Egftnjytyk

Szlachta in costumes of the Voivodeships of the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland, Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 17th and 18th century.

Journey of a Polish Lord during the times of King Augustus III of Poland, by Jan Chełmiński, 1880.

Jerzy Franciszek Kulczycki, of Cossack descent, in Turkish attire

Stanisław Poniatowski, nobleman, politician, Grand Treasurer and an important figure in the country during the Age of Enlightenment.

The szlachta ([ˈʂlaxta] ( listen), exonym: Nobility) was a legally privileged noble class in the Kingdom of Poland, and in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. After the Union of Lublin in 1569, the Grand Duchy and its neighbouring Kingdom became a single state, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.

The origins of the szlachta are shrouded in obscurity and mystery and have been the subject of several theories.^[1]:207 Traditionally, its members were landowners, often in the form of "manorial estates" or so-called folwarks. The nobility won substantial and increasing political and legal privileges for itself throughout its entire history until the decline and end of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in the late 18th century. Apart from providing officers for the army, among its chief civic obligations was to elect the monarch, fill advisory and honorary roles at court, e.g., Stolnik - "Master of the King's Pantry" or their assistant, Podstoli and in the state government, e.g. Podskarbi, "Minister to the Treasury". They were to serve as elected representatives in the Sejm - National Parliament and in local Sejmiki assemblies, to appoint officials and oversee judicial and financial governance, including tax-raising, at provincial and local level. Their roles included Voivodeship, Marshall of voivodship, Kasztelan and Starosta.^[2]

The szlachta gained considerable institutional privileges between 1333 and 1370 in the Kingdom of Poland during the reign of King Casimir III the Great.^[1]:211 In 1413, following a series of tentative personal unions between the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland, the existing Lithuanian-Ruthenian nobility formally joined this class.^[1]:211 As the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1569–1795) evolved and expanded in territory, its membership grew to include the leaders of Ducal Prussia and Livonia. During the Partitions of Poland from 1772 to 1795, its members began to lose these legal privileges and social status. From that point until 1918, the legal status of the nobility was essentially dependent upon the policies of the three partitioning powers: the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Prussia, and the Habsburg Monarchy. The legal privileges of the szlachta were abolished in the Second Polish Republic by the March Constitution of 1921.

Although in reality, szlachta members could have greatly unequal status due to wealth and political influence, there were very few official distinctions between the elites and common nobility. Unlike in most other countries, those relatively few hereditary titles that there were in the Kingdom of Poland, were bestowed by foreign monarchs, including personal hereditary titles granted by the Pope, see Feliks Sobański as an example.

History

Etymology

A Polish Count - Kazimierz Skarżyński by Stefan Norblin.

The Polish term szlachta is derived from the Old High German word slahta. In modern German Geschlecht - which originally came from the Proto-Germanic *slagiz, "blow", "strike", and shares the Anglo-Saxon root for "slaughter" or the verb "to slug" - means "breeding" or gender. Like many other Polish words pertaining to nobility, it derives from Germanic words: So for example, the Polish for a "knight" is "rycerz", a cognate of the German "Ritter". The Polish word for "coat of arms"" is herb" from the German "Erbe" or "heritage". The Polish for "birthright", indicating origin, through bloodline, stock or breeding and the idea of "nation" are "ród" and "naród" respectively and are cognates of the Low German/Low Prussian term, "rot/rod", meaning "red" or "root".
17th century Poles assumed that "szlachta" came from the German "schlachten" "to slaughter" or "to butcher", and was therefore related to the German word for battle, "Schlacht". Some early Polish historians thought the term might have derived instead from the name of the legendary proto-Polish chief, Lech, mentioned in Polish and Czech writings.

A few exceptionally wealthy and powerful szlachta members during the 17th and 18th centuries came to be known as "magnates" - "możni": see Magnates of Poland and Lithuania.

So "szlachta" came to designate the hereditary noble class of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which constituted the idea of the nation itself, and ruled without fear or favour.^[3][4][5] In official Latin documents of the old Commonwealth, the hereditary szlachta were referred to as "nobilitas" from the Latin term, and could be compared in legal status to English or British peers of the realm, or to the ancient Roman idea of cives, "citizen".

Today the word szlachta simply translates as "nobility". In its broadest sense, it can also denote some non-hereditary honorary knighthoods and baronial titles granted by other European monarchs, including the Holy See. Occasionally, 19th-century landowners of non-noble descent were referred to as szlachta by courtesy or error, when they owned manorial estates but were not in fact noble by birth. Szlachta also denotes the Ruthenian and Lithuanian nobility from before the old-Commonwealth.

In the past, a misconception sometimes led to the mistranslation of "szlachta" as "gentry" rather than "nobility".^[6][7][8] This mistaken practice began due to the inferior economic status of many szlachta members compared to that of the nobility in other European countries (see also Estates of the Realm regarding wealth and nobility).^[9][10] The szlachta included those rich and powerful enough to be magnates down to the indigent with a noble lineage, but with no land, no castle, no money, no village, and no subject peasants.^[11] At least 60,000 families belonged to the nobility, however, only about 100 were wealthy (less than 0.167%), all the rest were poor (greater than 99.83%).^[12]

Over time, numerically most lesser szlachta became or were poorer than their few rich peers in their social class, and many were worse off than the non-noble gentry. They were called szlachta zagrodowa, that is, "nobility from within the second estate compound", sometimes referred to as drobna szlachta, "petty nobles" or yet, szlachta okoliczna, meaning "local". Particularly impoverished szlachta families were often forced to become tenants of their wealthier peers. They were described as szlachta czynszowa, or "tenant nobles" who paid rent.^[13] In doing so, they nevertheless retained all their constitutional prerogatives, as neither wealth nor lifestyle, such as was achievable by the gentry, but their blood-line and hereditary juridical status that determined Polish nobility.

An individual nobleman was called "szlachcic", while a noblewoman "szlachcianka".

Origins

Mythic origins of Polish social stratification

Union of Lublin (1569). Painting by Jan Matejko, 1869, Castle Museum, Lublin.

The origins of the szlachta, while ancient, have always been considered obscure.^[1]:207 As a result, its members often referred to it as odwieczna (perennial).^[1]:207 Two popular historical theories about its origins have been put forward by its members and early historians and chroniclers. These involve a presumed descent from the ancient Iranian tribes known as Sarmatians or from Japheth, one of Noah's sons - by contrast, the peasantry were said to be the offspring of another son of Noah, Ham — and hence subject to bondage under the Curse of Ham—and the Jews as the offspring of Shem).^[14][15][16] Other fanciful theories included its foundation by Julius Caesar, Alexander the Greator regional leaders who had not mixed their bloodlines with those of 'slaves, prisoners or aliens'.^{[1]:207[1]:208}

Another theory describes the szlachta's derivation from a non-Slavic warrior class, forming a distinct grouping known as the Lechici/Lekhi, within the archaic proto Polish tribal groupings (Indo-European caste systems). In this context is cited the medieval Boreyko coat of arms which contains a symbol that looks like a "swastika". Such an hypothesis would have it that the Polish nobility class was not of Slavonic extraction and was of a different origin than the Slavonic peasants, called kmiecie from the Latin: cmethones whom they ruled.^{[17]:482[18]:42, 64–66[19][17]:482} Some have taken this to be analogous to the German Nazi belief in Arianism which accordingly made the Polish elite the alleged descendants of a Nordic Super race. ^{[20][17]:482[21][22]}

