Abstract
The Warsaw Confederation 1573 The Warsaw Confederation was enacted by the Polish-Lithuanian Parliament (Sejm) on 28 January 1573. It was not preceded by war or other armed conflict. Yet it helped to maintain peace during the constitutional crisis in the Polish-Lithuanian Kingdom after the death of King Sigismund II Augustus (7 July 1572). For the next royal election was overshadowed by conflicts within the Polish-Lithuanian nobility. Disputes about political and legal privileges had begun in the early sixteenth century and these were intensified by the various religious positions within the nobility that emerged following the Reformation. In the Warsaw Confederation, the nobility agreed not to wage war against each other on account of their religious differences and outlawed the use of violence in matters of faith. From then on, the Warsaw Confederation prevented religious conflicts in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth from causing loss of life. It made confessional plurality possible by strengthening pre-confessional institutions.
