Łaski's Statute(s) (, ), of 1505, was the first codification of law published in the

Kingdom of Poland The Kingdom of Poland (; Latin: ''Regnum Poloniae'') was a monarchy in Central Europe during the Middle Ages, medieval period from 1025 until 1385. Background The West Slavs, West Slavic tribe of Polans (western), Polans who lived in what i ...

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

History

Łaski's Statutes were drawn up by

Chancellor Chancellor () is a title of various official positions in the governments of many countries. The original chancellors were the of Roman courts of justice—ushers, who sat at the (lattice work screens) of a basilica (court hall), which separa ...

and

Primate Primates is an order (biology), order of mammals, which is further divided into the Strepsirrhini, strepsirrhines, which include lemurs, galagos, and Lorisidae, lorisids; and the Haplorhini, haplorhines, which include Tarsiiformes, tarsiers a ...

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 ...

(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 first centuries of Polish history, over 1,000 years ago. The public and private laws of Poland are codified. The supreme law in Poland is the Constitution of Poland. Po ...

by the ''

Sejm The Sejm (), officially known as the Sejm of the Republic of Poland (), is the lower house of the bicameralism, bicameral parliament of Poland. The Sejm has been the highest governing body of the Third Polish Republic since the Polish People' ...

'' (

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. Radom is the fifteenth-largest city in Poland and the second-largest in its province w ...

. 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 Paper size, sheets of paper into book form, folding the sheet only once, and a term for ...

pages, comprised two parts. The first, confirmed by

King King is a royal title given to a male monarch. A king is an Absolute monarchy, absolute monarch if he holds unrestricted Government, governmental power or exercises full sovereignty over a nation. Conversely, he is a Constitutional monarchy, ...

Alexander Jagiellon Alexander Jagiellon (; ; 5 August 1461 – 19 August 1506) was Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1492 and King of Poland from 1501 until his death in 1506. He was the fourth son of Casimir IV and a member of the Jagiellonian dynasty. Alexander was el ...

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 surr ...

that had been entered into with the

Teutonic Order The Teutonic Order is a religious order (Catholic), Catholic religious institution founded as a military order (religious society), military society in Acre, Israel, Acre, Kingdom of Jerusalem. The Order of Brothers of the German House of Sa ...

. The second part discussed the legal system, primarily

Magdeburg law Magdeburg rights (, , ; 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 cities and villages gr ...

, and included text from the ''

Sachsenspiegel The (; ; modern ; 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 local traditional customary laws and ruling ...

'', '' Weichbild'' and

Lübeck law The Lübeck law () 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 municipal law in medieval and e ...

.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, which sought to strengthen the power of the lesser nobility and the king, while weakening the

aristocratic Aristocracy (; ) is a form of government that places power in the hands of a small, privileged ruling class, the aristocrats. Across Europe, the aristocracy exercised immense economic, political, and social influence. In Western Christian co ...

magnate The term magnate, 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 and Union of Mielnik. 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 whereby a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold Public administration, public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative d ...

, and both refused to confirm them afterward. Printed the following year (1506) by Jan Haller in

Kraków , officially the Royal Capital City of Kraków, is the List of cities and towns in Poland, second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city has a population of 804,237 ...

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. Since May 2024, one of copies of the first edition is exhibited at a permanent exhibition in the Palace of the Commonwealth in

Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...

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