Jurisprudence of the Court of the Peace in Śrem – an Attempt of Statistical Elaboration

Abstract

The aim of the article is to indicate what the court of the peace in Śrem dealt with during the period of the Duchy of Warsaw, and thus what problems were important for the society of Greater Poland at the beginning of the 19th century, in the initial phase of the transition from feudalism to capitalism. The statistical method was used in the research. The choice of the court in Śrem is dictated by the fact that its files have been preserved to our times in a relatively complete way. The records of courts of this level have usually been completely lost or have been poorly preserved. In addition, the author wishes to answer the question to what extent the judges from Śrem complied with the letter of the laws in force in the Duchy of Warsaw, and to what extent they ruled based on their own sense of justice. It is important that the Napoleonic Code and the Prussian Landrecht of 1794 were in force in the Duchy of Warsaw at the same time, which must have posed numerous challenges to the judges. The Napoleonic Code is a purely capitalist law, while the Landrecht is a transitional era codification with both feudal and capitalist elements. The author tries to assess how well they dealt with this issue.