„Following the law clearly ...”. The legal basis of criminal convictions Grodzisk city court during 1702–1756

Abstract

In Poland, until the partitions in the eighteenth century, law had the nature of state law. A separate system was the law of the medieval city of Magdeburg that is enriched by numerous later sources. Under consideration are the judgments issued by a court in the city Grodzisk between 1702–1756. Unlike the municipal courts of the area of Malopolska, this court deciding criminal cases very often (almost every case) referred to the applicable law. The law was widely understood.
Rarely it has been used from the main sources of Magdeburg law, there was gladly seen the usage of works of the Polish lewyers by Bartłomiej Groicki and Mikołaj Zalaszowski and (mostly) foreign,
lawyers – for example, the work of Benedykt Carpzov and Jodok Damhouder. It is not known whether such frequent recourse to legal literature was quite exceptional, or practice like that was in other
cities of Wielkopolska. The answer should be brought by further study.