Aleksander Mickiewicz and the views he adopted in the dispute over the role of Roman law in the old time Poland (early 19th century)

Bibliogr. w przypisach. Streszcz. w jęz. ang. s. 25. Strona wydawcy: https://www.wuj.pl

The discussion upon the origin of Polish law and the impact that foreign law had on the Polish legal culture was provoked by Tadeusz Czacki, in the early 19th century. Affected by the German scholars, and particularly by A. L. Schlözer, Tadeusz Czacki shared the view that Polish law had Norman origin. This concept was called to question by Jan Wincenty Bandtkie who, in his turn, considered Roman law to be an essential component that was formative of the law of Poland. While claiming this, Bandtkie adopted a view shared by Arthur Duck, 17th century English lawyer. The controversy on the roots of Polish law gave rise to a growing interest. As a result, in 1822 the University of Warsaw and the University of Vilna, while acting independently of each other, encouraged the students to go in for a competition for a dissertation that would discuss the role of Roman law in the old-time Poland. The Warsaw competition, however, fell short of the organisers’ expectations. In Vilna the situation was different. There were as many as eight interesting papers that were produced by the students, two of them deserving particular attention: the one written by Franciszek Morze and the other produced by Aleksander Mickiewicz, famous poet’s brother, who later became professor of Roman law in the Krzemieniec secondary school and in the University of Kharkov. The first prize was awarded to Aleksander Mickiewicz who, in his paper, managed to point to numerous examples of the impact that the Roman law had upon the Polish law. On the other hand, he arrived at a fairly suprising conclusion in his discussion. He argued that the significance of the Roman law in Poland in the discussed period was but small. The two papers were referred to by the next researchers. Some of them, like Rafal Taubenschlag, tended to argue that it was possible to speak of the reception of Roman law in Poland. Others, like Stanislaw Kutrzeba and Adam Vetulani, considered the influence of Roman law on the Polish legal system to be formal and deprived of substantial significance. The discussion on this point declined in the 1950s. At present no one calls the role of Roman law in question although, on the other hand, it is believed to be erroneous to attribute to Roman law that significance that at one time Rafal Taubenschlag had attributed to it.