The Szlachta were strongly differentiated from the rural population.^[23][24] In highly stratified Polish society, some noblemen's sense of superiority was said to lead to practices that sometimes approximated to bullying and slavery.^{[1]:233[5][25][26]}Wacław Potocki, Śreniawa, (1621 - 1696), wrote: peasants "by nature" are so "chained to the land and plough," that even an educated peasant would always remain a peasant, because "it is impossible to transform a dog into a lynx."^[27] The Szlachta's concept of being noble was in the ancient Aryan, see the Alans sense - in contrast to the people over whom they ruled.^[17]:482

Legend has it that the szlachta traced their descent from one of three brothers, Rus, Czech and Lech/Lekh. The third of whom allegedly founded the Polish kingdom in about the fifth century.^[17]:482Lechia was the name of Poland in antiquity, hence their own name was Lechites.^[17]:482 A similar counterpart to Szlachta society were the Meerassee of southern India—an aristocracy of equality—settled as conquerors among a separate race.^[17]:484 The early Polish state saw itself in parallel to the Roman Empire.^[28][29][30] The argument was that full rights of citizenship were limited to the szlachta.^[31][32] In ancient antiquity Rome had devoted its attention nearly exclusively to agriculture and stock raising, as subsequently did old Poland.^[33] The szlachta ideal also paralleled that of a Greek polis—a body of citizens, a small merchant class, and a multitude of laborers.^[34][35][36]

Recorded history

Michał Kazimierz Ogiński, diplomat, engineer and musician

In the 16th century, the bishop of Poznań, Wawrzyniec Goślicki (c.1530 - 1607) wrote:

"The kingdome of Polonia doth also consist of the said three sortes, that is, the king, nobility and people. But it is to be noted, that this word people includeth only knights and gentlemen. ... The gentlemen of Polonia doe represent the popular state, for in them consisteth a great part of the government, and they are as a Seminarie from whence Councellors and Kinges are taken."^[37]

The old szlachta may be considered generally as a caste or a military caste, as in Hindu society.^[38][31][9]
In the year 1244, Bolesław, Duke of Masovia, identified the newly arrived knights' clan as being part of a single genealogy:

"I received my good servants, Raciborz and Albert from the land of Greater Poland from the clan called Jelito, with my well-disposed knowledge and the welcome appellation, vocitatio, or war cry, of "Nagody", so I established them in the said land of mine, Masovia, on the military tenure described elsewhere in the charter."

The documentation regarding Raciborz and Albert's tenure is the earliest surviving use of a clan name and "appellation", defining the honourable status of Polish knights. The names of knightly genealogiae only came to be associated with heraldic devices later in the Middle Ages and in the early modern period. The Polish clan name and war cry became ritualized in the ius militare, i.e., the power to command an army. They had been used some time before 1244 to define knightly status. (Górecki 1992, pp. 183–185).

"In Poland, the Radwanice were noted relatively early (1274) as the descendants of Radwan, a knight [more properly a "rycerz" from the German "ritter"] active a few decades earlier. ..."^[39][40]

A Polish aristocrat representing the style of Sarmatism by wearing a kontusz with żupan and holding the rogatywka peaked cap on an 18th century drawing by French-born Jean-Pierre Norblin de La Gourdaine

Around the 14th century, there was little difference between knights and the szlachta in Poland. Members of the szlachta had the personal obligation to defend the country (pospolite ruszenie), thereby becoming the kingdom's most privileged social class. Inclusion in the class was almost exclusively based on inheritance.^[3][41]

Concerning the early Polish tribes, geography contributed to long-standing traditions. The Polish tribes were internalized and organized around a unifying religious cult, governed by the wiec, an assembly of free tribesmen. Later, when safety required power to be consolidated, an elected prince was chosen to govern. The election privilege was usually limited to elites.^[42]

The tribes were ruled by clans (ród) consisting of people related by blood or marriage and in theory descended from a common ancestry^[40], giving the ród/clan a highly developed sense of solidarity. (See gens.) The starosta (or starszyna) had judicial and military power over the ród/clan, although this power was often exercised with an assembly of elders. Strongholds called grόd were built where the religious cult was powerful, where trials were conducted, and where clans gathered in the face of danger. The opole was the territory occupied by a single tribe. (Manteuffel 1982, p. 44) The family unit of a tribe is called the rodzina, while a collection of tribes is a plemię.

The Warrior class

Mieszko I of Poland (c. 935 – 25 May 992) established an elite retinue of knights from within his army, upon which he depended for success in uniting the Lekhitic tribes and to preserve the unity of the state. Mieszko I's successors continued to use such a retinue.

Another class of knights were those who had been granted land by the local ruler or "prince", with the proviso that they served in his army. Prior to the 15th century a Polish nobleman would be referred to as a warrior - "rycerz", roughly equivalent to an English "knight". The main difference being this status was usually hereditary.^[3][41] Collectively such military nobles were the warrior class - called "rycerstwo".^[41] Together with the sons of Poland's wealthier families there were foreign itinerant knights, similar to contemporary mercenaries, who could join the honourable class of warriors and settle on Polish territory. In time they became the "szlachta". This term for Polish nobility came into usage around the 15th century and it was distinct from Mieszko I's and his successors' elite retinues. Gradually more privileges accrued to the warrior class. They were absolved from certain fiscal burdens and other obligations under ducal law, with the result that only those who combined military prowess with noble birth could serve as officials in state administration.

There was an hierarchy within the warrior class itself, based either on descent from past tribal dynasties, or on early endowments made by the Piast dynasty. These warriors of great wealth became known as "Magnates" możni. However, socially they were not granted preferment as they shared a common origin.^[43](Manteuffel 1982, pp. 148–149)

The period of unrest from, A.D., 1138 – A.D., 1314, which included nearly 200 years of feudal fragmentation that had stemmed from Bolesław III's division of Polish territory among his sons, was the genesis of a social structure which saw the economic elevation of the great landowning feudal nobles, both ecclesiastical and lay. It replaced the earlier pre-Christian social structure of Polish tribes united into one Polish nation and ruled by the Piast dynasty from circa 850 A.D.

Some Magnates, descended from earlier tribal dynasties, regarded themselves as contenders for the Piast realms, even though the Piasts had attempted to curtail their independence and they continued to undermine princely authority.^{[1]:75, 76}Gall Anonym's chronicle speaks about the nobility's alarm when the Palatine Sieciech "elevated those of a lower class over those who were nobly born" entrusting them with state offices. (Manteuffel 1982, p. 149)

In Lithuania

Upon the death of King Augustus III in October 1763, nobleman Stanisław Antoni Poniatowski was elected by the nobility and reigned as Stanisław II Augustus.

In Lithuania Propria and in Samogitia prior to the creation of the Kingdom of Lithuania by Mindaugas, nobles were named die beste leuten in sources that were written in German. In Lithuanian, nobles were named ponai. The higher nobility were named kunigai or kunigaikščiai (dukes) — a loanword from Scandinavian konung. They were the established local leaders and warlords. During the development of the state, they gradually became subordinated to higher dukes, and later to the King of Lithuania. Because of Lithuanian expansion into the lands of Ruthenia in the middle of the 14th century, a new term for nobility appeared — bajorai, from Ruthenian бояре. This word is used to this day in Lithuania to refer to nobility in general (including that of foreign countries).

After the Union of Horodło, the Lithuanian nobility acquired equal status with the Polish szlachta, and over time became more and more polonized, although they did preserve their national consciousness, and in most cases recognition of their Lithuanian family roots. In the 16th century, some of the Lithuanian nobility claimed that they were descended from the Romans, and that the Lithuanian language was derived from Latin. This led to a conundrum: Polish nobility claimed its own ancestry from Sarmatian tribes, but Sarmatians were considered enemies of the Romans. Thus, a new Roman-Sarmatian theory was created. Strong cultural ties with Polish nobility led to a new term for Lithuanian nobility appearing in the 16th century — šlėkta, a direct loanword from Polish szlachta. Recently, Lithuanian linguists advocated against the usage of this Polish loanword.^[44]

The process of polonization took place over a lengthy period of time. At first only the highest members of the nobility were involved, although gradually a wider group of the population was affected. The major effects on the lesser Lithuanian nobility took place after various sanctions were imposed by the Russian Empire such as removing Lithuania from the names of the Gubernyas^[45] few years after the November Uprising. After the January Uprising the sanctions went further, and Russian officials announced that "Lithuanians are Russians seduced by Poles and Catholicism" and began to intensify russification, and to ban the printing of books in the Lithuanian language.

