Magna Carta: A Central European Perspective of our Common Heritage of Freedom

Magna Carta- Front Cover
Magna Carta
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
Contributors
Foreword
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1: Why do we Central Europeans celebrate the anniversary of Magna Carta?: Introductory remarks
	The Tocquevillean insight
	Estate privileges as the mediaeval foundations of the early modern civic rights and mixed/ republican government
	Freedom under the law
	The archipelago of freedom
	The experience of unfreedom
	Toward a notion of Central European constitutional identity
Chapter 2: a) The Hungarian experience of freedom: the tradition of the Golden Bull
	Liberty, limits, political community and the Golden Bull of Hungary
	The development of the Hungarian ethos of liberty
Chapter 2: b) The Hungarian sources
Chapter 3: a) King, estates and the Czech Crown: the legal sources of the ideas of freedom in the medieval and early modern Czech lands
	Early middle ages: aristocracy, election of the sovereign and royal title
	Land community and origin of liberties of the Estates
	Estate system, codification of provincial law and legislative stipulation of liberties in the fifteenth–seventeenth centuries
	Excursus: privileges for Olomouc bishopric in the sixteenth century
	Czech historiography of the nineteenth century and idea of Czech state
	Conclusion
Chapter 3: b) The Czech sources
Chapter 4: a) The nobility’s privileges and the formation of civil liberties in old Poland
	1. Introduction
	2. The types of privileges introduced in old Poland: their legal characteristics
	3. The first general (nationwide) privileges: the privileges of Buda and Košice; the nobles’ immunity from taxation
	4. The golden epoch of privileges: the principle of personal and property inviolability
	5. From the epoch of privileges to the era of noble democracy
	6. Privileges and liberties as reflective of the Republic’s constitutional foundations
	7. Freedom of conscience and religious toleration
	8. The Constitution of 3 May 1791
Chapter 4: b) The Polish sources
Chapter 5: a) Ruling by law and by consent: monarchy and noble estate in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania
	Introduction
	The emergence of the Lithuanian state
	The ruling dynasty
	Union of Krėva (Krewo) and the Jagiełłonians
	The union of Lublin and the noble democracy
	The end of the Commonwealth and its legacy
Chapter 5: b) The Lithuanian sources
Index