Ius commune on the Periphery? A Study of Peasants' Wills in Poland in the XV-XVII centuries 1 (original) (raw)

Wills as Tool of Power: Development of Testamentary Practice in Krakow during the Late Middle Ages

The main objective of this paper is to call attention to the phenomenon of late medieval wills and testaments as resources and tools of power. Testaments (with changing definitions and social roles), were objects of hidden rivalries between different centers of power. In the context of late medieval burghers wills, these rivalries were principally between ecclesiastical and municipal authorities, both of which endeavored to use legal instruments to ensure their suzerainty, to create order and to maintain influence over the decisions of the laity and the management of their assets. For this reason, the evolution of Krakow burghers’ wills are presented from the time of their inception at the turn of the 13th to 14th centuries- to the end of the 14th century. This involves beginning with the so called "canon will" - a strictly religious act designed for salvation of testator’s soul-- and continuing with the formation of the “urban will” - a complex form predominantly designed for the regulation of social and hereditary situation of a testator. This will demonstrate the slow transition of wills from their subordination to ecclesiastical to their control by municipal law.

Making Last Wills in the Town of Knyszyn During the 16th Century. The Burghers of Knyszyn in the Light of Their Last Wills

Legal-Historical Trends and Perspectives VI, 2021

Knyszyn je mesto nachódzajńce sa v sńćasnom Pol'sku, v jeho severov}chodnej ćasti. Toto mesto bolo zalożenć na zaćiatku 16. storoćia a pred Lublinskou ńniou (1569) sa na-childza\o v Litovskom velkovojvodstve. V roku 1569 bolo Podleskć vojvodstvo s Knyszynom zać|enenć do Pol'skćho królbvstva. Mesto vpikó pomerne dobre zachovan!łni archivnymi z{znamarni zo 16. storoćia. Tieto z6znamy, aj ked mólopoćetnć, sń najvżićśou zachovanou zbierkou tak|chto dokumentov zo starćho Podleskćho vojvodstva. Magdeburskć mestskć prńvo ziskal Knyszyn privilćgiom, ktorć mu dal Żigmund Augustus v roku 1568. Móżeme vśak pozorova| że niektorć tFpickć inśtitńcie magdeburskćho próva v tomto meste fungovali uż pred rokom 1568. Ęka sa to najmó orgónov mestsk|ch ńradov. Prirodzene, obyvatelia Knyszlma spisovali testamenty pred aj po roku 1568. Mestskó zźznamy z Knyszyna nóm teda umożńujń porovnafpróvnu prax z obdobia litovskćho próva so stavom z obdobia magdeburskćho próva. |e zaujimavć, że zmeny neboli vfznamnćho charakteru. Klńćovć slovó: próvo v Pol'sko-litovskej ńnii, litovskć śtatńty, litovskć próvo, magdeburskć próvo v Pol'sku, zźvet,Knyszyn.

Legal Reforms of Agrarian Relations in the Duchy of Warsaw between 1807 and 1809

Studia Iuridica Lublinensia 2022, 1 (31), 93-123

The article analyses the reforms of agrarian relations, which were carried during the the first years of the Duchy of Warsaw, created as a result of the peace treaties of 1807. The legal status of peasants was at that time initially regulated in a general way by the provisions of the Constitution granted by Napoleon Bonaparte on 22 July 1807. These provisions were then made more specific with the promulgation of a Decree on 21 December 1807, which brought about the abolition of serfdom and allowed peasants to move within the territory of the Duchy. According to the Decree, the land was the property of the lord and a peasant leaving the village should return the land to the lord along with the crops, the buildings and the livestock. This meant that after the Decree came into force, there was a possibility of unlimited eviction of peasants, as well as increasing serfdom burdens. It should be noted, however, that due to the considerable depopulation of the country at that time and the emerging difficulties in providing manpower for the manor house, the eviction was used relatively rarely. Nevertheless, later on, the reform carried out by this decree was said to “remove peasant's boots along with his shackles”. In this article, the author analyses the provisions of this Decree in the context of regulations resulting from the Constitution of the Duchy, Napoleonic Code and the Decree of 23 February 1809 introducing a temporary organisation of rural communes. The reflections on peasant reforms in this period were supplemented by an analysis of the socio-economic situation in the lands forming the Duchy and selected statements that appeared in the relevant literature on the peasant question from the past till the present.

"Piast Poland and the Legal Systems of Medieval Europe," Quaestiones Medii Aevi Novae 20 (2015), 5–34

In response to the editors' request from the editors of the Warsaw international journal, Quaestiones Medii Aevi Novae, for a placement of the history and historiography of medieval Poland in a broader medieval European framework, I use the law as a subject suitable for that analysis. As studied by general medievalists over the past quarter century, the law entails several phenomena which are comparable, that is, not strictly speaking similar, but conceptually consistent across time and space. Such phenomena include: litigation, disputes, and settlements; norms, rules, and normative frameworks; relationship between rule and process; areas of substantive law, such as property, violence and criminality, and status. After a brief survey of the quite disparate historiographies of these subjects produced in Poland and in the English-speaking world, the article, first, identifies the range of comparable phenomena salient for legal history, and, second, moves to a close case study of such phenomena, based on the Henryków Book. In particular, the Book's two authors present a rich array of disputes and settlements. The article uses that material to present a collective study of dispute settlement, and closes with an overview of those patterns in dispute settlement which are directly comparable to their counterparts elsewhere in medieval Europe—thus situating a key part of historical reality in a broader medieval perspective.

"Communities of Legal Memory in Medieval Poland, c. 1200–1240," Journal of Medieval History 24 (1998), 127–154

An important feature of the legal system of medieval Poland in the later twelfth and earlier thirteenth centuries was the role of several kinds of local groups in legal transactions, especially transfers of landed property. Such groups were varied and fluid, but their membership, mobilization, and functions comprise coherent patterns, which can be traced from lists of witnesses present at legal transactions presided over by Piast dukes, and from the collective activities whereby high clergy, ducal officials, and local groups effected, reiterated, and remembered legal transactions. The local groups included (among others) "neighborhoods" of settlers near the places that were affected by the legal transactions; inhabitants of local centers of population, exchange, and lordship; and familiae of the high clergy, ducal officials, or parties to the transactions. The article reconstructs the collective activities whereby such groups recognized and remembered legal transactions, as well as the physical, personal, and environmental anchors of their collective memory. It is a local study of how communities of legal memory functioned as a source of legal knowledge and record.