In Ruthenia

After the principalities of Halych and Volhynia became integrated with it, Ruthenia's nobility gradually rendered loyalty to the multilingual and cultural Melting pot that was the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Many noble Ruthenian families intermarried with Lithuanians.

The rights of Orthodox nobles were nominally equal to those enjoyed by the Polish and Lithuanian nobility, but they were put under cultural pressure to convert to Catholicism. It was a policy that was greatly eased in 1596 by the Union of Brest. See, for example, the careers of Senator Adam Kisiel and Jerzy Franciszek Kulczycki.

Origins of szlachta surnames

Funerary portrait of John of Ujazd, with Virgin and Child, and Srzeniawa coat of arms - unknown artist. Czchów church, Kraków Voivodeship, Lesser Poland province, 1450.

Polish coats of arms in the Gelre Armorial (compiled before 1396), among them Leliwa coat of arms, Ogończyk coat of arms, Ostoja coat of arms (Ostoja knights' clan), Nałęcz coat of arms.

In antiquity, the nobility used topographic surnames to identify themselves. Almost all the surnames of traceable Polish szlachta can be linked with a patrimony or locality, despite most families becoming scattered far from their original territory. Thus, John of Zamość called himself John Zamoyski, Stephen of Potok called himself Stephen Potocki.^[46] Not until the late 19th century did the surnames of noble families, cognomens and their spelling, became more or less fixed, remaining in that form until today. This was in part due to the imposition of Russian as the official language from the 1860s onwards in the Russian Partition, resulting in many erroneous manuscript transliterations from Latin script into Cyrillic and back again. Prior to the 17th century, family members would simply use christian names (e.g., Jakub, Jan, Mikołaj, etc.) and the name of the coat of arms common to all their clan members.

To explain the formation of a particular Polish nobleman's name, e.g. Jakub Dąbrowski, Radwan coat of arms, the process might be as follows:
In Polish dąb means "oak".^[47]:157Dąbrów means "oak forest" and Dąbrówka means "oak grove". Then, by analogy with German surnames associated with noble provenance using von, the equivalent Polish preposition is, z, which means "from" followed by the name of the patrimony or estate.^[48] In Polish the expressions, z Dąbrówki and Dąbrowski mean the same thing: hailing "from Dąbrówka".^[47]:60 More precisely, z Dąbrówki actually means owner of the estate, Dąbrówka, but not necessarily originating from there. ^[49][40][50] Thus Jakub z Dąbrówki herbu Radwan translates as "Jacob from Dąbrówka, with the Radwan coat of arms". But with the later addition of his cognomen or nickname, Żądło, he would become known as, Jakub z Dąbrówki, Żądło, herbu Radwan - or he could be called just plain, Jakub Żądło.^[51][52][52]

The Polish state paralleled the Roman Empire in that full rights of citizenship were limited to the szlachta.^[31] In Poland, where Latin was widely written and spoken, the szlachta used the Roman naming convention of the tria nomina - praenomen, nomen, and cognomen - to distinguish Polish szlachta from the peasantry and foreigners, hence the possible multiple surnames associated with particular Polish coat of arms.^{[53][28][29][54]}

Example - Jakub: Radwan Żądło-Dąbrowski^[55] (sometimes Jakub: Radwan Dąbrowski-Żądło)

Praenomen

Jakub

Nomen (nomen gentile—name of the gens^[40]/ród or knights' clan):

Radwan^[39]

Cognomen (name of the family branch/sept within the Radwan gens):

For example—Braniecki, Dąbrowski^[56], Czcikowski, Dostojewski, Górski, Nicki, Zebrzydowski, etc.

Agnomen (nickname, Polish wiktionary:przydomek):

Żądło (prior to the 17th century, was a cognomen^[52])

Bartosz Paprocki cites the case of the Rościszewski family who took different surnames from the names of specific patrimonies or estates they owned. The branch of the Rościszewskis that settled in Chrapunia, became the Chrapuński family. The branch of the Rościszewskis that settled in Strykwina, became the Strykwiński family. While the branch of the Rościszewskis that settled in Borków, became known as the Borkowski family. Because all the branches shared a common ancestor and belonged to the same clan, they used the same coat of arms as the original Rościszewski family.^[57]

Each clan had its own coat of arms, out of a limited number of crests. There were very few coats of arms attached to a single family, herbu własnego.^[58] Each coat of arms bore a name, the clan's war cry. In most instances, the coat of arms belonged to many families within the clan.^[59] The Polish szlachta had a different origin and structure in law to the rest of Western Europe's feudal nobility.^[60] The clan system survived until the end of the Second Polish Republic.^[61]

Ennoblement

In the Kingdom of Poland

Karol Stanisław Radziwiłł, the richest noble of his time.

The number of legally granted ennoblements after the 15th century was minimal.

In the Kingdom of Poland and later in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, ennoblement (nobilitacja) may be equated with an individual given legal status as a szlachcic member of the Polish nobility. Initially, this privilege could be granted by the monarch, but from 1641 onward, this right was reserved for the sejm. Most often the individual being ennobled would join an existing noble szlachta clan and assume the undifferentiated coat of arms of that clan.

According to heraldic sources, the total number of legal ennoblements issued between the 14th century and the mid-18th century is estimatedat approximately 800.^[62][63] This is an average of only about two ennoblements per year, or only 0.000,000,14 – 0.000,001 of the historical population. Compare: historical demography of Poland. Charles-Joseph, 7th Prince of Ligne, when trying to obtain Polish noble status, supposedly said in 1784, "It is easier to become a duke in Germany, than to be counted among Polish nobles."^[64][65]

The close of the late 18th century (see below) was a period in which a definite increase^[62][63] in the number of ennoblements can be noted. This can most readily be explained in terms of the ongoing decline and eventual collapse of Commonwealth and the resulting need for soldiers and other military leaders (see: Partitions of Poland, King Stanisław August Poniatowski).

Total number of ennoblements estimation

Count Stanisław Szczęsny Potocki with children, by Johann Baptist von Lampi the Elder.

According to heraldic^[62][63] sources 1,600 is the total estimated number of all legal ennoblements throughout the history of Kingdom of Poland and Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth from the 14th century onward (half of which were performed in the final years of the late 18th century).

Types of ennoblement:

• 
  Adopcja herbowa – The "old way" of ennoblement, popular in the 15th century, connected with adoption into an existing noble clan by a powerful lord, but abolished in the 17th century.


• 
  Skartabelat – Introduced by pacta conventa of the 17th century, this was ennoblement into a sort of "conditional" or "graduated nobility" status. Skartabels could not hold public offices or be members of the Sejm, but after three generations, the descendants of these families would "mature" to full szlachta status.

Similar terms:

• 
  Indygenat – Recognition of foreign noble status. A foreign noble, after indygenat, received all privileges of a Polish szlachcic. In Polish history, 413 foreign noble families were recognized. Prior to the 17th century this was done by the King and Sejm (Polish parliament), after the 17th century it was done only by the Sejm.


• "secret ennoblement" – This was of questionable legal status and was often not recognized by many szlachta. It was typically granted by the elected monarch without the required legal approval of the sejm.

