Law regulations during Polish and Lithuanian diplomatic missions in the first half of the 17th century - legatlon military articles

The article presents the methods to introduce and maintain order during diplomatic missions, when envoys with their companions, servants, merchants, and soldiers travelled to capitals of foreign countries. To keep discipline in their retinues, envoys introduced special legal regulations to be valid outside the territory of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. These regulations we cali 'legation military articles' and they were composed of three elements: l) Universal proclamation appointing judges. 2) Proclamation of one of the existing in the Commonwealth version of military articles. 3) Issuing of an act supplementary to war laws - 'Articles for ruling at Honourable Envoys'. Detailed legal regulations are known from the missions of Aleksander Piaseczyński, Kazimierz Leon Sapieha and Piotr Kazimierz Wiazewicz, who in 1635 went as Polish envoys to Moscow to forrnally validate a peace settlement.k.lopatecki@uwb.edu.plUniwersytet w Białymstoku202597