Wolność szlachcica w Rzeczypospolitej XVII w. Propozycje badawcze

Abstract

A nobleman’s freedom in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the sevente- enth century. Research proposals The aim of the article is to draw attention to the question, neglected in the literature on the subject, of the actual possibilities individual land-owning nobles had to exercise negative (defence against oppression) and positive freedoms: private (freedom of conscience and speech, satisfaction of subsistence needs) and public (active participation in political life) during the reign of the Vasa dynasty and the “compatriot kings”. In contrast to research into the political culture and ideology of the nobility as well as political discourse, relating to the freedom of the nobility as a whole, the present author abandons normative sources in favour of pieces written in colloquial language and concerning the reality of life in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, as well as journalistic pieces, last wills and local assembly (sejmik) documents. In order to make the results of the exemplification-based research objective, the author uses numerical data relating to the occurrence in these sources of terms associated with the ideology of freedom and citizenship, drawing on the Corpus of Sejmik Documents of the Pre-Partition Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.