This volume presents work from the Polish-Hungarian Conference held in Cracow in 2007, showing the results of collaboration between legal historians from Cracow and Pecs Universities. The essays are concerned with constitutional developments in the Austro-Hungarian empire in the final years of its existence. They analyze the applicability of the concept of the Rechtsstaat as seen through the Austro-Hungarian administration and the judiciary as well as church-state relationships. The volume also raises the question of the liberalism of the Austro-Hungarian regime in terms of emigration as well as the grass-roots initiatives of the Poles in laying the foundations of Polonia restituta. Other topics include the role of the fidei-comissuni in the preservation of cultural legacies in the Hungarian part of the empire and the survival of Hungarian serfdom in Polish areas.