The Coronation Parliament of John III Sobieski in French-Language Reports Sent to London.

Abstract

The coronation parliament in the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was always an exceptional event not only for the newly elected monarch but also for diplomats from foreign courts who reported about its proceedings. In their reports, they tried to provide as much information as possible, not only political but also moral, social, and related to the ceremony. Of course, such material needs careful analysis, as the diplomats, often unfamiliar with the reality of the Polish-Lithuanian state, misrepresented the facts or presented them in a wrong context. The analysed manuscript accounts from the coronation parliament of John III Sobieski probably played the role of an additional source of information in London. In addition to the official reports of diplomats, they broadened the recipients’ knowledge about the described event, generally informing the reader about events during the parliamentary sessions, but not only that. The information about events in Russia and Turkey as well as about matters of minor importance was also included in these documents. Despite doubts about objectivity of some of the analysed papers, they should be considered an important source of information about the coronation parliament in 1676. They supplemented the official documents, and their congruence with diplomatic reports may have allowed for deepening of the reader's knowledge about the described events.