In the Grand Duchy of Lithuania

In the late 14th century, in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Vytautas the Great reformed the Grand Duchy's army: instead of calling all men to arms, he created forces comprising professional warriors—bajorai ("nobles"; see the cognate "boyar"). As there were not enough nobles, Vytautas trained suitable men, relieving them of labor on the land and of other duties; for their military service to the Grand Duke, they were granted land that was worked by hired men (veldams). The newly formed noble families generally took up, as their family names, the Lithuanian pagan given names of their ennobled ancestors; this was the case with the Goštautai, Radvilos, Astikai, Kęsgailos and others. These families were granted their coats of arms under the Union of Horodlo (1413).

In 1506, King Sigismund I the Old confirmed the position of the Lithuanian Council of Lords in state politics and limited entry into the nobility.

Privileges

Specific rights of the szlachta included:

Election of Stanisław August Poniatowski in 1764

1. The right to hold outright ownership of land (Allod) -- not as a fief, conditional upon service to the liege Lord, but absolutely in perpetuity unless sold. The szlachta had a monopoly on land. Peasants did not own land.^[66] See Polish landed gentry (Ziemiaństwo).


2. The right to join in political and military assemblies of the regional nobility.


3. The right to form independent administrative councils for their locality.


4. The right to cast a vote for Polish Kings.


5. The right to travel freely anywhere in the old Commonwealth of the Polish and Lithuanian nobility; or outside it, as foreign policy dictated.


6. The right to demand information from Crown offices.


7. The right to spiritual semi-independence from the clergy.


8. The right to interdict, in suitable ways, the passage of foreigners and townsmen through their territories.


9. The right of priority over the courts of the peasantry.


10. Special rights in Polish courts—including freedom from arbitrary arrest and freedom from corporal punishment.


11. The right to sell their military or administrative services.


12. Heraldic rights.


13. The right to receive higher pay when entitled in the "Levée en masse" (mobilization of the szlachta for defence of the nation).


14. Educational rights


15. The right of importing duty-free goods often.


16. The exclusive right to enter the clergy until the time of the three partitions of Poland.


17. The right to try their peasants for major offences (reduced to minor offences only, after the 1760s).^[67]
    

Franciszek Salezy Potocki, wearing the Order of the White Eagle.

Samuel Zborowski on his way to his execution, 26 May 1584. Sketch by Jan Matejko, 1860

Significant legislative changes in the status of the szlachta, as defined by Robert Bideleux and Ian Jeffries, consist of its 1374 exemption from the land tax, a 1425 guarantee against the 'arbitrary arrests and/or seizure of property' of its members, a 1454 requirement that military forces and new taxes be approved by provincial Sejms, and statutes issued between 1496 and 1611 that prescribed the rights of commoners.^[68]

Nobles were born into a noble family, adopted by a noble family (this was abolished in 1633) or ennobled by a king or Sejm for various reasons (bravery in combat, service to the state, etc.—yet this was the rarest means of gaining noble status). Many nobles were, in actuality, really usurpers, being commoners, who moved into another part of the country and falsely pretended to noble status. Hundreds of such false nobles were denounced by Hieronim Nekanda Trepka in his Liber generationis plebeanorium (or Liber chamorum) in the first half of the 16th century. The law forbade non-nobles from owning nobility-estates and promised the estate to the denouncer. Trepka was an impoverished nobleman who lived a townsman life and collected hundreds of such stories hoping to take over any of such estates. It does not seem he ever succeeded in proving one at the court. Many sejms issued decrees over the centuries in an attempt to resolve this issue, but with little success. It is unknown what percentage of the Polish nobility came from the 'lower' orders of society, but most historians agree that nobles of such base origins formed a 'significant' element of the szlachta.

The Polish nobility enjoyed many rights that were not available to the noble classes of other countries and, typically, each new monarch conceded them further privileges. Those privileges became the basis of the Golden Liberty in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Despite having a king, Poland was called the nobility's Commonwealth because the king was elected by all interested members of hereditary nobility and Poland was considered to be the property of this class, not of the king or the ruling dynasty. This state of affairs grew up in part because of the extinction of the male-line descendants of the old royal dynasty (first the Piasts, then the Jagiellons), and the selection by the nobility of the Polish king from among the dynasty's female-line descendants.

Poland's successive kings granted privileges to the nobility at the time of their election to the throne (the privileges being specified in the king-elect's Pacta conventa) and at other times in exchange for ad hoc permission to raise an extraordinary tax or a pospolite ruszenie.

Poland's nobility thus accumulated a growing array of privileges and immunities:

In 1355 in Buda King Casimir III the Great issued the first country-wide privilege for the nobility, in exchange for their agreement that in the lack of Casimir's male heirs, the throne would pass to his nephew, Louis I of Hungary. He decreed that the nobility would no longer be subject to 'extraordinary' taxes, or use their own funds for military expeditions abroad. He also promised that during travels of the royal court, the king and the court would pay for all expenses, instead of using facilities of local nobility.

In 1374 King Louis of Hungary approved the Privilege of Koszyce (Polish: "przywilej koszycki" or "ugoda koszycka") in Košice in order to guarantee the Polish throne for his daughter Jadwiga. He broadened the definition of who was a member of the nobility and exempted the entire class from all but one tax (łanowy, which was limited to 2 grosze from łan (an old measure of land size)). In addition, the King's right to raise taxes was abolished; no new taxes could be raised without the agreement of the nobility. Henceforth, also, district offices (Polish: "urzędy ziemskie") were reserved exclusively for local nobility, as the Privilege of Koszyce forbade the king to grant official posts and major Polish castles to foreign knights. Finally, this privilege obliged the King to pay indemnities to nobles injured or taken captive during a war outside Polish borders.

In 1422 King Władysław II Jagiełło by the Privilege of Czerwińsk (Polish: "przywilej czerwiński") established the inviolability of nobles' property (their estates could not be confiscated except upon a court verdict) and ceded some jurisdiction over fiscal policy to the Royal Council (later, the Senat of Poland), including the right to mint coinage.

In 1430 with the Privileges of Jedlnia, confirmed at Kraków in 1433 (Polish: "przywileje jedlneńsko-krakowskie"), based partially on his earlier Brześć Kujawski privilege (April 25, 1425), King Władysław II Jagiełło granted the nobility a guarantee against arbitrary arrest, similar to the English Magna Carta's Habeas corpus, known from its own Latin name as "neminem captivabimus (nisi jure victum)". Henceforth no member of the nobility could be imprisoned without a warrant from a court of justice: the king could neither punish nor imprison any noble at his whim. King Władysław's quid pro quo for this boon was the nobles' guarantee that his throne would be inherited by one of his sons (who would be bound to honour the privileges theretofore granted to the nobility). On May 2, 1447 the same king issued the Wilno Privilege which gave the Lithuanian boyars the same rights as those possessed by the Polish szlachta.

A Polish Nobleman. Rembrandt, 1637

In 1454 King Casimir IV granted the Nieszawa Statutes (Polish: "statuty cerkwicko-nieszawskie"), clarifying the legal basis of voivodship sejmiks (local parliaments). The king could promulgate new laws, raise taxes, or call for a levée en masse (pospolite ruszenie) only with the consent of the sejmiks, and the nobility were protected from judicial abuses. The Nieszawa Statutes also curbed the power of the magnates, as the Sejm (national parliament) received the right to elect many officials, including judges, voivods and castellans. These privileges were demanded by the szlachta as a compensation for their participation in the Thirteen Years' War.

