Wiślica Statute

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Casimir the Great issued the Statute of Wiślica, graphic by Karol Antoni Marconi , 1865.
Announcement of the statute before the Senate ( Sejm , the historical assembly of estates) in Wiślica, graphic by Franciszek Smuglewicz
Kalisch Statute, illustration by Arthur Szyk (1894–1951), cover page with Casimir the Great, 1927

The statute of Wiślica ([ vʲiɕlʲit͡sa ], Polish statute Wislicki ) is considered the first constitution Malopolska and was designed by Casimir the Great ( Kazimierz III Wielki , 1310-1370) of the dynasty of Kujawy Piast occasion of his accession to the throne in the October 9, 1334 Krakow enacted . Reasons for issuing the statute were the creation of a generally binding legal framework, the strengthening of the rights of the peasant class and the Jews , who were of great importance for the development of trade , especially with their credit transactions and the mints they ran. The statute also had the purpose of bringing about state unity. Casimir created, among other things, the highest court with seat in the Wawel Castle in Krakow and endowed the officials of the Krakow region with national powers. Likewise, the statute should strengthen the power of the monarch. Their validity was extended by Casimir through the statute of Piotrków (1346-1347), named after the city of Piotrków Trybunalski , to other Polish territories. Both statutes are also known as the statutes of Casimir the Great . The statute made Poland a refuge for Jews from Europe-wide persecution for centuries, even if pogroms occurred time and again in Poland.

origin

King Casimir the Great, donor figure from 1464 at the Collegiate Basilica of the Birth of the Virgin Mary in Wiślica . There is a walled-up window near the portal, from which, according to tradition, the statute of Wiślica was announced.

The statute of Wiślica goes back to the grandfather of Kasimir the Great, Bolesław the Pious , who issued the statute of Kalisch on September 8, 1264 . The statute defined the position of the Jews in Poland and laid the basis for their relatively autonomous existence, which lasted until 1795. The statute threatened , among other things, penalties for desecrating Jewish cemeteries and synagogues . The statute contained provisions on the punishment of those who accused Jews of ritual murder . It regulated the principles of the trading activity of the Jews and assured them the inviolability of life and property. The legal code earned him the title of "Polish Justinian ". He also capped the interest rate that Jewish moneylenders imposed on Christians to 8⅓ percent a year. This decree was also intended to protect both citizens and Jews, who were often accused of usury, although at the height of the fight against usury in Italy itself, interest rates of 20% per year were common. The Wiślica Statute is considered to be the oldest Polish nature protection document , as it introduced penalties for felling oaks and other trees in the forests.

Initially, the statute was limited to separate legislation in two districts: Wielkopolska (Greater Poland) and Małopolska (Lesser Poland). The Wiślica statutes issued in Wiślica were issued for Małopolska and those in Piotrków Trybunalski for Wielkopolska - hence they are also called the Wiślica Statute and Piotrków Statute . They were written in Latin, with no clear factual separation. The legal norms were based on Polish customary law . Casimir extended the validity of the Kalisch Statute to the entire Kingdom of Poland . Kasimir's protection policy also applied to the peasant class. His reign is considered an era of great prosperity for Polish Jews. His contemporaries therefore also called him "King of the peasants and Jews".

According to the chronicler Jan Długosz (1415–1480), one of the causes of King Casimir's positive attitude towards the Jews was a beautiful Jewish woman from Krakow named Esther, with whom the king had a love affair after his three marriages, all of which remained without male descendants had two sons, Niemir and Pełka, and a daughter. Esther was the granddaughter of a businessman and doctor from Opoczno . However, this assessment is incompatible with the fact that Casimir issued the statute in 1334, 22 years before he fell in love with Esther. The church and the knight nobility put pressure on the monarchs to adapt their policy towards the Jewish communities to the political and economic interests of the aristocratic and clerical state.

First Constitution of Malopolska

The Wiślica Statute is considered the first constitution of Malopolska , with the introduction of the General Starosteien with administrative and judicial powers, State Council and chancellery management. Kasimir created its own appellate courts for Magdeburg law and forbade appellation to Magdeburg .

