Książka polityczno-prawna w rękach siedemnastowiecznej szlachty koronnej

Abstract

The article focuses on selected aspects of the reception of political and legal books in the 18th century Poland, with chronological limits of the years 1587-1732, and geographical ones - the borders of Poland. The author attempts to define attitudes of either specific classes or the nobility as a whole towards political and legal literature. The research is based on comparative analysis of the quantitative and subject structure of published inventories of noble book collections in Poland, and publishing repertoires of local printing houses regarding political and legal literature. The analysis proves that the Old Polish political literature, despite its subject differentiation, had mostly utilitarian character. It was written for the "noble masses", but it did not answer the reading needs of the elites completely.