This volume of the edition presents exceptional documents from the early period of European constitutionalism with the constitution of May 3rd, 1971 from the closing phase of the Polish Aristocratic Republic, and the Grodno constitution of 1793.

It incorporates the constitutional texts of the Napoleonic epoch, such as those concerning the duchy of Warsaw of 1807 and of the period in which Poland ceased to exist as a sovereign state (the so-called Constitution of 1815, the 1825 amendment, and the “organic statute” of 1832). Among the most interesting and hitherto almost unknown constitutional projects of Galicia, which belonged to the Habsburg Monarchy following the partition of Poland in 1772, are the Magna Charta / Charta Leopoldina (1790) and two versions of the Lemberg Petition (1848). Documents pertaining to constitutions of the Free City of Krakow, also known as the Republic of Krakow, (including constitutions from 1815, 1818 and 1833 with amendments) have also been edited.

In keeping with the publication series’ editing principles, this volume contains a total of 21 documents in all the original languages in which they were published at the time, including Polish, French, German, Latin, Russian and old Ukrainian.

The texts have been edited and annotated by the law historian, Anna Tarnowska, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Torun.