting Łaski's political views: they supported the

execution movement The Executionist movement was a 16th-century political movement in the Kingdom of Poland (1385–1569), Kingdom of Poland and, later, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. It was popular among lesser, middle and even some higher nobility, and it al ...

, which sought to strengthen the power of the lesser nobility (''

szlachta The ''szlachta'' (Polish: endonym, Lithuanian: šlėkta) were the noble estate of the realm in the Kingdom of Poland, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth who, as a class, had the dominating position in the ...

'') and the king, while weakening the

aristocratic Aristocracy (, ) is a form of government that places strength in the hands of a small, privileged ruling class, the aristocrats. The term derives from the el, αριστοκρατία (), meaning 'rule of the best'. At the time of the word's ...

magnate The magnate term, from the late Latin ''magnas'', a great man, itself from Latin ''magnus'', "great", means a man from the higher nobility, a man who belongs to the high office-holders, or a man in a high social position, by birth, wealth or ot ...

s, and so omitted some documents that favored the magnates. Notably, Łaski's Statutes omitted the 1501

Privilege of Mielnik The Privilege of Mielnik () was an act promulgated on October 25, 1501, at Mielnik by Poland's King Alexander Jagiellon. It substantially expanded the powers of the Senate and the magnates, at the expense of the king. Furthermore, it ''de facto'' in ...

and

Union of Mielnik The Act of Mielnik or Union of Mielnik was an attempt to unite the Kingdom of Poland with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in 1501. It was not ratified by the Lithuanian Seimas or by the Polish Sejm (see Łaski's Statute). The Act of Mielnik remained ...

. The Mielnik laws represented a conflict between the king and magnates: both had made promises prior to the King's

election An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has opera ...

, and both refused to confirm them afterward.

Norman Davies Ivor Norman Richard Davies (born 8 June 1939) is a Welsh-Polish historian, known for his publications on the history of Europe, Poland and the United Kingdom. He has a special interest in Central and Eastern Europe and is UNESCO Professor at ...

, ''

God's Playground ''God's Playground: A History of Poland'' is a history book in two volumes written by Norman Davies, covering a 1000-year history of Poland. Volume 1: ''The origins to 1795'', and Volume 2: ''1795 to the present'' first appeared as the Oxford Cla ...

'', Columbia University Press, 1982,
Google Print, p.141
/ref> Printed the following year (1506) by

Jan Haller Johann Haller or Jan Haller (1463–1525) is considered one of the first commercial printers in Poland. Early life Haller was born in Rothenburg, Franconia, Germany. After his studies at the Kraków Academy, Haller became a merchant in wine, co ...

Kraków Kraków (), or Cracow, is the second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city dates back to the seventh century. Kraków was the official capital of Poland until 1596 ...

and widely distributed, Łaski's Statutes would remain in force as a fundamental codification of

until the late-18th-century

Partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth The Partitions of Poland were three partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth that took place toward the end of the 18th century and ended the existence of the state, resulting in the elimination of sovereign Poland and Lithuania for 12 ...

Notes

References

*W.A. Maciejowski, "''O kodyfikacji praw w dawnej Polsce i jej znaczeniu europejskiem''," ''Na Dziś. Pismo Zbiorowe'', vol. II, 1872. *

Stanisław Kutrzeba Stanisław Marian Kutrzeba (1876–1946) was a Polish historian and politician who was Professor of the Jagiellonian University from 1908, and then until the end of his life the Chair of Studies in Polish law. He was chair of the Law Department ( ...

, ''Historja źródeł dawnego prawa polskiego'', vol. I, Lwów, 1925. *B. Miodońska, "''Przedstawienie państwa polskiego w Statucie Łaskiego z r. 1506''," ''Folia Historiae Artium'', vol. V, 1968.

External links

Łaski's Statute – digital copies in library Polona
{{DEFAULTSORT:LaSki'S Statute 1505 in law 1505 in Poland Legal history of Poland

History

See also

Notes

References

External links