XVIII amžiaus studijos / The Eighteenth Century Studies

Recently, in historiography, the Constitution of 3 May 1791 is increasingly viewed not only as the quintessence of the reforms carried out in the late eighteenth century in the Commonwealth of Both Nations but also as the embodiment of the most advanced state and society reformations by the Four-Year Sejm (1788–1792). In the context of the development of parliamentarism in the late-eighteenth-century Republic, the article reviews the directions and nature of one of the most important reforms of the legislative power in the tripartite separation of powers concept, which is fixed in the Constitution of 3 May 1791. Reforms by the Four-Year Sejm, which established significant changes in the parliamentary life of the Republic, acquired an even more conceptual expression in the Constitution of 3 May, which made it possible to highlight the boundaries of the legislative power.

In Catholic canon law, the terms used to refer to the sexual disorders causing difficulties in marriage were “impotence” (Lat. impotentia) or “frigidity” (Lat. frigiditas). These terms, although not gendered, were nevertheless most often used to describe men’s physiological problems. In the Catholic consistories of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, impotence-related cases were perhaps the rarest category of all marital litigation. In the surviving sources of the seventeenth-eighteenth-century ecclesiastical courts, it was possible to find data on ten such cases, of which seven were examined. Due to the scarcity and chronological inconsistency of the data drawing generalising conclusions is problematic, nonetheless, it is possible to observe certain trends and to reveal aspects that are relevant from the point of view of micro-history.All bar one of the cases involved male impotence, and five out of seven resulted in the decisions declaring the marriages null and void. The analysis of case materials clearly reveals an aspect of publicity characteristic of this type of cases that had evolved in canon law since the Middle Ages, namely, third-party inspections. It was the expert insights of women or doctors that had a decisive influence on the decisions on whether to annul the marriage or to order the spouses to stay in it. This rather unwanted limelight may have precluded many of the cases from ever reaching the courts.

Heraldry and its research have deep traditions in Europe. In Lithuania, interest in this field is a more recent phenomenon. The late beginning of heraldry research was partly influenced by the loss of Lithuania’s independence. At present, researchers’ attention is focused mainly on the periods of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, also looking at Lithuanian heraldry of the twentieth and the twenty-first centuries, and conducting thorough research into the coats of arms of the state, its cities, and towns. Research on the heraldry of the nobility, such as the heraldry of the political elite in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania – the families of Goštautas, Pacas, Radvila, Sapiega, and others – is also conducted. The heraldry of the noblewomen of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania has received less attention. This article focuses on the heraldry of the noblewomen of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It also aims to discuss the significance of the coat of arms in the noblewoman’s life in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania during that period and to introduce the traditions of heraldry, the formation and use of noblewomen’s coats of arms in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Analysis of the heraldic sources related to noblewomen revealed that the coats of arms of the noblewomen of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania appeared in seals, literature, portraits, tombstones, etc. The coats of arms were often oval or traditional shield-shaped. Also, very often the noblewomen of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania used shields with a crest. In various cases, compared to men’s coats of arms, women’s coats of arms are more decorative, embellished with plant and floral motifs. Over the course of time, the noblewomen’s coats of arms became a unique means of representation and an important part of identity.

The article dwells on the events of the Great Northern War (1700–1721) related to the Duchy of Courland. It focuses on the warfare in a particular region, the border area between the Duchy of Courland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, from the entry of the Swedes into the

The annexation of the Land of Smolensk by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in 1395 had a great impact on the situation of the ecclesiastical officials of the Orthodox Church in this region. The article investigates the development of the careers of the ecclesiastical officials of