The document was drawn up by the convocation sejm.^[3] The pacta conventa affirmed the king-elect's pledge to respect the laws of the Commonwealth and specified his undertakings and promises in such realms as foreign policy, taxes, public debt, the military, and so on. They varied from king to king, depending on whatever particular pledges he might have made. An example of the various concrete undertakings found in a king-elect's pacta conventa is King Władysław IV Vasa's pledge to create a Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth Navy for the Baltic Sea.

In addition to his own unique pacta conventa, each king-elect was required to sign the Henrician Articles, a set of privileges named after the first king who signed them, Henry of Poland. Unlike the pacta conventa, the Henrician Articles were constant and unchanging. The distinction between the two documents gradually faded away over successive elections. Together, those two documents spelled out most of the key details of the Commonwealth political system.

See also

• Royal elections in Poland
• Warsaw Confederation

Notes