Systematyka źródeł prawa bartnego przedrozbiorowej Rzeczypospolitej
A Survey of Sources of Honey Hunting Law in Poland Prior to 1795

Summary/Abstract: The laws and regulations concerning honey hunters in Poland prior to 1795 were of two kinds, customary and statutory. They regulated the relations between honey hunters and their superiors as well as between honey hunters themselves. Those legal norms not only provided protection to the honey hunters’ rights and possessions, but also regulated various aspects of their professional activities. This article attempts to compile and to produce a comprehensive survey of the sources (fontes iuris oriundi) of the Polish honey hunting law. For that purpose it a distinction needs to be made between honey hunting law sensu largo and sensu stricto. The former category encompasses all of the laws concerning honey hunters, whereas the latter refers to regulatory laws of honey hunters’ communities. The earliest legal rules concerning honey harvesting are of medieval origin. For instance, customary norms concerning bee theft and the ownership of bee swarms can be found in Księga Elbląska (The Book of Elbląg, the oldest extant code of Polish customary law, dating back to 13th–14th century) and in the 14th-century Statutes of Casimir the Great (which, among others, sets down a penalty for destroying trees with beehives). The presence of such provisions indicates the prevalence of honey harvesting in medieval Poland. Indeed, the more important role honey hunting played in the economy of a region, the more numerous and more detailed were the regulations connected with that activity (e.g. Masovia and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania). Honey hunting law sensu largo was made by monarchs, the Sejm, local assemblies (sejmiks) as well as by individual landlords. As the economic importance of honey harvesting declined in the early modern age, it was rarely the object of general legislation. The occupation, it seems, needed no further regulation beyond local laws (sensu stricto), i.e. honey hunting laws of local communities in royal, ecclesiastical or noblemen’s domains. These communities observed their old customary laws (some of which was written down in the course of time) as well as the rules laid down by their landlords or, occasionally, by the community itself. The honey hunting law was part of domanial law, and distinct from rural law. This distinction is reflected in the separate status of the honey hunters who were not members of the village community (gromada), even though they were, like other villeins (peasants), the bondsmen of the lord of the manor. The honey hunting law was a foundation of their self-governance.

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