Legal History in Poland: Research and Instruction tuous sessions of the parliament, an absence of regicide, corruption and traffic in votes, anarchist leanings on the part of individuals and groups and even whole regions. The peasants were exploited and politically they did not count (as they did not count anywhere then) but class democracy was a fact. A plurality of groups battling for their own interests contended for power: magnates who flattered the hordes of petty noblemen; a monarch whose powers were so limited that he frequently had to humble himself to get credit for the army; towns intent on preserving what was left of their medieval privilegies; and finally, the Church and her religions orders, which answered to no one but Rome. In the parliament, any deputy who declared “Liberum veto”! could break off a session irrevocably— a law, unique in Europe, which implied that to pass laws a rarely attainable unanimity was necessary, and that freedom of opinion carried the seeds of its own destruction. Meanwhile, Russian diplomats looked on, stroking their beards, at first froma distance; but later, when their moves were backed up by a strong military force, they found the use of pressure or money to buy off parties or individual deputes a simple matter. Their succes proved to be complete”."^ 309 II. After the partitions the early legal historians plunged in the fervent debates on the causes of Poland being erased fromthe map of Europe. Such individuals as Michal Bobrzyhski, Tadeusz Korzon, WladyslawSmolehski, to mention only a handful of names, vividly disputed to what extent it was the internal weakness, and to what extent the external aggression, that put down tofinis Poloniae. These debates laid foundations for two schools of the 19'^^ century legal historians: one, more pessimistic Cracowschool, laid more emphasis on the internal, while other, more optimistic Warsawschool, on the external factors. Regardless of the difference of opinion amongst them, the legal historians acted unisono while making some efforts aimed at the rescuing of the institutions of the extinct Republic from falling into oblivion. Hence the idea that penetrated their mindes to publish laws that throughout centuries were adopted by the Parliament of the Two Nations. This gave rise to the series of Volumina Legum, Corpus Juris Polonici, Jus Polonicum or, as far as social and other facts were concerned, Monumenta Poloniae Historica. In the course of decades, Volumina Legum, successfully corrected and supplemented, were repeatedly published over the 19'*’ and 20'*’ centuries. Their new edition, supplied with interesting, new documents, has been recently assumed by Stanislaw Grodziski, Irena Dwornicka and Waclaw Uruszczak, and the first volume of the series appeared under the title Volumina Constitutionum, volumen 1, CzcsLiw Milosz, Native Realm, Oxford 1981, pp. 17-18. 21
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