The first "free election" (Polish: "wolna elekcja") of a king took place in 1492. (To be sure, some earlier Polish kings had been elected with help from bodies such as that which put Casimir II on the throne, thereby setting a precedent for free elections.) Only senators voted in the 1492 free election, which was won by John I Albert. For the duration of the Jagiellonian Dynasty, only members of that royal family were considered for election; later, there would be no restrictions on the choice of candidates.

In 1493 the national parliament, the Sejm, began meeting every two years at Piotrków. It comprised two chambers:

• a Senate of 81 bishops and other dignitaries; and


• a Chamber of Envoys of 54 envoys (in Polish, "envoy" is "poseł") representing their respective Lands.

The numbers of senators and envoys later increased.

On April 26, 1496 King John I Albert granted the Privilege of Piotrków (Polish: "Przywilej piotrkowski", "konstytucja piotrkowska" or "statuty piotrkowskie"), increasing the nobility's feudal power over serfs. It bound the peasant to the land, as only one son (not the eldest) was permitted to leave the village; townsfolk (Polish: "mieszczaństwo") were prohibited from owning land; and positions in the Church hierarchy could be given only to nobles.

On 23 October 1501, at Mielnik Polish–Lithuanian union was reformed at the Union of Mielnik (Polish: unia mielnicka, unia piotrkowsko-mielnicka). It was there that the tradition of the coronation Sejm (Polish: "Sejm koronacyjny") was founded. Once again the middle nobility (middle in wealth, not in rank) attempted to reduce the power of the magnates with a law that made them impeachable before the Senate for malfeasance. However the Act of Mielno (Polish: Przywilej mielnicki) of 25 October did more to strengthen the magnate dominated Senate of Poland than the lesser nobility. The nobles were given the right to disobey the King or his representatives—in the Latin, "non praestanda oboedientia"—and to form confederations, an armed rebellion against the king or state officers if the nobles thought that the law or their legitimate privileges were being infringed.

The Commonwealth's Power at Its Zenith, Golden Liberty, the Election of 1573. Painting by Jan Matejko.

On 3 May 1505 King Alexander I Jagiellon granted the Act of "Nihil novi nisi commune consensu" (Latin: "I accept nothing new except by common consent"). This forbade the king to pass any new law without the consent of the representatives of the nobility, in Sejm and Senat assembled, and thus greatly strengthened the nobility's political position. Basically, this act transferred legislative power from the king to the Sejm. This date commonly marks the beginning of the First Rzeczpospolita, the period of a szlachta-run "Commonwealth".

In 1520 the Act of Bydgoszcz granted the Sejm the right to convene every four years, with or without the king's permission.

About that time the "executionist movement" (Polish: "egzekucja praw"--"execution of the laws") began to take form. Its members would seek to curb the power of the magnates at the Sejm and to strengthen the power of king and country. In 1562 at the Sejm in Piotrków they would force the magnates to return many leased crown lands to the king, and the king to create a standing army (wojsko kwarciane). One of the most famous members of this movement was Jan Zamoyski. After his death in 1605, the movement lost its political force.

Until the death of Sigismund II Augustus, the last king of the Jagiellonian dynasty, monarchs could be elected from within only the royal family. However, starting from 1573, practically any Polish noble or foreigner of royal blood could become a Polish–Lithuanian monarch. Every newly elected king was supposed to sign two documents—the Pacta conventa ("agreed pacts")—a confirmation of the king's pre-election promises, and Henrican articles (artykuły henrykowskie, named after the first freely elected king, Henry of Valois). The latter document served as a virtual Polish constitution and contained the basic laws of the Commonwealth:

Henry of Valois, first elected monarch of the Commonwealth of Two Nations

• Free election of kings;


• 
  Religious tolerance;


• The Diet to be gathered every two years;


• Foreign policy controlled by the Diet;


• A royal advisory council chosen by the Diet;


• Official posts restricted to Polish and Lithuanian nobles;


• Taxes and monopolies set up by the Diet only;


• Nobles' right to disobey the king should he break any of these laws.

In 1578 king Stefan Batory created the Crown Tribunal in order to reduce the enormous pressure on the Royal Court. This placed much of the monarch's juridical power in the hands of the elected szlachta deputies, further strengthening the nobility class. In 1581 the Crown Tribunal was joined by a counterpart in Lithuania, the Lithuanian Tribunal.

Transformation into aristocracy

Possessions of major magnate families in 16th–17th century.

For many centuries, wealthy and powerful members of the szlachta sought to gain legal privileges over their peers. Few szlachta were wealthy enough to be known as magnates (karmazyni—the "Crimsons", from the crimson colour of their boots). A proper magnate should be able to trace noble ancestors back for many generations and own at least 20 villages or estates. He should also hold a major office in the Commonwealth.

Some historians estimate the number of magnates as 1% of the number of szlachta. Out of approx. one million szlachta, tens of thousands of families, only 200–300 persons could be classed as great magnates with country-wide possessions and influence, and 30–40 of them could be viewed as those with significant impact on Poland's politics.

Magnates often received gifts from monarchs, which significantly increased their wealth. Often, those gifts were only temporary leases, which the magnates never returned (in the 16th century, the anti-magnate opposition among szlachta was known as the ruch egzekucji praw—movement for execution of the laws—which demanded that all such possessions are returned to their proper owner, the king).

One of the most important victories of the magnates was the late 16th century right to create ordynacja's (similar to majorats), which ensured that a family which gained wealth and power could more easily preserve this. Ordynacje's of families of Radziwiłł, Zamoyski, Potocki or Lubomirski often rivalled the estates of the king and were important power bases for the magnates.

Very high offices of the Polish crown were de facto "hereditary" and guarded by the magnateria of Poland, leaving the lower offices below for the "middling" nobility ("the baronage" — see Offices in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth for a sense of the hierarchy). The prestige of lower offices depended on the wealth of the region. The Masovia region of Poland had a long-standing reputation of being rather poor due to the condition of the soil.

The difference between the magnateria and the rest of the szlachta was one of wealth and culture, as both belonged to the same class and occupied the same position in law, with both being members of the same clans. Consequently, power rested from the king by the magnates was acquired by the entirety of the szlachta, which often meant the rest of the szlachta cooperated with the magnates rather than struggled against them.^[43]

The szlachta's loss of influence

The Peasant Uprising of 1846, the largest peasant uprising against szlachta rules on Polish lands in the 19th century.

The notion of the szlachta's sovereignty ended in 1795 with the final Partitions of Poland, and until 1918 their legal status was dependent on the policies of the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Prussia or the Habsburg Monarchy.

In the 1840s Nicholas I reduced 64,000 szlachta to commoner status.^[69] Despite this, 62.8% of all Russia's nobles were Polish szlachta in 1858 and still 46.1% in 1897.^[70]Serfdom was abolished in Russian Poland on February 19, 1864. It was deliberately enacted with the aim of ruining the szlachta. Only in the Russian Partition did peasants pay the market price for land redemption, the average for the rest of the Russian Empire was 34% above the market rates. All land taken from Polish peasants since 1846 was to be returned to them without redemption payments. The ex-serfs could only sell land to other peasants, not szlachta. 90% of the ex-serfs in the empire who actually gained land after 1861 lived in the 8 western provinces. Along with Romania, Polish landless or domestic serfs were the only ones to be given land after serfdom was abolished.^[71] All this was to punish the szlachta's role in the uprisings of 1830 and 1863.
By 1864 80% of szlachta were déclassé (downward social mobility). One quarter of petty nobles were worse off than the average serf. While 48.9% of the land in Russian Poland was in peasant hands, nobles still held onto 46%.^[72] In the Second Polish Republic the privileges of the nobility were lawfully abolished by the March Constitution in 1921 and as such not granted by any future Polish law.

