Polish-Lithuanian Union and the Declared Equality before the Law in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
Polish-Lithuanian Union and the Declared Equality before the Law in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

Summary/Abstract: One of the cornerstone principles of the socio-political system of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was the principle of the nobility equality. Each nobleman – regardless of his wealth, religion and background – was vested with equal political rights. The nobility would often stress the importance of this rudimentary rule - an oddity when set against the background of contemporary Europe, where starkly hierarchized pyramids of aristocratic titles, both inherited and granted, were being formed. In the Commonwealth such titles never came to be and, as a rule, had never become well-entrenched. In the article, the author describes the legal status and its changes to the extent to which it concerned the admissibility of applying noble titles in the Republic of Poland. Although the principle of equality of the nobility existed until the end of this state, with time it had more and more exceptions, but still, it was an exception on the map of Europe at that time.

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