Composition
The Council had 35 – 50 permanent members as of 1529. It consisted of the most prominent representatives of the Lithuanian magnate families, as well as bishops, marshals and treasurers. The ex officio members of the Council were the voivods of Vilnius and Trakai, castellans of Vilnius and Trakai, the Elder of Samogitia, the Grand Hetman of Lithuania and the Grand Chancellor of Lithuania. Since the 16th century, these members comprised a Secret Council which was a de facto core of the Council of Lords, dealing with all crucial state affairs, since the full membership of the Council was rarely convened. A majority of the members were Roman Catholic ethnic Lithuanians; however, the influence of Ruthenian magnates was constantly increasing.
Read more about this topic: Lithuanian Council Of Lords
Famous quotes containing the word composition:
“I live in the angle of a leaden wall, into whose composition was poured a little alloy of bell-metal. Often, in the repose of my mid-day, there reaches my ears a confused tintinnabulum from without. It is the noise of my contemporaries.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Every thing in his composition was little; and he had all the weaknesses of a little mind, without any of the virtues, or even the vices, of a great one.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“At painful times, when composition is impossible and reading is not enough, grammars and dictionaries are excellent for distraction.”
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861)