Cultural and international connections

Coat of arms of the Order of Malta

Despite preoccupations with warring, politics and status, the szlachta in Poland, as did people from all social classes, played its part in contributing in fields ranging from literature, art and architecture, philosophy, education, agriculture and the many branches of science, to technology and industry.^[73][74] Perhaps foremost among the cultural determinants of the nobility in Poland were its continuing international connections with the Rome-based Catholic Church. It was from the ranks of the szlachta that were drawn the church's leading Prelates until the 20th century. Other international influences came through the more or less secretive and powerful christian and lay organisations such as the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, focused on hospital and other charitable activity.^[75] The most notable Polish Maltese Knight was the Pozńan commander, Bartłomiej Nowodworski, founder in 1588 of the oldest school in Poland. One alumnus was John III Sobieski.^[76]
In the 18th century, after several false starts, international Freemasonry, wolnomularstwo, from western lodges, became established among the higher échelons of the szlachta, and in spite of membership of some clergy, it was intermittently but strongly opposed by the Catholic Church. After the partitions it became a cover for opposition to the occupying powers.^[77] Also in the 18th century there was a marked development in Patronage of the arts during the reign of Stanisław August Poniatowski, himself a freemason, and with the growth of social awareness, in Philanthropy.

The role of women as purveyors of culture

High-born women in Poland exerted political and cultural influence throughout history in their own country and abroad, as queens, princesses
and the wives or widows of magnates. Their cultural activities came into sharper relief in the 18th century with their hosting of salons in the French manner. They went on to publish as translators and writers and as facilitators of educational and social projects. ^[78]

Barbara Sanguszko, philanthropist, writer and salon hostess at Poddębice. Oil by Marcello Bacciarelli

Notable women members of the szlachta who exerted political and/or cultural influence include:

• Queen Jadwiga


• Bona Sforza


• Anna Jabłonowska


• Elzbieta Lubomirska


• Eleonora Czartoryska


• Izabela Czartoryska


• Barbara Sanguszko


• Tekla Teresa Lubienska


• Klementyna Hoffmanowa


• Anna Nakwaska


• Eliza Orzeszkowa


• Emilia Plater


• Cecylia Plater-Zyberk


• Anna Bilińska-Bohdanowicz


• Karolina Lanckorońska

Demographics and stratification

The szlachta differed in many respects from the nobility in other countries. The most important difference was that, while in most European countries the nobility lost power as the ruler strove for absolute monarchy, in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth a reverse process occurred: the nobility actually gained power at the expense of the king, and enabled the political system to evolve into an oligarchy.

Prince Konstanty Ostrogski in a Ruthenian outfit (Sarmatism)

Szlachta members were also proportionately more numerous than their equivalents in all other European countries, constituting 6–12% of the entire population.^[79][a] By contrast, nobles in other European countries, except for Spain, amounted to a mere 1–3%. Most of the szlachta were "minor nobles" or smallholders. In Lithuania the minor nobility made up to 3/4 of the total szlachta population.^{[page needed][80]} By the mid-16th century the szlachta class consisted of at least 500,000 persons (some 25,000 families) and was possibly a million strong in 1795.^[81][79] The proportion of nobles in the population varied across regions. In the 16th century, the highest proportion of nobles lived in the Płock Voivodeship (24,6%) and in Podlachia (26,7%), while Galicia had numerically the largest szlachta population.^[82] In districts, such as Wizna and Łomża, the szlachta constituted nearly half of the population. Regions with the lowest percentage of nobles were the Kraków Voivodeship with (1,7%), Royal Prussia with (3%) and the Sieradz Voivodeship with 4,6%.^[83] Before the Union of Lublin, inequality among nobles in terms of wealth and power was far greater in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania than in the Polish Kingdom. The further south and east one went, the more the territory was dominated by magnate families and other nobles.^[79] In the Lithuanian and Ruthenian palatinates, poor nobles were more likely to rent smallholdings from magnates than to own land themselves.^[84]

It has been said that the ruling elites were the only socio-political milieu to whom a sense of national consciousness could be attributed. All szlachta members, irrespective of their cultural/ethnic background, were regarded as belonging to a single "political nation" within the Commonwealth. Arguably, a common culture, the Catholic religion and the Polish language were seen as the main unifying factors in the dual state.^[85]. Prior to the Partitions there was said to have been no Polish national identity as such. Only szlachta members, irrespective of their ethnicity or culture of origin, were considered as "Poles".^[86][87][88]

Despite polonization in Lithuania and Ruthenia in the XVII-XVIII centuries, a large part of the lower szlachta managed to retain their cultural identity in various ways.^{[page needed][89][90][91][92]} Due to poverty most of the local szlachta had never had access to formal education nor to Polish language teaching and hence could not be expected to self-identify as Poles.^[80][93] It was common even for wealthy and in practice polonised szlachta members still to refer to themselves as Lithuanian, Litwin or Ruthenian, Rusyn.^[94]

Although born a Lithuanian and a Lithuanian I shall die, I must use the Polish idiom in my homeland.

— Janusz Radziwiłł, in letter to his brother Krzysztof^[95]

According to Polish estimates from the 1930s, 300,000 members of the common nobles -szlachta zagrodowa - inhabited the subcarpathian region of the Second Polish Republic out of 800,000 in the whole country. 90% of them were Ukrainian-speaking and 80% were Ukrainian Greek Catholics.^[82] In other parts of the Ukraine with a significant szlachta population, such as the Bar or the Ovruch regions, the situation was similar despite russification and earlier polonization.^[96][97][98] As an example:

... The first official records of the Chopovsky family, as clan members of the Korwin coat of arms, date back to mid-XVII century. As the Chopovsky family multiplied, by 1861 they were already 3063 souls of both sexes. They were considered szlachta members, but neither their way of life nor their clothing distinguished them from the neighbouring peasants, except that they were more prosperous and possessed more of their own land [...]. When Uniates began joining the Orthodox church in 1839 - The Russian government liquidated the Uniate church after the Polotsk Convocation - 43 souls of both sexes switched to the Roman faith, while the rest of the Chopovsky (86%) returned to Orthodoxy. The Heraldic Office of the Russian Senate declined to certify the Chopovsky family's noble status, but the land remained theirs. The exception were the Prokopenko-Chopovsky branch of the family who were received into the Russian nobility in 1858,^[99]

However the era of sovereign rule by the szlachta ended earlier than in other countries, excluding France, in 1795 (see Partitions of Poland). Since then their legitimacy and fate depended on the legislation and policies of the Russian Empire, Kingdom of Prussia and Habsburg Monarchy. Their privileges became increasingly limited, and were ultimately dissolved by the March Constitution of Poland in 1921.

Blue Marquise. Portrait of Elżbieta Izabela Czartoryska. Painted by Marcello Bacciarelli.

Polish Nobleman with a Parrot, by Józef Simmler.

There were a number of avenues to upward social mobility and the attainment of nobility. The szlachta was not rigidly exclusive or closed as a class, but according to heraldic sources, the total number of legal ennoblements issued between the 14th and mid-18th century, is estimated at approximately 800.^[62][63] This is an average of about two ennoblements per year, or 0.000,000,14 – 0.000,001 of the historical population.

