In moft civil affairs the clergy are judged in the ordinary
courts of juftice. In criminal cauies, an ecclefiaftic is- fir if
arrefted by the civil powers, then judged in the confiftory,
and, if convi&ed, he is remitted to the civil power, in order
to undergo the penalty annexed to the crime of which he has
been found guilty.
One great ecclefiaftical abufe, which has been abolifhed in
moft other catholic countries, ftill exifts in this kingdom :
when the Pope fends a bull into Poland, the clergy publiih
and carry it into execution, without the confirmation or
approbation of the civil power.
Before 1538 ecclefiaftics were allowed to hold civil employments
; but in that year priefts were declared incapable
of being promoted to fecular offices. They were alfo exempted
from paying any taxes; but this exemption has been
wifely taken off, and they are now rated in the fame manner
as the laity, with this difference, that their contributions are
not called taxes, but charitable fubfidies.
III. The next clafs of people are the burghers, inhabiting
towns, whofe privileges were formerly far more confiderable
than they are at prefent.
The hiftory of all countries, in which the feudal fyftem
has been eftablifhed, bears teftimony to the pernicious policy
of holding the lower daffies of men in a ftate of flavifh fub-
jedion. In procefs of time a concurrence of caufes * contributed
gradually to foften the rigour of this-fervitude with
regard to the burghers,'in feveral of the feudal kingdoms.
-Among other circumftances tending to their protection, the
moft favourable was the formation of feveral cities into bo-
* It Joes not enter into the plan o f this in a View o f the State o f Europe, prefixed
work to defcribe thefe caufes : the reader to Dr. Robertfon s Hiftory o f Charles V .
will find them amply and ably illuftrated
a dies
dies politic, with the privilege of exercifing municipal jurif- Cy ^ '
.didion. This inftitution took its rife in Italy, the firft country >— v—
;in Europe which emerged from barbarifm ; and was from
thence transferred to France and Germany. It was firft introduced
into Poland about 1250, during the reign of Bolef-
laus the chafte, who being inftructed in the Teutonic or
German laws by Henry the bearded duke of Wratiilaw,
granted firft to Cracow, and afterwards to feveral other
towns, the privileges poffeffed by the German cities: this
body of rights is called in the Statutes of Poland Jus Mag-
deburgicum. et I ’eutonicum; and the caufe affigned for its introduction
is, that no city could flouriffi and increafe under
the Poliih or feudal laws *. In the r 3th and following centuries
the kings and great barons built feveral towns, to all
which they granted a charter of incorporation, conceived in .
the following terms t : H Transfero banc vlllam ex jure Polo-
“ nico in jus.. Peutonicum.” The beneficial tendency of this
political regulation foon appeared : by a fudden increafe of
population and wealth, the burghers of fome of the principal
free towns acquired fuch a degree o f importance and
confideration, as to give their affieiit to treaties, and fend1 deputies
to the national affembly : a noble was not degraded
by being a burgher, and a burgher was capable of being an
officer of the crown. A treaty J which Cafimir the Great
entered into with the knights of the Teutonic order, was not
• only figned by the king and the principal nobles, but alfo by
the burghers of Cracow, Pofin, Sandomir, and other towns ;
and under the fame monarch Wierneik §, burgomafter of
Cracow, was fubmarihal and treafurer of the crown.
The
* Leng. Jus Pub. p. £24. * This Wierneik was fo rich, that in 1363 ,
f Chromer. -whin, the emperor Charles IV . married at
J Dlugoffius L . IX. p. 1067. Cracow Elizabeth grand? daughter o f Cafipair*.
*