The Statute of Kalisz, guaranteeing Jews safety and personal liberties and giving battei din jurisdiction over Jewish matters, is promulgated by Bolesław the Pious, Duke of Greater Poland.
A beth din (Hebrew: , romanized: Bet Din, lit.'house of judgment', [bet din], Ashkenazic: beis din, plural: batei din) is a rabbinical court of Judaism. In ancient times, it was the building block of the legal system in the Biblical Land of Israel. Today, it is invested with legal powers in a number of religious matters (din Torah, "matter of litigation", plural dinei Torah) both in Israel and in Jewish communities in the Diaspora, where its judgments hold varying degrees of authority (depending upon the jurisdiction and subject matter) in matters specifically related to Jewish religious life.
The General Charter of Jewish Liberties known as the Statute of Kalisz, and the Kalisz Privilege, granted Jews in the Middle Ages special protection and positive discrimination in Poland when they were being persecuted in Western Europe. These rights included exclusive jurisdiction over Jewish matters to Jewish courts, and established a separate tribunal for other criminal matters involving Christians and Jews designed to favour Jewish people. It led to the formation of a Jewish 'state within a state', which attracted Jewish immigrants from across Europe to Poland, which became the center of the world's Jewish community for centuries.
The statute was issued by the Duke of Greater Poland Bolesław the Pious on September 8, 1264 in Kalisz. It was then ratified by subsequent Polish Kings: Casimir III in 1334, Casimir IV in 1453, and Sigismund I in 1539. Jews in Poland were freemen rather than serfs, and so further enjoyed the country's religious toleration codified by the Warsaw Confederation of 1573. The Polish aristocracy developed a unique social contract with Jews, who operated as arendators running businesses such as mills and breweries, and certain bureaucratic tasks to the exclusion of non-Jews, especially tax collection. After Poland expanded into Eastern Orthodox Ukraine, the introduction of the system was a partial cause of the Cossacks' anti-Semitic and anti-Catholic Khmelnytsky Uprising of 1648.