Golden Liberty (Latin: Aurea Libertas; Polish: Złota Wolność, Lithuanian: Auksinė laisvė), sometimes referred to as Golden Freedoms, Nobles' Democracy or Nobles' Commonwealth (Polish: Rzeczpospolita Szlachecka or Złota wolność szlachecka, Latin: áurea libertas) refers to a unique aristocratic political system in the Kingdom of Poland and later, after the Union of Lublin (1569), in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Under that system, all nobles (szlachta), regardless of economic status, were considered to have equal legal status and enjoyed extensive legal rights and privileges. The nobility controlled the legislature (Sejm — the Polish Parliament) and the Commonwealth's elected king.
Read more about Golden Liberty: Development, Assessment, Similar Systems, Proverb
Famous quotes containing the words golden and/or liberty:
“I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;”
—William Wordsworth (1770–1850)
“To me it seems that liberty and virtue were made for each other. If any man wish to enslave his country, nothing is a fitter preparative than vice; and nothing leads to vice so surely as irreligion.”
—George Berkeley (1685–1753)