Published : 2024-02-20

The Warsaw Confederation During the Three Interregnums Preceding the Reigns of Successive Monarchs of the Vasa Dynasty in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

Abstract

The Act of the Warsaw Confederation, adopted during the interregnum in 1573, guaranteed religious freedom for all Christians (nobility and at least burghers of royal cities) in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. This meant an equal legal position for Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants of various denominations, including the Polish Brethren who rejected the dogma of the Holy Trinity. For this reason, the Act was contested by Catholic bishops in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and fought against by the papacy. The Act of Confederation contained only general formulations and therefore, as it turned out, it did not provide effective protection for non-Catholics against the tumult directed against them, which intensified in the last years of the 16th century. Therefore, non-Catholics tried to pass laws that would specify the method of punishing the perpetrators of such religiously motivated attacks, as well as present in detail the rights of dissenters. The resistance against such specific legal solutions on the Catholic side was considerable. Therefore, non-Catholics, and especially Protestants, felt encouraged to fight in the Polish-Lithuanian Sejm during the interregnum, when it was, apparently, easier to introduce new legal solutions. For this reason, it seems justified to compare the three subsequent interregnums (1586/87, 1632/33, 1648/49) in the context of the fight of dissenters for the confirmation of the Warsaw Confederation. This comparison clearly shows the increasingly weaker real position of non-Catholics in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, despite the formal confirmation of the Act of the Warsaw Confederation in its original, general version. During the last two interregnums, a ban on building new congregations in royal cities was passed, and, concurrently, attempts were made to exclude the Polish Brethren from the protection provided by the Confederation. Unlike the interregnum of 1587, during the two subsequent interregnums there were no Catholics who would support non-Catholics in their demands during the Sejm sessions.

Keywords:

the Warsaw Confederation, religious tolerance, the Counter-Reformation, interregnums, the Vasas



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Roczniki Humanistyczne · ISSN 0035-7707 | eISSN 2544-5200 | DOI: 10.18290/rh
© The Learned Society of the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin & The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Faculty of Humanities


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