The exhibition, “The Łaski Statute: a historic artifact and work of art,” opened on Tuesday at the Central Archives of Historical Records (AGAD) in Warsaw. It focuses on the Łaski Statute, a landmark 16th-century collection of laws that helped organize the legal system of the Kingdom of Poland.
Culture Minister Marta Cienkowska said at the opening that the statute showed the ambitions of a state seeking to build public life around clear rules.
“The Łaski Statute was a document that played a very important role in building Polish statehood,” Cienkowska said. “It gathered the most important laws of the Kingdom of Poland. It was evidence of the ambition of a state that wanted to organize its institutions, strengthen its legal foundations and build a community based on clear principles.”
She added that printed copies allowed key legal acts to reach courts, offices and cathedral chapters, making the law more accessible and more uniform in its application.
“The Łaski Statute reminds us of the strength of law, the importance of institutions and the value of knowledge,” Cienkowska said. “It shows that a culture of memory and care for shared heritage is one of the main pillars of a modern state.”
The main exhibit is a parchment copy of the Łaski Statute prepared for King Alexander Jagiellon.
Robert Kostro, director of the Central Archives of Historical Records, said the royal copy has both historical and visual importance.
The Łaski Statute has been included on the Polish National List of the UNESCO Memory of the World Program since 2016.
“The copy presented here, prepared especially for King Alexander Jagiellon, is the most beautiful and most interesting of all those that were made,” Kostro said.
Alexander Jagiellon was Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1492 and King of Poland from 1501 until his death in 1506.
The royal copy has survived in very good condition. Its pages are clean, and the colors of its illustrations remain vivid.
Kostro said the recently completed conservation work focused mainly on the cord binding the document together. The cord ends with the royal seal of King Alexander.
The exhibition also includes more than 20 other documents and seals. Among them are a privilege issued in Radom in 1505 by Alexander Jagiellon guaranteeing the rights of the nobility, and the parchment record of the Second Peace of Toruń, signed in 1466.
The Łaski Statute was adopted at the Sejm, the Polish parliament, in Radom in 1505. The session ran from March 30 to May 31 and centered on rules limiting the king’s ability to make new laws without the consent of the senate and regional deputies.
Those debates produced the constitution known as nihil novi, Latin for “nothing new.” It meant that new laws required the consent of three forces: the king, the senate and the chamber of deputies. In practice, it made the Sejm the central legislative authority in the kingdom.
After the Radom session, the laws had to be organized into a single text for use across the state.
The task was undertaken by Primate Jan Łaski, one of the most powerful figures in Poland after the king. The work expanded beyond the current legislation of 1505 and became an attempt to codify the existing law of the Kingdom of Poland, including privileges, parliamentary constitutions and customary norms.
The statute formally entered into force after it was printed on January 27, 1506. Several parchment copies were prepared for leading offices and dignitaries, while about 150 paper copies went to chanceries, courts and towns as practical tools for applying the law.
The printed statute helped transform law in the Kingdom of Poland from the knowledge of officials into a public text that judges, offices and towns could consult across the country.
The exhibition at AGAD, at 7 Długa St. in Warsaw, runs until June 26.
(rt)
Source: dzieje.pl