The Wiślica Statute comprised 24 articles, which were expanded to 59 articles by a collection of independent royal laws, some of which changed common law. Two thirds dealt with criminal law , one third with civil law and administrative law . Uniform laws and jurisdiction should apply in the Kingdom. In it he consolidated legal principles that formed the basis of Roman canonical legal culture, such as

  • The judges' duties are impartiality, honesty, fairness
  • A law has no retroactive effect.
  • Everyone could be represented by a lawyer.
  • The statute defined the jurisdiction of the judicial authorities.
  • The statute ensured strict enforcement of the law.
  • The statute determined the level of judicial sanctions.
  • Proceedings against a minor were suspended until they came of age.
  • Nobody is allowed to benefit from a committed violation of the law.
  • Nobody should be maliciously deprived of their rights.
  • Nobody should be denied the natural right to self-defense.
  • A legally closed case should not be negotiated again.
  • Everyone is responsible for their own deed.
  • The peasants are protected from feudal oppression.
  • The peasants' right of inheritance was extended to more distant relatives.

The following was also issued:

  • the introduction of a uniform coin for the entire kingdom, which should be of good value and of equal weight,
  • the obligation that knights and nobility must do military service, since the dignity of the king and the defense of the entire kingdom rest on an armed force. Therefore, depending on the size and type of his goods and his income, every knight was obliged to serve the state with a certain number of armed men.
  • Anyone who describes themselves as a nobleman and equates themselves to other nobles, but this is doubted, should bring six honorable men with them to prove their noble origins, two of whom come from their family. These must under oath attest to the origin and descent.
  • During a campaign, nobody is allowed to stop in the villages, but in the field. Neither horses, cattle or anything else may be stolen, except for food for their horses. Anyone who acted against this decision was obliged to pay damages and had to pay a fine.
  • Clergymen were obliged to hand over their properties to a secular relative if he did not want to do military service with them.
  • The poorer social groups should be protected.
  • A shepherd is responsible for damage caused by the neglect of the cattle.
  • Any rebuke of the nobility would be sanctioned.

Regarding the Jews, Casimir the Great adopted and expanded 36 articles of the Kalisch Statute in the Wiślica Statute. The Kalisch Statute, however, is not in the original text and is derived from the Wiślica Statute. Among other things, the following was determined there:

  • In court proceedings against a Jew, a Jewish witness must be heard in addition to a Christian witness.
  • Jews settle their disputes among themselves and are excluded from the city courts. Your court is under the care of the king or the voivodeship .
  • Jews are allowed to buy any kind of goods and to touch bread and other food.
  • A molester of a Jewish cemetery is punished and loses his property.
  • Whoever injures a Jew is punished and has to bear the treatment costs.
  • Anyone who kills a Jew receives his just punishment and loses his property.
  • Jews must not be charged with ritual murder .
  • Numerous provisions regulate the loan and pawnbroker business.
  • Jews do not pay higher tariffs than other citizens.
  • Minters are not allowed to seize Jews on the pretext that they are forging money.

Further development

At the end of the 14th century, further royal statutes as well as legislative postulates of the nobility (the so-called petyta) and articles in the form of case studies were added to the original two statutes. Together with these additions, the Statute of Greater Poland contained about 50 articles, while that of Lesser Poland contained about 105 articles. The new version, called Małopolska-Wielkopolska Dygesta by legal historians , was prepared around 1420, combining the statutes of Małopolska with Wielkopolska . The Dygesta consisted of 130 articles and had the characteristics of a national law. As the “Book of the Rights of King Kazimierz”, it built up the Polish land law and paved the way for the legal and systemic unification of the kingdom.

The content of the statutes was later translated from Latin into Polish. The oldest and most accurate translation of the statutes is that in the Codex by Świętosław von Wojcieszyn, a chronicler in the mid-15th century. The next translations of the statutes are contained in the Działyński Codex (written around 1460) and in the Dzików Codex (written in 1501). In the following translations, the content of the articles has been changed and thus adapted to current needs. With the development of Polish-Lithuanian relations, the statutes 1423–1434 were translated into Ruthenian , which was related to the penetration of Polish law into the Ruthenian countries . The statutes (in the version of the Dygesta) were first published in a private collection of statutes, the so-called Syntagmata from 1488. There additions were made to Polish law, as well as to the Statute of Łaski (1506). They were in force until the independence of the Republic of Poland-Lithuania ("First Republic of Poland") was lost.

