To mark the 800th anniversary of the ratification of the Magna Carta by King John at Runnymede, Magna Carta provides the central European perspectives on this monumental document and its impact on the political and legal experiences of freedom, from the medieval period to the present day. The volume gives rise to a discussion about the legacy of the Magna Carta as one of the fundamental elements of European identity.
Supported by previously untranslated sources at the end of each chapter, the team of contributors consider the lasting legacy of Magna Carta in Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland and Lithuania. The authors present the successful attempts to limit royal power by law while protecting the priveleges of the nobility carried out throughout the region from the thirteenth to eighteenth centuries. Each chapter considers the historical and political contexts behind these efforts, the processes by which political and legal institutions were subsequently formed and finally examines the legacy of those institutions which are today found in constitutional identities, constitutional arrangements and political projects across Central Europe. A preface by Robert Blackburn draws the collection together, highlighting the continued universal significance of the Magna Carta.
This original title will enable students and academics alike to see for themselves the reverberations the Magna Carta caused in medieval Europe and beyond from a fresh and unusual perspective.
Author(s): Zbigniew Rau, Przemysław Żurawski vel Grajewski, Marek Tracz-Tryniecki
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2016
Language: English
Pages: 254
City: London
Magna Carta- Front Cover
Magna Carta
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
Contributors
Foreword
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1: Why do we Central Europeans celebrate the anniversary of Magna Carta?: Introductory remarks
The Tocquevillean insight
Estate privileges as the mediaeval foundations of the early modern civic rights and mixed/ republican government
Freedom under the law
The archipelago of freedom
The experience of unfreedom
Toward a notion of Central European constitutional identity
Chapter 2: a) The Hungarian experience of freedom: the tradition of the Golden Bull
Liberty, limits, political community and the Golden Bull of Hungary
The development of the Hungarian ethos of liberty
Chapter 2: b) The Hungarian sources
Chapter 3: a) King, estates and the Czech Crown: the legal sources of the ideas of freedom in the medieval and early modern Czech lands
Early middle ages: aristocracy, election of the sovereign and royal title
Land community and origin of liberties of the Estates
Estate system, codification of provincial law and legislative stipulation of liberties in the fifteenth–seventeenth centuries
Excursus: privileges for Olomouc bishopric in the sixteenth century
Czech historiography of the nineteenth century and idea of Czech state
Conclusion
Chapter 3: b) The Czech sources
Chapter 4: a) The nobility’s privileges and the formation of civil liberties in old Poland
1. Introduction
2. The types of privileges introduced in old Poland: their legal characteristics
3. The first general (nationwide) privileges: the privileges of Buda and Košice; the nobles’ immunity from taxation
4. The golden epoch of privileges: the principle of personal and property inviolability
5. From the epoch of privileges to the era of noble democracy
6. Privileges and liberties as reflective of the Republic’s constitutional foundations
7. Freedom of conscience and religious toleration
8. The Constitution of 3 May 1791
Chapter 4: b) The Polish sources
Chapter 5: a) Ruling by law and by consent: monarchy and noble estate in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania
Introduction
The emergence of the Lithuanian state
The ruling dynasty
Union of Krėva (Krewo) and the Jagiełłonians
The union of Lublin and the noble democracy
The end of the Commonwealth and its legacy
Chapter 5: b) The Lithuanian sources
Index
