General Sejm - Location

Location

• Old Chamber of Deputies at the Royal Castle, Warsaw, 16th century

• New Chamber of Deputies at the Royal Castle, Warsaw, late 17th century

• Seating arrangement in the Senate Chamber at the Royal Castle, Warsaw, during a regular sejm; and that chamber during the 1732 Convocation Sejm

• Plan of the elective camp of Polish kings in Wola near Warsaw

Until the Union of Lublin (1569), sejms were held in Piotrków Trybunalski Castle, located in Piotrków, a town chosen for its proximity to the two major provinces of Poland, Greater Poland and Lesser Poland. From 1493, other locations would also host the sejms, most prominently Kraków, where 29 sessions were held. Other locations included Brest (1653), Bydgoszcz (1520), Jędrzejów (1576), Kamień (1573), Koło (1577), Korczyn (1511), Lublin (1506, 1554, 1566, 1569), Poznań (1513), Sandomierz (1500, 1519), Toruń (1519, 1577), and Warsaw (1556, 1563, and numerous times after 1568).

After the Union, majority of the sejms where held at the Warsaw's Royal Castle. A few were held elsewhere, particularly in the first years of the Commonwealth (see preceding list), and from 1673, every third sejm was to take place at Grodno in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (first hosted in the Old Hrodna Castle, later in the New Hrodna Castle). In practice, most of the sejms were still held in Warsaw, which hosted 148 sejms, compared to 11 sejms hosted in Grodno.

Sejms in Kraków were held in the Wawel Castle, within the Hall of the Deputies (Hall under the Heads) and the Senate Chamber. The sejms in Warsaw were held in the Warsaw Castle, within the Chamber of Deputies (Hall of Three Pillars), with the upper Senate Chamber located literally above it. In the late 17th century, new quarters were constructed for the Chamber of Deputies, and were joined on the same level by the senate quarters in the mid-18th century. The new Senate Chamber was the larger of the two, as it was intended to host both chambers during the opening and closing ceremonies.