Pogroms

The Inquisition , which was introduced in Poland under Władysław I. Ellenlang (Władysław I Łokietek), remained without much influence despite all the intrigues of the lower clergy. Once the Jews were accused of murdering a Christian child in 1347 who was found on the way to the Lobsow Forest , a few kilometers from Krakow. However, a public inquiry carried out on the king's orders by State Chancellor Jakob von Melchtin in collaboration with the humane priest Prandola (who shared Casimir's tolerant views) proved her innocence. As a result, Casimir ordered the publication of section 31 of the Kalisch Statute in the form of an edict , refuted the blood charge and set the penalty for such charge if it was not supported by evidence. To commemorate this event, Casimir had a chapel built in the place named after him, Kazimierz , a later district of Krakow, which was expanded into the Corpus Christi basilica in the following centuries .

Casimir also wanted to protect the Jews from pogroms by the mob in 1348 , because the unfounded accusation of poisoning wells against the Jews during the Black Death had spilled over from Germany to Poland and incited the population. Massacres occurred in Kalisz , Krakow , Głogów and other cities, particularly along the German border. According to the historian Matteo Villani (1285–1363), 10,000 Jews were killed in Poland in 1348 alone. Lithuania was united with the Kingdom of Poland. Although the rights were transferred to the Lithuanian Jews in 1388, the first comprehensive persecution of Jews in Poland began under the rule of Władysław II Jagiełło (before 1362–1434) and his successors, and the king did nothing to end these events. The Jews were accused of murdering children. There were some riots and the official persecution gradually increased, especially after the clergy called for less tolerance. In 1407 Cracow was charged with ritual murder, accompanied by a pogrom. The decline of the status of the Jews was briefly stopped by Casimir IV (1447–1492), but in order to increase his power he soon published the Statute of Nieszawa . Among other things, the old privileges of the Jews, which were considered "contrary to the divine right and the law of the land", were abolished. The government's policy towards the Jews in Poland was no more tolerant under Kasimir's sons and successors. Johann Albrecht (1492–1501) and Alexander the Jagiellon (1501–1506) expelled the Jews from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in 1495 . During the period of Poland-Lithuania ( Rzeczpospolita ), historians from 1500 to 1800 have identified at least 89 ritual murder charges and trials, resulting in an estimated 200 to 300 executions.

In 1758 the Jewish communities of Poland had asked Pope Benedict XIV to defend them against the frequent allegations of ritual murder by Catholics in their country. After his death, the Holy Office commissioned the Franciscan Lorenzo Ganganelli (1705–1774), later Pope Clement XIV., To examine the allegations. In his report he came to the conclusion that historical and current example cases were unfounded.

Five hundred years of validity

The statute was confirmed in 1453 by Casimir IV Andrew (Kazimierz IV Jagiellończyk, 1427–1492). It was included in the collection of laws Commune incliti regni Poloniae Privilegium of Archbishop and Grand Chancellor Jan Łaski (1465–1531) at the behest of the Polish King Alexander (1461–1506) from the Jagiellonian dynasty in 1506 . Likewise in 1539 Sigismund I of Poland (Zygmunt I Stary, 1467–1548) confirmed the statute. His son Sigismund II. August (1548–1572) continued his father's tolerant policies. He also granted the Jews autonomy in municipal administration and laid the foundation for the power of the autonomous Jewish community of Kahal . This was followed by the declaration of the Confederation of Warsaw in 1573 on freedom of religion . With the constitution of May 3, 1791 , under King Stanislaus II August Poniatowski (1764–1795), the first enlightened constitution in Europe was passed, which incorporated the contents of the Statute of Kalisch and the Statute of Wiślica. The bourgeoisie, the peasants and the Jews were given new rights. The statute was thus the basis for the relatively autonomous existence of the Jews, which lasted until 1795, although there were repeated riots against the Jews, such as the Khmelnyzkyi uprising (1648–1657).

Despite all the attacks that flared up again and again and temporary changes to the protective laws, Poland was a place of refuge for the Jews who were subjected to pogroms across Europe. After the partitions of Poland and the end of Poland as a sovereign state in 1795, Polish Jews became subjects of the partitioning powers Russia , Austria and Prussia . After the First World War , in 1918, when Poland regained independence, more than three million Jews lived in Poland and formed one of the largest Jewish communities in the world. Before the beginning of the Second World War , around 3,350,000 Jews lived in Poland (approx. 13% of the total population). Around 90% of them were murdered by the German National Socialists during the German occupation from 1939 to 1945. The anti-Semitism that existed in Catholic Poland led to parts of the Polish population taking part in the murder of Jews, for example in the Jedwabne massacre , despite an anti-German attitude .

