“According to the Age, the Time, and the Activities Choose His Guardians” – Children’s Courts of Selected Magnate Families from the Territory of the Seventeenth-Century Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

Abstract

The article addresses issues related to children’s courts in the seventeenth century. Using preserved sources, it shows – on the example of selected families: Radziwiłł, Zamoyski, and Sobieski – the creation, organisation and functioning of children’s courts. Only a few courts created for the offspring of the wealthiest members of the nobility are well-documented. This raises the question of when to speak of establishing a children’s court, what criteria had to be met to speak of its existence, what functions such courts performed and what their structure was like. In this context, we can distinguish children’s courts by the child’s age, gender (boys’ and girls’ courts), and function (stationary courts of a caring nature, travelling courts associated with educational trips and school trips).