According to two English journalists Richard Holt Hutton and Walter Bagehot writing on the subject in 1864, "The condition of the country at the present day shows that the population consisted of two different peoples, between whom there was an impassable barrier. There is the Sliachta, or caste of nobles (the descendants of Lekh), on the one hand, and the serfs or peasantry, who constitute the bulk of the population, on the other."^[17]:483-484 Quoting Hutton and Bagehot again, "... the Statute of 1633 completed the slavery of the other classes, by proclaiming the principle that 'the air enslaves the man,' in virtue of which every peasant who had lived for a year upon the estate of a noble was held to be his property. Nowhere in history - nowhere in the world - do we ever see a homogeneous nation organise itself in a form like that which has prevailed from the earliest times in Poland. But where there has been an intrusion of a dominant people, or settlers, who have not fused into the original population, there we find an exact counterpart of Polish society: the dominant settlers establishing themselves as an upper caste, all politically equal among themselves, and holding the lands (or, more frequently, simply drawing the rents) of the country."^[17]:483

Sociologist and historian, Jerzy Ryszard Szacki said in this context, "... the Polish nobility was a closed group (apart from a few exceptions, many of which were contrary to the law), in which membership was inherited."^[3] Others assert the szlachta were not a social class, but a caste, among them, historian Adam Zamoyski, "A more apt analogy might perhaps be made with the Rajputs of northern India. ... unlike any other gentry in Europe, the szlachta was not limited by nor did it depend for its status on either wealth, or land, or royal writ. It was defined by its function, that of a warrior caste."^[9][31] Jerzy Szacki continues, " While Świętochowski wrote: ‘If from the deeds of the Polish nobility we took away excesses and the exclusiveness of caste, ...’".^[38] Low-born individuals, including townsfolk mieszczanie, peasants chłopi, but not Jews Żydzi, could and did rise to official ennoblement in Commonwealth society, although Charles-Joseph, 7th Prince of Ligne, while trying to obtain Polish noble status, is supposed to have said in 1784, "It is easier to become a duke in Germany, than to be counted among Polish nobles."^[64][65]. According to heraldic sources 1,600 is the total estimated number of all legal ennoblements throughout the history of Kingdom of Poland and Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth from the 14th century onward, half of which were enacted in the final years of the late 18th century.^[62][63] Hutton and Bagehot, "... for the barrier of exclusion was partly thrown down in the last days of the monarchy ...".^[17]:482 Each szlachcic was said to hold enormous potential influence over the country's politics, far greater than that enjoyed by the citizens of modern democratic countries. Between 1652 and 1791, any nobleman could potentially nullify all the proceedings of a given sejm or sejmik by exercising his individual right of liberum veto (Latin for "I do not allow"), except in the case of a confederated sejm or confederated sejmik.

In old Poland, a nobleman could only marry a noblewoman, as intermarriage between "castes" could be fraught with difficulties.^[100][101] (wiktionary:endogamy); but, children of a legitimate marriage followed the condition of the father, never the mother, therefore, only the father transmitted his nobility to his children^[102][103]. (See patrilineality.) Later, as marriages of a nobleman to a commoner became more frequent, children inherited nobility from their noble parent. Although a noble woman married to a commoner could not transmit nobility to her husband and to all their children. Any individual could attain ennoblement (nobilitacja) for special services to the state. A foreign noble might be naturalized as a Polish noble through the mechanism called the Indygenat, certified by the king. Later, from 1641, it could only be done by a general sejm. By the eighteenth century all these trends contributed to the great increase in the proportion of szlachta in the total population.

In theory all szlachta members were social equals and were formally legal peers. Those who held civic appointments were more privileged but their roles were not hereditary. Those who held honorary appointments were superior in the hierarchy but these positions were only granted for a lifetime. Some tenancies became hereditary and went with both privilege and title. Nobles who were not direct Lessees of the Crown but held land from other lords were only peers "de iure". The poorest enjoyed the same rights as the wealthiest magnate. The exceptions were a few symbolically privileged families such as the Radziwiłł, Lubomirski and Czartoryski, who held honorary aristocratic titles bestowed by foreign courts and recognised in Poland which granted them use of titles such as "Prince" or "Count", (see also The Princely Houses of Poland). All other szlachta simply addressed each other by their given name or as "Brother, Sir" Panie bracie or the feminine equivalent. The other forms of address would be "Illustrious and Magnificent Lord", "Magnificent Lord", "Generous Lord" or "Noble Lord" in descending order, or simply "His/Her Grace Lord/Lady".

Prot Potocki, banker and industrialist who turned Odessa from a sleepy fishing village into an international trade centre

The notion that all Polish nobles were social equals, regardless of their financial status or offices held, is enshrined in a traditional Polish saying:

Szlachcic na zagrodzie
równy wojewodzie.

—which may roughly be rendered:

The noble on the croft

Is the voivode's equal.

or "the noble tenant farmer stands equal to the noble army commander".

According to their wealth, the nobility were divided into:

• 
  magnates: the wealthiest class; owners of vast lands, towns, many villages, thousands of peasants


• middle nobility średnia szlachta, owners of one or more villages, often having some official titles or Envoys from the local Land Assemblies to the General Assembly,

Artist, Jacques Hnizdovsky, Korab coat of arms, as a child in Galician lesser nobility costume

• 
  petty nobility drobna szlachta, owners of part of a village or owning no land at all, often referred to by a variety of colourful Polish terms such as:
  
  
  
  • 
    szaraczkowa – grey nobility, from their grey, woollen, undyed żupans
    
  
  
  • 
    okoliczna – local nobility, similar to zaściankowa
    
  
  
  • 
    zagrodowa – from zagroda, a farm, often little different from a peasant's dwelling
  
  
  • 
    zagonowa – from zagon, a small unit of land measure, hide nobility
    
  
  
  • 
    cząstkowa – partial, owners of only part of a single village
  
  
  • 
    panek – little pan (i.e., lordling), term used in Kaszuby, the Kashubian region, also one of the legal terms for legally separated lower nobility in late medieval and early modern Poland
  
  
  • 
    hreczkosiej – buckwheat sowers – those who had to work their fields themselves.
  
  
  • 
    zaściankowa – from zaścianek, a name for plural nobility settlement, neighbourhood nobility. Just like hreczkosiej, zaściankowa nobility would have no peasants.
  
  
  • 
    brukowa – cobble nobility, for those living in towns like townsfolk
  
  
  • 
    gołota – naked nobility, i.e., the landless. Gołota szlachta would be considered the 'lowest of the high'.
  
  
  • 
    półpanek ("half-lord"); also podpanek/pidpanek ("sub-lord") in Podolia and Ukrainian accent^[104] – a petty szlachcic pretending to be wealthy.
  
  
  
  

Polish landed gentry - ziemianie or ziemiaństwo - meant any nobleman who owned land, including magnates, the lesser nobility and those who owned at least part of the village. Since titular manorial lordships were also open to burgers of certain privileged cities with a royal charter, not all landed gentry had hereditary title to noble status.

Heraldry

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Coats of arms of families of Poland.

Coats of arms were very important to the szlachta. Its heraldic system evolved together with neighbouring states in Central Europe, while differing in many ways from the heraldry of other European countries. Polish Knighthood had its counterparts, links and roots in Moravia, e.g. Poraj coat of arms and in Germany, e.g. Junosza coat of arms.

Escutcheons and hereditary coats of arms with eminent privileges attached is an honor derived from the ancient Germans. Where Germans did not inhabit, and where German customs were unknown, no such thing existed.^[105] The usage of coats of arms in Poland was brought in by knights who had arrived from Silesia, Lusatia, Meissen, and Bohemia. Migrations from there were the most frequent, and the time period was the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.^[106] However, unlike other European chivalry, coats of arms were associated with Polish knights' clans' (genealogiae) names and war cries (godło), where heraldic devices came to be held in common by entire clans, fighting in regiments^[59][60][61]. (Górecki 1992, pp. 183–185).

Families who had a common origin would also share a coat of arms. They would also share their crest with families adopted into the clan. Sometimes unrelated families would be falsely attributed to a clan on the basis of similarity of crests. Some noble families inaccurately claimed clan membership. The number of coats of arms in this system was comparatively low and did not exceed 200 in the late Middle Ages. There were 40,000 in the late 18th century.

