The Places of Assemblies of the Local Parliaments of Great Poland from the 16th to the 18th Century

Abstract

The article is the first attempt in historiography to synthesise the issue of location of the local parliaments’ assemblies in Great Poland in the early modern era, taking into account its genesis and transformation. It is based on existing, not numerous and scattered findings in the literature, and, above all, on the basis of the analysis of extensive, issued already in print, source material for local parliaments of the Poznań and Kalisz Voivodeships. The authors tried to show not only the basics of customary and legal location of the assemblies, the places where over three centuries debated the nobility of Great Poland, but also provide some of the details related to the usual place of those assemblies in Środa. The basic conclusion from the findings in this text confirms that from the second half of the 15^th century, Środa was just almost continuously the center of political meetings of the nobility of the vast territory covering two and, since 1768, three voivodeships. Besides, it has been proven that the local parliament of Great Poland in the early modern era did not have a permanent location, but only confirmed by custom and written law the place for assemblies.