THE LITHUANIAN UNION 10516,598 Jews pay the poll-tax, whilst two hundred thousand of them apparently
live underground?'
Social and economic changes were reflected in the constitutional sphere. The
four autonomous estates enjoyed their separate jurisdictions. The fifteenth cen-
tury saw the definitive stage in the formulation of the privileges of the szlachta,
and of their legislative monopoly. The provincial sejmiki were regularized; the
bicameral Sejm was in place by 1497. The statue of Nihil Novi of 1505 ensured
the perpetuation of the institutions of the noble democracy into later periods.
The towns retained complex liberties of their own. Several distinguished collec-
tions of urban law, notably those of M. Jaskier and of B. Groicki, enjoyed wide-
spread application. First the 'Digests' of Polish law printed in 1488, and the new
codification of court law for the Kingdom in 1523, and then the publication of
First Lithuanian Statute of 1529 for the Grand Duchy, manifested a growing
sense of cultural and political cohesion.
The monarchy, nominally hereditary, was limited by the terms of the
Lithuanian Union, and was subject to an increasing degree of electoral
confirmation by the nobles. At the same time, it retained many of the attributes
of earlier kingship. In Poland, as distinct from Lithuania, the King was the
executor of a sacred trust, which was not inherited directly from God, but was
carefully conferred on him by the clergy, and acclaimed by the people. As shown
by the ritual of the Coronation ceremony, the Polish King was explicitly bound
by the tenets of the Catholic faith, by the laws of the Church, by the traditions
of his predecessors, and by the consent of the people:
Then the Archbishop should ask him in this way:
Will you uphold the holy faith as handed down to you by Catholic men, and observe it
with just works?
He replies: Volo [I will].
Q. Will you be the guide and defender of the Holy Church and of her ministers?
A. I will.
Q. Will you defend the kingdom granted you by God, and rule it according to the justice
of your fathers?
A. I will. With God's aid, and sustained by the love of all my faithful people, I shall be
strong, and I faithfully promise to conduct myself thus in every respect.
Then the Lord Metropolitan should address the people with these words:
Will you submit yourselves to such a prince and rector, to confirm his rule and put your
trust in him: will you obey his laws according to the apostles, and given that his whole
mind be subordinated to the higher powers, will you submit to this excellent king?
Then the surrounding clergy and people should say unanimously:
Fiat, Fiat. [So be it.] Amen.^6
After that, the plain chant of the choir moved on to another text: 'And Zadok
the priest and Nathan the prophet have anointed Solomon King in Zion, and the
joyful people said, "May the king live for ever, Alleluia".' Biblical scholars may
have recalled that Solomon was anointed king over Israel on the orders of
his father, King David, vivente rege. In Polish history, however, despite the