At the Union of Horodło, forty-seven families of Catholic Lithuanian lords and boyars were adopted by Polish szlachta families and allowed to use Polish coats of arms.^[107][108]

Heritability

The tradition of differentiating between a coat of arms and a lozenge granted to women, did not develop in Poland. By the 17th century, invariably, men and women inherited a coat of arms from their father. When mixed marriages developed after the partitions, that is between commoners and members of the nobility, as a courtesy, children could claim a coat of arms from their distaff side, but this was tolerated and could not be passed on into the next generation. The brisure was rarely used. All children would inherit the coat of arms and title of their father. This partly accounts for the relatively large proportion of Polish families who had claim to a coat of arms by the 18th century. Another factor was the arrival of titled foreign settlers, especially from the German lands and the Habsburg Empire.

Illegitimate children could adopt the mother's surname and title by the consent of the mother's father, but would sometimes be adopted and raised by the natural father's family, thereby acquiring the father's surname, though not the title or arms.

Sarmatism

Hetman Jan Zamoyski, representative of Sarmatism.

The szlachta's prevalent mentality and ideology were manifested in Sarmatism, a name derived from a myth of the szlachta's origin in the powerful ancient nation of Sarmatians. This belief system became an important part of szlachta culture and affected all aspects of their lives. It was popularized by poets who exalted traditional village life, peace and pacifism. It was also manifested in oriental-style apparel, the żupan, kontusz, sukmana, pas kontuszowy, delia and made the scimitar-like szabla a near-obligatory item of everyday szlachta apparel. Sarmatism served to integrate the multi-ethnic nobility as it sought to create a nationalistic sense of unity and pride in the szlachta's "Golden Liberty" złota wolność. Knowledge of Latin was widespread, and most szlachta members freely mixed Polish and Latin vocabulary, producing a form of Polish Dog Latin peppered with "macaronisms" in everyday conversation.

Religious adherence

Prior to the Reformation, the Polish nobility were either Roman Catholic or Orthodox with a small group of Muslims. See the Muslim, Haroun Tazieff of princely Tartar extraction.^[109] Many families, however, went on to adopt the Reformed Christian faith. Jan Łaski or Johannes Alasco (1499-1560) was a cleric, whose uncle, the eponymous Jan Łaski (1456-1531) was Grand Chancellor of the Crown, Archbishop of Gniezno and Primate of Poland. His nephew was an early convert to Calvinism and had a hand in implementing (c. 1543–1555) Reformation in England where he is known as John Laski.

After the Counter-Reformation, when the Roman Catholic Church regained power in Poland, the nobility became almost exclusively Catholic. Approximately 40% of the population were Roman Catholic, 36% were Greek Catholic, 4% Orthodox, of whom some were members of the Armenian Apostolic Church and the Georgian Orthodox Church, with the remaining 20% were Jews or members of Protestant denominations. ^[110] In the 18th century, the followers of Jacob Frank were ennobled as a result of their conversion to Roman Catholicism. Although Judaism per se had not been a bar to noble status, in practice there were laws that favoured religious conversion to Christianity by rewarding it with ennoblement (see: Neophyte).^[111]

Gallery

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  Bolesław IV of Warsaw
  

  
  

  
  


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  Piotr Kmita Sobieński
  

  
  

  
  


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  Jadwiga Andegaweńska
  

  
  

  
  


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  Marcin Zborowski
  

  
  

  
  


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  Jerzy Radziwiłł
  

  
  

  
  


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  Anna Jagiellonka
  

  
  

  
  


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  Mikołaj Rej
  

  
  

  
  


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  Hetman Jan Karol Chodkiewicz
  

  
  

  
  


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  Adam Kazanowski
  

  
  

  
  


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  Semen Sulyma
  

  
  

  
  


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  Władysław Dominik Zasławski
  

  
  

  
  


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  Elżbieta Sieniawska
  

  
  

  
  


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  Aleksander Benedykt Sobieski
  

  
  

  
  


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  Stanisław Lubomirski
  

  
  

  
  


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  Michał Kleofas Ogiński
  

  
  

  
  


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  Stanisław Kostka Potocki
  

  
  

  
  


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  Ewelina Rzewuska
  

  
  

  
  


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  Adam Jerzy Czartoryski
  

  
  

  
  


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  Leon Sapieha
  

  
  

  
  


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  Zygmunt Krasiński
  

  
  

  
  


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  Xavier Branicki
  

  
  

  
  


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  Konstanty Kalinowski
  

  
  

  
  


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  Vintsent Dunin-Martsinkyevich
  

  
  

  
  


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  Leon Biliński
  

  
  

  
  


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  Cecylia Plater-Zyberk
  

  
  

  
  


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  Józef Teodorowicz
  

  
  

  
  


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  Urszula Ledóchowska
  

  
  

  
  


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  Jerzy Tumaniszwili
  

  
  

  
  


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  Stefan Tyszkiewicz
  

  
  

  
  


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  Karolina Lanckorońska
  

  
  

  
  


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  Krystyna Skarbek
  

  
  

  
  


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  Haroun Tazieff
  

  
  

  
  

See also

• List of Polish titled nobility


• List of szlachta
  


• Lithuanian nobility


• Polish heraldry


• 
  Polish landed gentry (Ziemiaństwo)


• Polish name


• Ukrainian nobility from Galicia

Notes

References

Bibliography

• 
  Aleksander Brückner, Słownik etymologiczny języka polskiego (Etymological Dictionary of the Polish Language), first edition, Kraków, Krakowska Spółka Wydawnicza, 1927 (9th edition, Warsaw, Wiedza Powszechna, 2000).


• 
  (in English) Górecki, Piotr (1992). Economy, Society, and Lordship in Medieval Poland: 1100-1250. New York, NEW YORK: Holmes and Meier Publishers, Inc. ISBN 0-8419-1318-8. OCLC 25787903.
  

• 
  Manteuffel, Tadeusz (1982), The Formation of the Polish State: The Period of Ducal Rule, 963–1194, Detroit, MICHIGAN, U.S.A.: Wayne State University Press, ISBN 978-0-8143-1682-5.


• Żernicki-Szeliga Emilian v., Der Polnische Adel und die demselben hinzugetretenen andersländischen Adelsfamilien, General-Verzeichnis. Published by Verlag v. Henri Grand. Hamburg 1900. https://ia800507.us.archive.org/26/items/derpolnischeade00szegoog/derpolnischeade00szegoog.pdf (Ger). This is a reasonably modern and comprehensive list of 3000 Polish and settler szlachta families and their crests, sourced from, among others, Niesiecki, Paprocki and Boniecki. 598 pages. Accessed 2018-11-02.

External links

• Descendants of the Great Sejm (genealogies of the most important Polish families)


• The Polish Nobility Association


• Polish Nobility Association Foundation


• Association of the Belarusian Nobility


• Association of Lithuanian Nobility


• The Polish Aristocracy: The Titled Families of Poland by Rafal Heydel-Mankoo


• CONSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENTS 1180-1572: The Inexorable Political Rise of the szlachta
  


• 
  The Polish Nobility by Margaret: Odrowąż-Sypniewska, née Knight


• 
  J. Lyčkoŭski. "Szlachta". (Alphabetical Lists) (in Polish)
  

• Digital Library of Wielkpolska


• 
  Central European Superpower, Henryk Litwin, Business Ukraine Magazine (bunews.com.ua), 2016 (PDF file).


• 
  Winged Hussars, Radoslaw Sikora, Bartosz Musialowicz, Business Ukraine Magazine (bunews.com.ua), 2016 (PDF file).


• Gdzie jest Polska Szlachta? Prawdziwa Elita Rzeczpospolitej (Where is [the] Polish Nobility?)