Legal Reforms of Agrarian Relations in the Duchy of Warsaw between 1807 and 1809

The article analyses the reforms of agrarian relations, which were carried out during the first years of the Duchy of Warsaw, created as a result of the peace treaties of 1807. The legal status of peasants was at that time initially regulated in a general way by the provisions of the Constitution granted by Napoleon Bonaparte on 22 July 1807. These provisions were then made more specific with the promulgation of the Decree of 21 December 1807, which brought about the abolition of serfdom and allowed peasants to move within the territory of the Duchy. According to the Decree, the land was the property of the lord and a peasant leaving the village should return the land to the lord along with the crops, the buildings and the livestock. This meant that after the Decree came into force, there was a possibility of unlimited eviction of peasants, as well as increasing serfdom burdens. It should be noted, however, that due to the considerable depopulation of the country at that time and the emerging difficulties in providing manpower for the manor house, eviction was used relatively rarely. Nevertheless, later on, the reform carried out by this Decree was said to “remove peasant’s boots along with his shackles”. In this article, the author analyses the provisions of this Decree in the context of regulations resulting from the Constitution of the Duchy, Napoleonic Code and the Decree of 23 February 1809 introducing a temporary organisation of rural communes. The reflections on peasant reforms in this period were supplemented by an analysis of the socio-economic situation in the lands forming the Duchy and selected statements that appeared in the relevant literature on the peasant question from the past till the present.