Golden Liberty
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Golden Liberty (latin: Aurea Libertas, Polish: Złota Wolność, sometimes used in plural form; this phenomena can be also reffered to as Golden Freedoms, Nobles' Democracy or Nobles' Commonwealth, Polish: Rzeczpospolita Szlachecka) refers to a unique democratic political system in the Kingdom of Poland and later, after the Union of Lublin (1569), in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Under that system, all nobles (szlachta) were equal and enjoyed extensive rights and priviliges. The szlachta controled the legislature (Sejm, the Polish parliament) and the Commonwealth's elected king.
- Nihil novi (1505).
- Pacta conventa and King Henry's Articles (1573).
- Szlachta history and political privileges.
- Sejm of the Kingdom of Poland and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
- Organization and politics of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Golden Liberty distinguished Poland and was a unique exception in times when absolutism in the main European countries on the East and the West was developing. Freedom and liberty, even if it applied only for one category of the society - the szlachta - were assets almost unknown in contemporary Europe, where monarchs hold power of life and death over all their citizens. Yet the excesses of Golden Liberty resulted in the weakness of the central administration, weaknesses that eventualy allowed Commonwealth neighbours to paralyze its political system, deteriorate it to the brink of anarchy and eventually annex the powerless country in the partitions of Poland in late 18th century.
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See also
External links
- Golden Freedom - 1632-1648 (http://66.188.129.72:5980/History/PreModernEurope/pl-16sigismundIIIend.htm)
- Excerpts from the book "The Polish Way" by Adam Zamojski (http://www.citinet.net/ak/polska_14_f2.html)