After the Second World War there were repeated riots against Jews in communist- dominated post-war Poland, for example in the Kielce pogrom in 1946 , or in the state-sponsored anti-Semitic campaign in 1968 when the Jews were declared "enemies of the state".

The Third Polish Republic ( Polish III. Rzeczpospolita ) emerged in 1989 from the Soviet- dominated, communist People's Republic of Poland , which is not considered a continuation of the tradition of the Polish-Lithuanian aristocratic republic (1569–1795) and the Second Polish Republic (1918–1939). About 10,000 Jews live in the country, which is only around 0.026 percent of the Polish population. As the data on hate crimes, which are only incompletely determined by the Polish police every year, show that between 2015 and 2020 at least 100 violent crimes against Jews were committed in Poland each year. The spread of anti-Semitic attitudes in today's Polish society cannot be explained by a political, ethnic or economic conflict. The extent of the anti-Semitic feelings remains puzzling and irritating, because it seems to be an " anti-Semitism without Jews ". The Wiślica Statute has lost its effectiveness.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Peter Spufford, Commerce, Power, and Wealth. Merchants in the Middle Ages, Theiss, Darmstadt, 2004, ISBN 978-3-8062-1893-0 , p. 33 ff.
  2. ↑ Herman Rosenthal, CASIMIR III. , Jewish Encyclopedia. Retrieved August 2, 2020.
  3. ^ Jan Długosz, Roczniki, czyli Kroniki sławnego Królestwa Polskiego , volume. IX, p. 360
  4. ↑ Poznan Literary Society (ed.): Codex diplomaticus Majoris Poloniae documenta, et jam typis descripta, et adhuc inedita complecentens, annum 1400 attingentia . Vol. 3: 1350-1399 , Posen 1879, document no. 1340 (contract with Emperor Charles IV of May 1, 1356).
  5. ^ Statutes of Casimir the Great , (Polish). Retrieved August 1, 2020.
  6. ↑ statute Wislicki (1346) Kazimierza Wielkiego III . Retrieved August 2, 2020.
  7. ^ Statute of Kalisch (Polish). Retrieved August 2, 2020.
  8. ^ Statut kaliski (Polish, after Artur Szyk). Retrieved August 2, 2020.
  9. ^ Wiesław Wydra, Wojciech Ryszard Rzepka: Chrestomatia staropolska. Teksty do roku 1543, (Polish), Wrocław: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich, 1984. ISBN 83-04-01568-4 , p. 167.
  10. ↑ Wacław Uruszczak, Statuty Kazimierza Wielkiego jako źródło prawa polskiego , ( Polish Statutes of Casimir the Great Polish law as a source ). Retrieved August 1, 2020.
  11. ↑ Historia Bazyliki , Parafia Bożego Ciała w Krakowie (Polish). Accessed July 31, 2020.
  12. ^ "Istorie", p. 622, Milan, 1729
  13. ↑ bartleby.com ( Memento from February 28, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  14. ↑ Thomas Brechenmacher: The Vatican and the Jews: History of an unholy relationship. Beck, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-406-52903-8 , p. 61 ff.
  15. ↑ Casimir the Great , The Jewish Encyclopedia, p. 598 (English). Accessed July 31, 2020.
  16. ^ William W. Hagen: Before the "Final Solution": Toward a Comparative Analysis of Political Anti-Semitism in Interwar Germany and Poland . In: The Journal of Modern History , Vol. 68, No. 2 (June 1996), pp. 351-381
  17. ↑ Ben-Sasson, Haim Hillel, et al .: Poland . In: Michael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik (eds.): Encyclopaedia Judaica . 2nd Edition. tape 16 . Macmillan Reference USA, Detroit 2007, pp. 287-326 ( Gale Virtual Reference Library [accessed August 17, 2013]).
  18. ↑ Mikołaj Winiewski, Dominika Bulska, Antisemitism in Poland , Federal Agency for Civic Education, May 4, 2020. Accessed August 1, 2020.