This article focuses on the relationship between the imperial cult in pagan Rome and the heavenly hierarchy taught by Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. The latter’s thought played a significant role in the construction of the medieval image of the world. Medieval reflection on the state and law drew from it as well. Therefore, possible analogies between the imperial cult and the philosophy of Corpus Dionysiacum would indicate an indirect influence that the imperial cult of the emperor had on certain later ideas about state power, on the legitimacy of certain forms of social and constitutional organization, and on prophetic visions inspiring social and political movements.

Against this background, the article compares the emperor’s genius (as well as the imperial virtues and the emperor’s numen) with the immaterial beings described by the Areopagite. It reveals clear parallels regarding the hierarchical construction of geniuses in the imperial cult of ancient Rome and Pseudo-Dionysius’ Angels, Names of God, and divine providences. The similarities in mediation between the human world and the divine reality regarding the granting of creative power and supernatural knowledge are also associated with this structure. In both cases, the divine element (genius and heavenly beings) has a historiosophical aspect, consisting of justification of belief about care that the deity exercises over the universal history of mankind.

The conducted research constitutes an impulse for further research in the field of political aspects of medieval angelology.

Franciszek Bieliński’s Attitude towards Tithes. A Contribution to the History of the Dispute over Tithes in Masovia in the 1750’s

The present article describes Franciszek Bieliński’s attitude towards tithes. He was the Grand Marshal of the Polish Crown and initiated a conflict about tithes between the Masovian nobility and the Catholic clergy, that began in the early 1750’s. In the article I analyse the manifesto that was published under Bieliński’s auspices, along with his correspondence with other dignitaries of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, as well as their speeches during the Sejm of 1752 in Grodno. It was no secret that Bieliński initiated this conflict mainly for personal reasons. However, his activity perpetuated the evolution of the practice that courts for nobility were competent to examine cases concerning tithes.

* Artykuł powstał w związku z realizacją projektu badawczego PRELUDIUM 6 Narodowego Centrum Nauki (nr DEC-2013/11/N/HS3/04734).

The Publication Accompanying the Exhibition “Faszination Stadt” Kulturelle Vernetzung in Europa. Das Magdeburger Recht und seine Städte (Cultural Net in Europe. Magdeburg Law and Its Towns), eds. Gabriele Köster, Christina Link, Heiner Lück. Dresden: Sandstein Verlag, 2018, 520 pp., ISBN 978-3-95498-452-7

The overview refers to the publication Kulturelle Vernetzung in Europa. Das Magdeburger Recht und seine Städte (eds. G. Köster, Ch. Link, H. Lück, Dresden: Sandstein Verlag, 2018). It contains 23 articles devoted to the shaping of urban centres in Central-Eastern Europe, based on an interdisciplinary approach. These centres developed from the 13th through the 18th centuries, following the Magdeburg legal model, under the influence of its legal culture. A similar economic and social context shaped comparable circumstances and transformation trends in these centres, regardless of ethnic diversity. Cities established under Magdeburg law shared a network of cultural links, both material and spiritual. The starting point of most of the texts is the history of urban law, and its transfer and adaptation to new areas.  However, they also refer to the legal language, the development of written culture in law, the history of the cities’inhabitants and ethnic groups, and the history of urban development, archeology, and art.

Maciej Jan Mazurkiewicz, Ludobójstwo Niemiec na narodzie polskim (1939–1945). Studium historycznoprawne (Germany’s Genocide against the Polish Nation (1939–1945). Legal Historical Study). Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej, 2021, 520 pp.

The monograph highlights the aspects of the international law qualification of the actions and omissions of Germany towards Poland and Poles during World War II. The study tries to prove that in the years 1939–1945 Germany was obliged to observe the norms of international law in its relations with Poland, and especially the non-treaty prohibitions not to initiate aggressive war or to commit the crime of genocide. The review describes the hypothesis and aims of the monograph and evaluates its substance, form, and argumentation.

Political Constitution of the Portuguese Republic of 1933

The work consists of two parts. One of them is the first Polish translation of the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic of April 11, 1933, and the other is an article devoted to this constitution and the system of government prevailing in Portugal during its period of validity. The Constitution of 1933 had never previously been translated into Polish, although its translation (often anonymous) was published in several other languages, including English, French, German, and Russian. While the circumstances of adopting the constitution of 1933, its sources, and its ideological concepts are reasonably well chronicled in Polish literature, the Estado Novo system is less so, and the author devotes his article to analysing this new regime. It is a synthesis of the constitution’s provisions, against the background of the circumstances in which it was adopted and the ideology on which it was based: corporatism, conservatism, moderate nationalism, and meritocracy. The author also does not ignore the unique role of the architect and originator of the Portuguese system of that time –António de Oliveira Salazar –and his views on the state system.

Lost Minutes of the Sittings of the Sub-commission on the Law on Kinship and Care Relationships of the Codification Commission of the Republic of Poland in 1939 (part I)

When Poland regained independence in 1918, the different legal systems of the various partitioning states all remained in force on its territory. Drafts of uniform laws were to be drawn up by the Codification Commission established in 1919. One of its tasks was the preparation of a draft of the family and guardianship law. The sub-commission addressing this division of civil law worked until the outbreak of World War Two. The minutes of its sittings disappeared in September 1939 along with the total output of the Codification Commission. However, copies of minutes of the sittings of the sub-commission held in 1939 were found in Kazimierz Przybyłowski’s collection of books donated to the Faculty of Law and Administration of University of Silesia in Katowice. These minutes shed new light on the final phase of the codification works. Publication of these documents will enable further detailed research on the history of family law in interwar Poland. The first part of the publication focuses on minutes nos. 165–173, while following parts will include minutes nos. 183–201, and a reconstruction of the draft provisions.

Medice, cura te ipsum. A response to Andrzej Zakrzewski

Andrzej Zakrzewski’s article reviews the book The judiciary adopted by the Treasury Commission of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in fiscal cases (1765–1794) by Piotr Miłosz Pilarczyk. The article was published in Krakowskie Studia z Historii Państwa i Prawa 14, issue 4 (2021). It is an unpleasant example of academic misconduct. Due to the doubts it raises, it is necessary to indicate the abuses committed by the reviewer.

Among Zakrzewski’s numerous remarks, his charge of insufficient use of the literature available on the subject stands out. However, the majority of issues raised by the reviewer either do not relate to things found in the book, or the references found there are irrelevant. The next objection relates to the language used in the work. The reviewer’s arguments result from misunderstanding of the assumptions elucidated in the work.

Polemics with the reviewer are in many cases impossible, because they often fail to justify criticisms with substantiable arguments, or they lack rational bases because of being ad personam. Criticism also applies to what is not in the book, because the reviewer does not focus on the content of the work, but refers to other topics that he would like to read about. Bearing all this in mind, one cannot consider Zakrzewski’s text be substantive and conforming to reasonable standards of academic criticism.