Constitutional development of Czech Kingdom in 1619-1627

Ústavní vývoj Českého království počátku 17. století byl předznamenán střetem dvou státoprávních koncepcí, a to stavovsko-evangelické a panovnicko-katolické, který probíhal ve středoevropském prostoru už téměř celé jedno století. Vrchol tohoto nábožensko-politického konfliktu stál na samém počátku nejničivějšího válečného běsnění, jaké do té doby Evropa poznala. Obě tyto koncepce se zásadně promítly do významných ústavněprávních kodifikací tohoto období, a to do České konfederace z roku 1619 a Obnoveného zřízení zemského z roku 1627. Právě těmito kodifikacemi a obdobím, které těmto zemským zřízením předcházelo, jsem se z hlediska ústavněprávního vývoje zabýval ve své diplomové práci.Katedra právních dějinObhájenoAfter the installation of Ferdinand II. as Czech King on the Czech Land Assembly in June 1617, Czech Kingdom found itself at a turning point of its history. The conflict between estate-evangelic and monarch-catholic conception which had been going on in the Central European Region for more than one century was heading towards its climax, and the Czech lands were standing at the very beginning of the longest and most destructive war in the European history. Rebellion of Czech Estates after the Prague Defenestration in May 1618 created space for the estate-evangelic conception which was constitutionally represented by the Czech Confederation of 1619. The Confederation paper, accepted at the Prague General Assembly in July 1619, was the first Constitution for the entire history of the Czech Crown. It was an Evangelic constitution, and as such preferred the evangelic creed and only the Evangelists were allowed to hold named state offices. The Constitution also codified the right of the Estates to oppose the underserving monarch and thus followed the teachings of the monarchomachs. The defeat of the Estates army at the Battle of Bílá hora in November 1620 marked the end of the Bohemian Estates revolt and the Czech Confederation. The conception of the Estates state was substituted by an unlimited power of an absolutistic ruler represented by the Habsburg monarch-catholic conception which was finally established by the Renewed Constitution in 1627. According to the new constitution the Czech Crown was inherited in the house of Habsburg, Rudolf?s Letter of Majesty was abrogated and all non-Catholic religions were declared illegal. German language was raised to equality with Czech for all state purposes and in fact only a German version of the new constitution appeared in print. The Renewed Constitution brought about a forced establishment of Catholicism and a mass emigration of the Czech political and cultural elite. The commencement of feudal absolutism in the state of the Czech Crown lasted more than two hundred years until the revolution times in 1848. Constitutional development of Czech Kingdom at the beginning of 17th century, which is represented by these two remarkable constitutions, is important not only for lands of Czech Crown, but also for Central European Region and in its consequences also for Constitutional development in whole Europe