Robert Kołodziej. The phenomenon of “the Limita” in Dietines of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania during the Reign of Jan III Sobieski

In the time of Jan III Sobieski, the role of the dietines (sejmiki) can be seen to increase. Dietines took over the powers in tax matters and for this reason, the nobility had to meet more often than before. Organizing all complex tax issues was complicated and took a long time. It was rarely possible to arrange everything in a single meeting and the nobility had to postpone many of them for a later. However, without a royal document (uniwersał), the nobility couldn’t organize a new dietine. It was often tough to obtain an uniwersał and for this reason, the nobility tried to deliberate without this document. In this way the phenomenon “a limita” had arisen, when the nobility postponed a dietine for a few weeks or months, and they met without a new uniwersał. “The limita” was widely used in the crown part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, this article shows how popular such a solution was in Lithuania. Although much fewer sources have survived for the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, it can be seen that “the limita” was present at numerous dietines. This proves that the changes in the functioning of the dietines in Poland and Lithuania were similar.