Statute of Kalisz

The Statute of Kalisz is a general charter of rights for the Jews of Poland issued on 8 September 1264 by Boleslaw the Pious, Duke of Greater Poland, at Kalisz. The charter placed Polish Jews under the direct jurisdiction of the duke rather than local authorities, gave Jewish courts exclusive authority over disputes among Jews, set out evidentiary procedures for cases between Jews and Christians, guaranteed freedom of movement and of trade throughout the duchy, and imposed capital punishment on Christians who committed murder, kidnapping or grave robbery against Jews, while also criminalizing the blood libel accusation that a Jew had murdered a Christian child for ritual purposes. Confirmed and extended by later Polish rulers, including Casimir the Great in 1334, Casimir IV in 1453 and Sigismund I in 1539, the statute offered protections markedly more favorable than those Jewish communities faced elsewhere in medieval Europe, where expulsions followed in England in 1290, France in 1306 and Spain in 1492. The Statute of Kalisz is widely regarded as the legal foundation that allowed Poland to become the demographic and cultural center of European Jewish life for the centuries that followed.