Lietuvos istorijos metraštis /The Yearbook of Lithuanian History

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.

The article sets out to discuss the reform of the courts of the nobility in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania carried out by the Four-Year Sejm (1788–1792). The author makes use of the instructions issued to the delegates to the Four-Year Sejm, as well as the laws passed by the Sejm itself, to present castle, land and border courts, as well as the Lithuanian Tribunal and their reorganisation, as a result of which new institutions operating on a more modern basis were established. Although the Polish nobility envisaged a centralised and unified state, a common legal code for the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (drawn up by the Constitution of 3 May 1791), and institutions operating on an equal footing, the representatives from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania often secured separate laws (in the case of the delineation commission and the Lithuanian Tribunal), or at least supplementary laws (in the case of the landowners’ law court). For this reason, some differences remained in the organisation and operation of the courts of the two constituent states of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. As a result of the reforms, important changes took place in the organisation of land courts and the regulation of the activity of judges: the composition of the courts was changed, a new procedure for electing judges was introduced (the introduction of the general election of judges and their terms of office), and the competence of the courts and the regulation of the activities of the courts and their offices were defined in greater detail. On the other hand, the judiciary still remained estate-dependent; there was no separation between administrative and judicial functions, the issue of the professionalism of the judges was not raised, and the organisation and operating principles of the judiciary differed significantly, even within a single estate (judicial systems operating on a unified basis did not yet exist). The laws passed by the Four-Year Sejm sought to define in some detail the structure of the courts and the duties of the judges and other officials (in this respect, referring to the ideas of the Enlightenment to create the most comprehensive and clear law possible), but important organisational issues, such as the courts’ location, their maintenance, and judges’ salaries, were not fully resolved.

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 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