The Influence of Natural Law on the Discourse of Toleration in Seventeenth-Century Poland-Lithuania

Karin Friedrich

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Chapter 2 The Influence of Natural Law on the Discourse of Toleration in Seventeenth-Century Poland-Lithuania

In: Early Modern Natural Law in East-Central Europe

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Karin Friedrich

Karin Friedrich
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Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 35–65

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004545847_003

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Abstract

Taking Hugo Grotius’s comment that ‘Poland does not legislate on religion’ as point of departure, this article traces the impact of natural law discourses on the debates around toleration in the multi-religious and multi-national Commonwealth of Poland-Lithuania. Starting from earlier sources of natural law thinking in the Polish conciliarist tradition, it explores the ‘process of Confederation’ as an attempt to implement the decisions of the Interregnum Sejm of Warsaw (1573), leading up to the mid-seventeenth century, it shows how political writers linked the desire to maintain religious peace with a defence of the forma mixta constitution, appropriating a natural law discourse to balance the conflict between self-interest and the common good through the exercise of virtue and civic duty. With a focus on the rights of the individual (noble) citizen and freedom of conscience, Polish natural law discourse promoted the participatory republican model of the Commonwealth, rather than the need for state-building. The transfer of ideas did not just flow from West to East. The Polish model of civic responsibility also left an imprint on Grotius’s own thinking on matters of faith and state.

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Early Modern Natural Law in East-Central Europe

Series: Early Modern Natural Law: Studies & Sources, Volume: 5

E-Book ISBN:: 9789004545847

Publisher:: Brill

Print Publication Date:: 20 Apr 2023

Subjects
- History
  - Early Modern History
  - Legal History
- Slavic and Eurasian Studies
  - General

Front Matter

Part 1 Poland-Lithuania

Part 2 The Austrian Empire

Part 3 Hungary and Transylvania

Part 4 Russia

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Chapter 2 The Influence of Natural Law on the Discourse of Toleration in Seventeenth-Century Poland-Lithuania

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Early Modern Natural Law in East-Central Europe

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