It is known that the Polish state in the XVI-XVII centuries was often called the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. True, at first this definition was used as a synonym for the state, but over time, calling Poland the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, they emphasized the fact that the state, along with the king, is governed by the gentry through its own body - the sejm. There were few similar states in Europe at that time, so the Polish state system aroused interest among political writers of that time. The royal title had a long tradition going back to the 11th century, the institution of the Sejm appeared much later, most likely in the 15th century, and only the famous constitution "Nihil novi" of 1505 created a solid foundation for this representative body of the ruling Polish gentry class. Both of these bodies of state power, especially the fact of their coexistence, have long attracted the interest of both political writers and historians, both former and modern, both Polish and foreign. At the end of the 19th century, Polish historians quite often negatively assessed both the royal power, which they defined as weak, and the activities of the Sejm, accusing it of poor organization and low efficiency. Similar assessments are still found among foreign historians who write about the state system of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The purpose of this article is to carefully consider these two state institutions and make a sober, objective assessment of them. Speaking about the royal power, it should be emphasized that different assessments have long been expressed about it. Thus, Prince L. Gonzaga de Nevers, who wrote in the 16th century, drew particular attention to the fact that the royal power in Poland is strongly limited to the estates. The famous French political writer J. Baudin believed that the oath that the king should take in Poland " cancels, strictly speaking, the power of the king and gives him the role of the first official of the Polish-Lithuanian Co ... Читать далее