Position and significance of the Sanguszkowicz princes between 1500 and 1569 in the light of the official titular policy

The following article is an attempt to determine the official position and political significance of the Sanguszkowicz princes of the grand duchy of lithuania before the emergence of the union of lublin (1569). So far, this issue has not been sufficiently studied, so it is not clear whether the Sanguszkowicz family belonged to the lithuanian high nobility (magnateria) of this time, or not. To determine this, i used the method involving the analysis of the official titular policy. Based on nearly 500 records showing the official titles that the princes used, i collected reliable source material, which i presented in the form of a table. The analysis of this table shows that the Sanguszkowicz princes had a high status defined as panowie rada - it means that they held the high-ranking offices that provided a permanent seat on the council of the grand duke. These were the most important offices of volhynia, one of the provinces of lithuania, where the princes had their main estates. Therefore, the Sanguszkowicz family belonged to the local clerical elite, playing an important role in the matters concerning the whole country. However, the princes failed to join the ranks of the most powerful noble families that were the power elite in the grand duchy of lithuania. as the analysis shows, the Sanguszkowicz princes did not meet the criterion of belonging to the highest political elite - they did not hold the ministerial offices and did not have enough large estates