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The reviewed book includes 182 medieval inventories of the chattels of Cracow burghers. It is doubtless a very valuable source for research in the area of the history of personal belongings. The objective of the short report is to show the value of such a source for legal-historical research. The book takes into consideration phenomena in the areas of inheritance and marriage law. But the main part of the review is the analysis of information found in the works of lawyers, which is especially worthwhile for research on the legal culture of medieval Polish towns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The report contains a brief summary of the 2nd project workshop of the "Fontes Iuris Lusatiae Superioris Vetustissimi" research project, which was held in Zgorzelec on 5th-6th September, 2018. The proceedings on September 5th were held in Polish in the Jacob Böhme House and on September 6th in German in the Municipal Culture House (MDK). Partnering institutions of the workshop were the Lusatian Museum in Zgorzelec and the Martin-Luther University in Halle/Wittenberg. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Monograph of Criminal Trial as Conducted in the Towns of Malopolska Region of the Early Modern Era (M. Mikolajczyk, A Criminal Trial in Towns of Malopolska Region between the 16th and 18th Centuries, Silesia University Press, Katowice 2013, 620 p.; Monographs of University of Silesia in Katowice no. 2979) the specific court; 5) a significant role played by the defence counsels; 6) the lack of limitations that might be imposed on evidentiary proceedings with respect to the specific stage of the trial; 7) the evaluation of evidence based on common sense and not on rigid rules; 8) a slight significance of the appeal proceedings, this might be due to the influence of inquisitional type of procedure. While highly appreciating the practice of criminal courts, the author arrived at a conclusion that remarkably large number of elements of accusatorial and adversary nature that are found in the discussed proceedings locates the criminal trial conducted in the Polish towns of the modern era on the position of the accusatorial and adversary model, the modern elements of inquisitional origin being also detectable in it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The text presented below is an illustration of the history of the editing of legal historical sources in Poland. A special research team for planning the editing of legal sources was assembled by the Committee of Legal Sciences of the Polish Academy of Sciences. The head of the team, Dr. Adam Vetulani, worked out a complex program for the editing of sources. The sources had been classified into various categories: land law, rural law, municipal law, and legal acts from the first part of the 19th century. Dr. Vetulani presented five main tasks in particular: 1) continuation of the editing of Corpus iuris polonici (the most important edition; includes fundamental legislative and governmental acts from the middle ages and the early modern period); 2) continuation of the editing of medieval Statutes of Kazimierz the Great; 3) continuation of the editing of the records of rural courts, 4/ the editing of municipal legal acts; 5) the editing of legal acts from the beginning of the 19th century, i.e. from the advent of capitalism in Polish territory. The article published in this issue of "Cracow Studies of Legal and Constitutional History" (W. Uruszczak, M. Mikuła, Les editions des sources historiques et juridiques en tant que bien culturel national polonais) shows how many plans have been fulfilled. The work also included information on the rules used for editing the Statutes of Kazimierz the Great. The text of his presentation is a typescript and is kept at the Chair of Polish Legal History at the Jagiellonian University. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The change of written regulations of the municipal law, according to principles included in a gloss to the Magdeburg Weichbild and the Sachsenspiegel, required the consent of the town owner. In the case of towns belonging to the royal domain, the change required the king's acceptance, in the form of approving the regulations prepared by the town burghers. Although the formal approval of the regulations made the king involved in the legislative process, his function cannot be understood as connected with any intentional legislative activity. As it turns out, the initiators of the changes in private law were the burghers themselves, who observed new legal solutions in other towns and, when the need arose, prepared projects of resolutions reforming the law. In smaller towns, this duty belonged to municipal scribes, who had to have an at least intermediate knowledge of law and, drawing on their professional practice, would point out the fl aws and shortcomings in existing regulations. In the case of Ciężkowice resolution of 1550 and Biecz resolution of 1595, an interesting phenomenon can be observed, consisting in borrowing legal solutions, however, not mechanically, but to an extent that met the needs of the town community. The majority of the regulations in Biecz resolution was derived from the Cracovian laudum of 1530. The Biecz town statute (wilkierz), in turn, was a compilation of the Cracovian laudum and Ciężkowice resolution. It is an notable case of borrowing legal solutions from a city (i.e. Ciężkowice) with which Biecz remained in an economic conflict over nearly the whole 16th century. The Ciężkowice statute (wilkierz) abandoned the division of inherited property into gerada, hergewet and dziedzictwo, regulated the question of inherited debts after the Cracovian pattern, raised the problems of ius propinquitatis, and contained detailed administrative regulations, including those concerning the maintenance of the municipal school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]