Udział synów magnackich w obradach izby poselskiej w siedemnastowiecznej Rzeczypospolitej

Abstract

The problem of participation of magnate sons in the deliberations of the Chamber of Deputies is of fundamental importance for bringing closer the importance of the Chamber of Deputies in the functioning of the seventeenth-century parliament. It shows the extent to which the lower chamber of the Sejm of the Commonwealth influenced the deliberations of the Sejm, the position of the king and the Senate as the Sejm states. It also indicates what influence participation in the chamber’s deliberations had on the careers of magnates. It turns out that the law indicated the limits of maturity for activities related to marriage, possession of property, but did not indicate the limit to the participation of sons of magnates in public life, and therefore in deciding the fate of the state. There was no apparent separation between private and public law. However, the early activity of the magnates’ sons in the functioning of the parliament did not meet with the approval of the deliberators. There are fundamental differences in the breadth of influence of magnates participating in the deliberations of the chamber in the Crown and in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The influence of Crown magnates was generally concentrated in the province from which they came. The political influence in public life of Lithuanian magnates sometimes covered several provinces. In view of this, the extent of the cliental system in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania may have been much greater than it was in the Crown. An impediment on the influence of one faction could be the action and power of the opposing faction. [Translated by Stefan Kubiak]