The Rise of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth: Noble Democracy

Poland peopled initially by the “Polanie”—Slavic tribe

First Polish dynasty—Piasts.  

965 King Mieszko adopts Christianity with Poland as separate province of the Catholic Church.

Piast dynasty ends 1370 (no male successor of Casimir the Great). Succession crisis results in important legacies for Polish kingdom destined to become more and more a noblemen's paradise with very weak executive:

• Louis of Anjou (the Hungarian), 1370-1382, bought loyalty of nobility with broad privileges & tax exemptions
• Louis hardly set foot in Poland; ruled through regents from a distance. He also died without male heir, but thought his daughter would succeed and marry a Habsburg. Instead, union with Lithuania, 1386 by means of marriage of  Jadwiga to the Lithuanian king Jogailo (Jagiello). Union takes shape gradually over 200 years, in the 16^th century becoming a political union. Poland’s Jagiellonian dynasty comes out of this union with Lithuania.
• 14th cent. Poland’s territorial base shifts east, as Poland lets go of western provinces of Silesia & Pomerania but gains territories in the east—Galicia, Lithuania.
• Poland preferred senior partnership with Eastern (still pagan) Lithuania to junior partnership with Habsburgs. Jagiello agreed to convert to Christianity. He preferred Poles to Teutonic Knights (German Crusaders) as Christian missionaries. Poles and Lithuanians were able together to defeat the Teutonic Knights in 1410

Stages of Union bet Poland & Lithuania

1386 Union of Krewo: election of Jagiello as Polish King

With Jadwiga's death in 1399, and no heir, the Union of Krewo could have been dissolved, but it was continued.

Ladislaus Jagiello reigned until 1434 (48 years) and was succeeded by son and other Jagiellonian heirs.

1401 Wilno-Radom Act:  Polish & Lithuanian nobles agreed that all future political succession decisons would be made by mutual consultation

1413 Horodlo agreement: matters affecting both countries would be decided in joint noble assemblies; Polish nobles to take part in election of Lithuanian Grand Duke

1569 Union of Lublin joined the two states in a noble republic or commonwealth, under one elected king, with common army and foreign policy.

Where/what was Lithuania?

• last pagan country in Europe on Baltic
• After decline of Kiev with the Mongol invasions in 13^th century, Lithuania spread into South Western Russian territories peopled by Orthodox Ukrainians & Bielorussians
• In 14th century under Gedymin & Olgerd Lithuanians were spreading east & south, from Vilnius toward the Black Sea, taking Kiev, and laying siege to Moscow
• Lithuania contained more East Slavs than Lithuanians and its official language—East  Slavic one:  Bielorussian
• Within the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth Lithuania maintained separate identity & institutions

PRIVILEGES OF POLISH NOBILITY (szlachta)

By mid-14th cent. the Polish nobility, clergy, & towns had certain rights. Royal power becoming weaker and weaker At first king and his retinue had ruled Poland

Legislative powers increasingly passed out of hands of king to the nobility.

With the szlachta controlling purse strings and the army, they also controlled the state and foreign policy. This eventually led to a very weak executive

Szlachta had:  

• right to elect the king
• limited taxation
• exemptions from import taxes
• right to approve taxes in provincial diets
• 15th century bicameral legislature or diet (sejm) developed
• right to approve army recruitment
• 1454 privileges of Nieszawa (refusal to obey call to arms if nobles did not approve war beforehand)
• protected from interference by royal officials
• King's officials could not impose on nobles for hospitality
• 1490s sejm meets every 2 years. Towns are thrown out of diet
• 1505 Nihil novi constitution. No new laws without consent of sejm

• nobility exempt from taxes & state service except by consultation with own representatives
• King promised not to diminish Polish territory, & not to appoint foreign officials
• New concepts of class rights, territorial integrity
• right to refuse to obey king if he infringed on contract
• Right of armed resistance if monarch infringes on his contract. This is a "confederation," a constitutionally recognized right to disobey the government
• nobles could not be arrested: protected from interference of royal officials: Personal inviolability (Neminem captivabimus like English Habeas Corpus). Their lands could not be confiscated unless sentenced in court.
• restricted armed force—24,OOO troops
• right to disobey in waging of war if king did not consult provincial diets, and if diets did not approve it (1454)

• After 1652 principle of unanimity for all legislation & for royal election (elective kingdom from 1572) (liberum veto)
• Nobility grows more & more powerful, is able to pass anti-town legislation
• Szlachta has trade monopoly without being inclined towards commerce
• magnate families have power from huge estates—villages, peasants, towns, armies
• Local assemblies have real power, and behind them are magnates who function like a mafia.
• Polish magnates not willing to go beyond narrow class interests
• contrast to Russia, where from 16th century Muscovy consolidates autocratic state, which collects taxes, exploits peasants, develops bureaucracy. (Also in contrast to England—another constitutional monarchy, where nobility behaved more responsibly and allowed the state to act effectively
• non-nobles in Lithuania—Orthodox Ukrainians & Bielorussians—resent Polish union on religious and social/political grounds. Ukrainians & Bielorussians are both Orthodox & peasants and as such they are excluded from polity. They are the lower classes. So they are a potential fifth column for Russia.

Polish Society of estates by 16^th-17th cent. Poland "Paradise for the nobles, heaven (or haven) for the Jews, "­hell for the peasants"

-nobility or szlachta

-peasantry

-clergy

-burghers

-Jews

RURAL society

Szlachta: Polish nobility was very large compared to other European states: 8-10 % of population.

• Economically diverse, socially equality, politically democracy
• exercised patrimonial authority over peasant
• 1530 law forbid court hearings for peasants complaining against landowners
• Peasants on noble lands had no right of appeal.
• Szlachta forbade burghers from buying landed estates

B. peasantry

To begin with were free. They rented land from the lord, in exchange fore part of the harvest. (Lord had some land that he cultivated with hired hands.)

 System changed by 16^th century in response to Western demand for grain. As market boomed, Polish nobility tried to expand their operations and produce more grain by enserfing the peasant (2^nd serfdom while Western European peasants were being freed)

URBAN society

fairly cosmopolitan included many Germans and other foreigners esp. in western Poland.

Most Polish cities/towns were private from 16th century on. In private towns the patron’s power was supreme. Royal towns—more democratic than private towns

• burghers (gentile or Christian) divided between patricians and commoners
•  plebs—too poor to pay taxes, migrants, fugitives, etc.—not full citizens of the city.

• Jews: certainly in Poland by 1100, as merchants, money lenders, (Cath. Church forbade lending) tax collectors.

They are judged by their own law, have own local gov’t.

 They began coming in larger numbers with medieval persecutions in Western Europe, esp. following the Black Death 14th cent., attracted by Polish tolerance and privileges

By the end 17^th century, 3/4 of world Jewry lived in Poland-Lithuania. Better off in royal towns; in noble-owned towns Jewish privileges were more restricted.

 Polish Jews mostly spoke Yiddish. Center for Jewish culture.

Culture

University of Cracow founded 1364, under Casimir the Great 16 years after the first central European university in Prague (1348), and a year before the University of Vienna.

Cosmopolitan student body.  Copernicus studied there. Refuted church opinion that the universe revolves around the earth which stands still in the center of the solar system.

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