Virtuous crown, virtuous "res publica" : the Henrician constitutional declaration of the Republic of Poland-Lithuania : "Interregnum", 1572-1574 : disertacija

ENPoland-Lithuania’s constitutional declaration of 1573 included articles of election for the first elected Commonwealth king, Henry Valois, and is the subject of the following dissertation. Henry’s Articles transmitted customs, rights and privileges of Jagiellonian kings into fundamental law that provided the basis of civic life in Poland- Lithuania through 1795. This study examines the Articles and their formation as a conscious choice for a republican constitution. The story of the Henrician era of governance that stretched from Crown Poland and the Lithuanian Duchy’s Union (1569) through the first interregnum is not devoted to Henry. After the death of Sigismund August, the ‘last Jagiellonian’, a new king was elected for the Republic with its legal sensibility of szlachta equality, practice of free assembly, mosaic of diverse religious communities and self-organizing municipal governments. The Frenchman’s candidacy and others’ who bid for election (Swedish, Muscovite, Hapsburg, Piast) bore witness to the early years of the Crown and Duchy federation while it wrought its own brand of republicanism and amended its ancient laws for a foreign king.At Sejm (parliament) and sejmiki (local assembly) parliamentarians and assemblymen promoted reforms (executio) and discussed the priorities of government. During interregnum there was an intelligent, if unrehearsed, effort to maintain Jagiellonian unity and security in a kingless kingdom. Citizens strove to keep peace, reform the law and reinvigorate the corpus on which commonwealthmen still chose to place a head. The following dissertation is composed of an introduction to the sixteenth-century Republic, followed by eight chapters treating Sejm, sejmik, senate and deputy parliamentarians (chapter one); the Articles and the reform movement (chapters twothree); the process of interregnum by convention from the ‘king is dead’ to agreement on voting method and the drafting of the Articles (chapters four-six); and a collage of civil society (chapter seven). Chapter eight, Postlude, are notes on the election and a synopsis of events that unfolded on the field of election in the spring of 1573. It concludes with a brief summary. In the Commonwealth as in the Republic lex fecit regem—law made king. That law was named Henry. [From the publication]