The French Civil Code in the Free City of Cracow 1815-1846

This book is a summary of the extensive research by the co-authors on the validity and application of the 1804 French Civil Code in the Free City of Cracow (1815-1846), the Polish constitutional city-state established at the Congress of Vienna. From the wealth of case-law and legal practice of the Cracovian Republic emerges a picture in which its inhabitants were consciously and consistently building the structure of a modern state. As far as was possible amid the realities of post-feudal society, this state was already based on the rule of law. One of the basic elements of this legal structure was precisely the Napoleonic Code, which established the framework for the private law of the Free City, and made it a very small, but important, part of European legal heritage.

Andrzej Dziadzio, Ph.D. (1994), Jagiellonian University, is Professor at the Law Faculty of that university, specialising in the constitutional and legal history of the Habsburg monarchy and Poland in the 18th and 19th century.

Mateusz Mataniak, Ph.D. (2014), Jagiellonian University, is Senior Researcher at the Law Faculty of that university, specialising in the constitutional and legal history of the Free City of Cracow and the judiciary in Poland.

Piotr Michalik, Ph.D. (2010), Jagiellonian University, is Senior Lecturer at the Law Faculty of that university and an attorney. He specialises in the constitutional and legal history of the Free City of Cracow and modern England.