of the leading class took a great step forward, and the disintegration of society was almost complete. This tendency of a part of the Lithuanian nobility to a union with Poland, and the continual and energetical efforts of King Sigismund II, finally produced the juncture at the Diet of Lublin in 1569 of Poland and Lithuania into one state. The two parts preserved a complete system of self-government; only the king and the Diet were the same. The constitution in Lithuania changed also considerably from the middle of the sixteenth century; it was aristocratic, as we have said, but from the middle of the sixteenth century the lower nobility with its provincial assemblies, so-called seimiki, makes itself felt more and more, although it never received such an influence as in Poland. In a word, Lithuania preserved its aristocratic traits. The union with Poland called forth changes in the law, and so arose the third Lithuanian Statute of 1588. The alterations refer principally to the constitutional law, while the other parts of law and the system remained essentially the same. The first three chapters contain the constitutional law, namely, that concerning the grand-duke, the defence of the state, and the rights of the nobility; the last ten chapters dwell upon the private and criminal law and the law procedure, which is not separated. All the statutes were published in the Russian language and afterwards translated into Polish and even Latin.

Let us now finally view Polish legal literature, which is rich and varied at this period. It can be divided into three sorts, political, juridical, and historical. The first is very interesting.

It can be taken for granted, that the political literary

movement was founded on the ancient philosophy of State and society, principally that of Aristotle, whose Politics in the sixteenth century translated into Polish were well known. As I have said, these ancient ideas coincided to a remarkable extent with the conditions elaborated by history. But beside this tendency we find thoughts, which were spread among the reformers of the sixteenth century, that all classes should be treated with equal justice. These two phases of mind animated Andrew Modrzewski the greatest Polish political thinker of the sixteenth century, who wrote not only for Poland, and whose works were translated into many European languages. The great questions which agitated his native land occupied him also. So he raised his powerful voice for the amelioration of the position of the peasants; he expressed very humane and practical ideas on the establishment of a permanent treasury in order to cover the expenses of the State by equal taxation of the whole nation; he proposed that the high court should be composed of members appointed not only from the nobility. Many other important writers lived at the same time, representing other tendencies; for instance, Stanislaus Orzechowski, who even wished to subordinate Poland to the Pope, Warszewicki, who upheld the necessity of the autocratic power of the king, and Gornicki, whose ideal was Venice with its aristocratic senate governing without rivals. This literary movement diminishes in the seventeenth and the first half of the eighteenth centuries, but arises again with great force in the last fifty years of the latter century, when the questions of the increase of kingly power, the raising of the burghers to a full legal competency and amelioration in the position of the

peasants presented themselves. Hugo Kollataj, Staszic, and others were the leading men of those years; we find in their works the echoes of the forerunners of the first French revolution. Thus the common trait of this long series of writers was, that they recommend only the means for the ameliorating of the state and society, but do not describe their structure.

We can now characterize Polish juridical literature. The failure of the attempts to make a code, the establishment of a high court with members elected by provincial assemblies of the nobility only for one year, brought about the necessity of looking upon Roman law and the science of law as the means of removing contradictions in the Polish laws and of supplying their insufficiencies. In the works of Drezner, Zalaszowski, Ostrowski, Paul Orzechowski, and Zawadeki, on Polish private and criminal law, organization of justice and the law procedure, we seldom find an explanation of legal rules, as they were comprehended by judges and applied in juridical practice, but only a description of rules taken from laws, and their co-ordination with the help of the legal science of that time. Ostrowski is the most interesting among these writers, because he embraced the whole law applied in the courts, and drew some attention to practice 1.

We have a great many works upon Polish political literature. The most widely known are: K. Hoffman, Historya reform politycznych w dawnej Polsce (The History of the Political Reforms in Old Poland'),` Poznan, 1869, and St. Tarnowski, Pisarze polityczni XVI w. (The Political Writers of the Sixteenth Century'), Cracow, 1895. I find all the works upon Polish political literature, however, insufficient; the authors look upon the conditions of the political existence of Poland in the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries from the point of view of to-day.

The historical studies on the Polish state and society begin with the work of Kromer, Bishop of Warmia, under the name of 'Poland, or on the position, nations, usages, and state of the Polish kingdom.' This work presents only a description of the state in Kromer's time, but, as the present can often only be explained by the past, it has also some historical indications. Kromer, being the first writer in this branch of knowledge, had great influence on Chwalkowski and Hartknoch, both of whom expounded the Polish constitutional law with historical observations, sometimes valuable. But the most solid authors are Lengnich and Skrzetuski. The former edited a whole history of Polish polity in three periods of dynasties, the dynasties of Piast, Jagiello, and the elected kings. The first period is unscientific, the second is much better, and the third, principally from his memory, is of great value. The second edition of Lengnich's Ius publicum Regni Poloni appeared in 1765–6, but great changes took place after these years. Therefore Skrzetuski undertook to describe these alterations in the Political law of the Polish nation.' He is less critical than Lengnich, but understands better the Polish development, on which Lengnich looked from the standpoint of his own age, and is animated by the reformatory spirit of the epoch. Indeed, he pays more attention to the citizens, peasants, trade, industry, and national education, and everywhere tries to find means for ameliorating all these diverse national forces.

6

LECTURE V

CROATIA

WE very to oatian principality, which

E have very little to say about the independent

existence of the Croatian

became a kingdom by the will of Pope Gregory VII, who endeavoured to weaken the power of the emperor

1 The southern Slavonic Academy, founded in 1873, is the centre of the whole scientific life in Croatia and Dalmatia. The late President of the Academy, Mr. Racki, made the most important inquiries upon all the relations of the Croatian principality, but had not time enough to collect them into one great picture. The editions of this Academy, referring to the history of law, are twofold: (1) Monumenta spectantia historiam Slauorum meridionalium (29 volumes), including old charters, relations of every kind with Venice, very interesting legal documents of Ragusa and so on, and (2) Monumenta historico-iuridica Slauorum meridionalium. The last edition includes: vol. i, Statuta et leges ciuitatis Curzulae, 1877; vol. ii, Statuta et leges ciuitatis Spalati, 1878; vol. iii, Statuta et leges ciuitatis Buduae, ciuitatis Scardonae et ciuitatis et insulae Lesinae, 1882-3; vol. iv, Statuta lingua croatica conscripta, 1890; vol. v, Urbaria lingua croatica conscripta, sectio 1, 1894; vol. vi, Acta croatica, t. i (1100-1499), 1898; vol. vii, Statuta confraternitatum et corporationum Ragusinarum, sectio 1, 1899. Besides, the publications of the Academy (Rad) contain scientific articles, and the so-called Antiquary (Starine) consists also of scientific articles and editions of all sorts of documents. The character itself of the country, of its inhabitants and of its history, very well explains the difficulty, probably even the impossibility, of writing a history of law in Croatia and Dalmatia.