PRZESTĘPSTWO NAJŚCIA NA DOM (INVASIO DOMUS) W NOWOŻYTNYM POLSKIM PRAWIE ZIEMSKIM
THE CRIME OF HOME INVASION (INVASIO DOMUS) IN EARLY MODERN POLISH LAND LAW

Summary/Abstract: Home invasion (invasio domus) was a criminal offence under Polish land law. The aim of this article is to characterise this crime on the basis of normative sources, old legal literature, and court practice. The text also constitutes an experiment in the field of researching Old Polish criminal law, based on the use of a scheme of the characteristics (objective and subjective) of a prohibited act. The most important normative sources, individual objective characteristics (breaking into a house, use of violence, bloodshed in the house), and subjective characteristics (intent), as well as the issue of legal rights, punishment, and selected procedural issues, are presented. In conclusion, it was stated that breaking and entering constitutes a unique case of crime in land law, extensively regulated in statutory law. The interpretation of the provisions was influenced by other legal systems, but it was not possible to determine whether the sources of Mazovian or Lithuanian law or perhaps Roman jurisprudence were decisive. It was also found that in Old Polish legal practice, individual elements of the description of a crime were used in the same way as the characteristics of a prohibited act are used today.

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