The opole (Latin : vicinia) [1] is a historical unit of administration in Poland. An opole was characterised by close geographical ties between a group of settlements and common legal responsibilities collectively affecting all of them. The institution of the opole predates the Kingdom of Poland, and began disappearing around the 13th to 15th centuries. It was the lowest unit of administration in the medieval Polish kingdom, subordinate to the castellany.
A particular opole would be named after its largest, capital settlement [2] called czoło (a word commonly meaning "forehead"). [3] Most notably, the term survived as a name of a major city in Poland, Opole, and is also associated with the Opolans tribe. [4]
The organization of the opole predates the first Polish state, the Kingdom of Poland. [5] Opoles were characteristic of the Slavic tribes and had their genesis in ties between neighbourhoods. [5] In the loose organizational structure of those times, the opole stood as an intermediate stage between an extended family and the wider tribe; [6] Henryk Łowmiański refers to opoles as the "constituent units of the tribe". [7] At first, depending on the density of inhabitants, an opole could cover an area of between few dozen to a few hundred square kilometers, with an average area of about 300 square kilometres (120 sq mi). [5] Opoles would comprise both larger settlements and individual manors. [5]
Opoles had several forms of collective responsibility; for example the members of the opole were required to pay certain taxes as a unit and perform services for the state (such as providing cattle or aiding in searches for fugitives). [1] In some documents, the term opole would be used to refer to those obligations. [2]
The close geographical ties between a group of settlements, and common legal responsibilities collectively affecting all of them, can be seen as the primary defining characteristics of an opole. [2] However, Bardach notes that practically nothing is known about the internal organization of the opole. [1] They were subordinate to the local castellany. [2]
Opoles began disappearing around the 13th to 15th centuries. [1] According to Bardach, the causes included a proliferation of settlements applying Magdeburg rights (German legal codes), and the advent of economic and judicial immunities among the feudal lords (nobility and clergy), which removed many settlements from the state's jurisdiction. [1] [2] Those processes accelerated around the time of the fragmentation of Poland (12th to 14th centuries). [2] Opoles disappeared earliest in Silesia and Lesser Poland, and survived the longest in the Masovia region of east-central Poland. [1]
Pacta conventa was a contractual agreement, from 1573 to 1764 entered into between the "Polish nation" and a newly elected king upon his "free election" to the throne. It declared policies the King would enact once on the throne.
The Henrician Articles or King Henry's Articles were a constitution in the form of a permanent agreement made in 1573 between the "Polish nation" and a newly-elected Polish king and Lithuanian grand duke upon his election to the throne. The Articles were the primary constitutional law of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Pospolite ruszenie was the wartime mobilisation of all or a specific part of able-bodied male population of the state into armed forces during the period of the Kingdom of Poland and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The tradition of wartime mobilisation of part of the population existed from before the 13th century to the 19th century. In the later era, pospolite ruszenie units were formed from the szlachta. The pospolite ruszenie was eventually outclassed by professional forces.
A veche was a popular assembly during the Middle Ages. The veche is mentioned during the times of Kievan Rus' and it later became a powerful institution in Russian cities such as Novgorod and Pskov, where the veche acquired great prominence and was broadly similar to the Norse thing or the Swiss Landsgemeinde.
The liberum veto was a parliamentary device in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. It was a form of unanimity voting rule that allowed any member of the Sejm (legislature) to force an immediate end to the current session and to nullify any legislation that had already been passed at the session by shouting either Sisto activitatem! or Nie pozwalam!. The rule was in place from the mid-17th century to the late 18th century in the Sejm's parliamentary deliberations. It was based on the premise that since all of the Polish–Lithuanian noblemen were equal, every measure that came before the Sejm had to be passed unanimously. The liberum veto was a key part of the political system of the Commonwealth, strengthening democratic elements and checking royal power and went against the European-wide trend of having a strong executive.
A rokosz originally was a gathering of all the Polish szlachta (nobility), not merely of deputies, for a sejm. The term was introduced to the Polish language from Hungary, where analogous gatherings took place at a field called Rákos. With time, "rokosz" came to signify an armed, semi-legal rebellion by the szlachta of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth against the king, in the name of defending threatened liberties. The nobles who gathered for a rokosz formed a "confederation".
A konfederacja was an ad hoc association formed by Polish–Lithuanian szlachta (nobility), clergy, cities, or military forces in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth for the attainment of stated aims. A konfederacja often took the form of an armed rebellion aimed at redressing perceived abuses or trespasses of some authority. Such "confederations" acted in lieu of state authority or to force their demands upon that authority. They could be seen as a primary expression of direct democracy and right of revolution in the Commonwealth, and as a way for the nobles to act on their grievances and against the state's central authority.
The Great Sejm, also known as the Four-Year Sejm was a Sejm (parliament) of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth that was held in Warsaw between 1788 and 1792. Its principal aim became to restore sovereignty to, and reform, the Commonwealth politically and economically.
A sejmik was one of various local parliaments in the history of Poland and history of Lithuania. The first sejmiks were regional assemblies in the Kingdom of Poland, though they gained significantly more influence in the later era of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Sejmiks arose around the late 14th and early 15th centuries and existed until the end of the Commonwealth in 1795, following the partitions of the Commonwealth. In a limited form, some sejmiks existed in partitioned Poland (1795–1918), and later in the Second Polish Republic (1918–1939). In modern Poland, since 1999, the term has revived with the voivodeship sejmiks, referring to the elected councils of each of the 16 voivodeships.
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The General Sejm was the bicameral legislature of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. It was established by the Union of Lublin in 1569 following the merger of the legislatures of the two states, the Sejm of the Kingdom of Poland and the Seimas of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. It was one of the primary elements of the democratic governance in the Commonwealth. The sejm was a powerful political institution. The king could not pass laws without its approval.
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Juliusz Bardach was a Polish legal historian. Professor of the University of Warsaw, member of the Polish Academy of Sciences. He specialized in the history of governance and law of Lithuania and Poland.
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Sejm of the Duchy of Warsaw was the parliament of the Duchy of Warsaw. It was created in 1807 by Napoleon, who granted a new constitution to the recently created Duchy. It had limited competences, including having no legislative initiative. It met three times: for regular sessions in 1809 and 1811, and for an extraordinary session in 1812. In the history of Polish parliament, it succeeded the Sejm of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and was followed by the Sejm of the Congress Poland.
Serfdom in Poland existed on the territory of the Kingdom of Poland during the rule of the Piast dynasty in the Middle Ages. It continued to exist in various forms until late in the 14th century when it was supplanted by the institution of serfdom, which has often been considered a form of modified slavery.
Serfdom in Poland was a legal and economic system that bound the peasant population to hereditary plots of land owned by the szlachta, or Polish nobility. Emerging from the 12th century, this system became firmly established by the 16th century, significantly shaping the social, economic, and political landscape of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.
The privileges of the szlachta formed a cornerstone of "Golden Liberty" in the Kingdom of Poland and, later, in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (1569-1795). Most szlachta privileges were obtained between the late-14th and early-16th centuries. By the end of that period, the szlachta had succeeded in garnering numerous rights, empowering themselves and limiting the powers of the elective Polish monarchy to an extent unprecedented elsewhere in Europe at the time.
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