Warsaw Confederation
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The Warsaw Confederation, also called the Compact of Warsaw, was a political-legal act concluded in Warsaw by the first Convocation Sejm of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and formally promulgated
Original act of the Warsaw Confederation, signed on 28 January 1573, by just over 200 members of the legislature, each with their wax seal.
Exhibition commemorating the 450th anniversary of the Warsaw Confederation in the Sejm (parliament) building, Warsaw, 2023. The parchment manuscript with attached wax seals is displayed in the centre glass display unit.
Portrait of Sigismund II Augustus, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, and from 1569 the first ruler of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. During his reign from 1548 to 1572, religious freedom was a royal decree.
Pacta conventa (Poland)
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Pacta conventa was a contractual agreement entered into between the "Polish nation" and a newly elected king upon his "free election" to the throne from 1573 to 1764. It declared policies the King wou
Warsaw Confederation
…the statutes that every newly elected king had to swear to uphold (the "Henrician Articles"), thus becoming constitutional provisions alongside the Pacta conventa, also instituted in 1573. Despite some generalities, the Warsaw Confederation provided a legal foundation for Polish Protestantism and was the first…
The first pacta conventa, signed by King Henry of Poland, 1573