Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Szlachta" in English language version.
The most important and the most numerous section of the peasantry in late medieval and early modern Poland was the kmiecie (Latin: cmethones), full peasant holders of hereditary farms with an average size in the region under study of half a mansus, which was equivalent to eight hectares. Farms belonging to kmiecie were largely self-sufficient, although some of them were, to varying extents, engaged in production for the market. Other, less numerous, sections of the peasantry were the zagrodnicy (Latin: ortulani), or smallholders, and the ogrodnicy, or cottagers, who farmed small plots of land. These two categories of peasants were not able to support themselves and their families from their land, so they earned extra money as hired labourers on their landlords' land, or that of the kmiecie. Apart from the holders of large or small farms, Polish villages were also inhabited by so-called komornicy, landless lodgers who earned wages locally. This group included village craftsmen, while the wealthiest kmiecie included millers and innkeepers.
Polish society had evolved from clannish structures, and the introduction of Christianity and all that went with it did not alter these significantly. The feudal system which regulated society all over Europe was never introduced into Poland, and this fact cannot be stressed too heavily.
One cannot substitute the terms 'nobility' or 'gentry' for szlachta because it had little in common with those classes in other European countries either in origin, composition or outlook.
This military class was subdivided into clans, the members of each clan being bound together by strong ties of solidarity. Each clan had its name and crest. The Polish nobility, which sprang from this military class and which derived its family names from its landed properties (in the fifteenth century), had no family crests, of which there was only a limited number. Each of these bore a name which had been the old word of call of the clan. In many instances, one crest belonged to more than a hundred families. The clan system survived in this way throughout the whole of Polish history. It is evident that the warrior class in Poland had quite a different origin and a different legal and social position from that of the feudal nobility of Western Europe.
In the past the nobility in Poland constituted the nation itself. It ruled the country without competition on the part of any other class, the middle class being small in numbers and wealth, and the peasants being serfs.
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.
While land provided the majority with a livelihood, it was not the only or even the predominant source of wealth for the magnates, whose estates were not large by the standards of the barons of England or the great lords of France. ... The magnates only started accumulating property on a large scale at the beginning of the fifteenth century.
The same bizarre logic was applied to the Polish intelligentsia, who led the Polish resistance movement. To the Nazis, these leaders were largely Nordic which enabled them 'To be active in contrast to the fatalistic Slavonic elements.' The implication was obvious: If the Polish elite were re-Germanized, then the mass of Polish people would be denied a dynamic leadership class.
The population consists of free husbandmen and slaves. Above them there is a class of warriors, very strong numerically, from which the ruler chooses his officials.
Polish coats of arms are utterly unlike those of European chivalry, and were held in common by whole clans which fought as regiments.
But between the gentry and the magnates there was only a difference of wealth and culture. Both belonged directly to the same class of the community, both were members of the same clans, and the gentry by its social character was destined rather to co-operate with the magnates than to struggle against them. And, as both those elements occupied the same legal position, the power wrested from the king by the magnates became legally an acquisition of the whole of the nobility, ...
The Polish nobility, which sprang from this military class and which derived its family names from its landed properties (in the fifteenth century), ...
Fig. 4 A selection of Polish coats-of-arms. These were never personal to the bearers; each was borne by all members of the family, and often by dozens of families of different names which may or may not have shared their origins.
The boundaries between nobility and peasants (and other social groups) persisted well into the 19th and 20th centuries. A shocking proof of how terribly effective this Sarmatian ideology was, can be found in a personal letter of Zygmunt Krasiński, one of the three greatest Polish Romantic poets in the 19th century (and a descendant of an aristocratic family). In the mid-19th century Krasiński wrote to his English friend Henry Reeve: 'Believe me and rest assured that apart from aristocracy there's nothing in Poland: no talent, no bright minds, nor sense of sacrifice. Our third state [bourgeoisie] is nonsense; our peasants are machines. Only we [szlachta] are Poland.'
LINEA FAMILIAE RADWAN
Scutchions, and coats of Armes haereditary, where they have any eminent Priviledges, are Honourable; otherwise not: for their Power consisteth either in such Priviledges, or in Riches, or some such thing as is equally honoured in other men. This kind of Honour, commonly called Gentry, has been derived from the Antient Germans. For there never was any such thing known, where the German Customes were unknown. Nor is it now any where in use, where the Germans have not inhabited.
Dąbrowfcij, cognominati Zedlowie ...
These remark exactly express the view which we entertain in regard to the population of Poland. There we find an aristocracy of equals resting upon a basis of serfage, an upper caste drawing the rents of the land, monopolising the government, and composing the army of the country, and who, in the course of long centuries, have imparted much of their own spirit and ideas, and, with the license of a gay aristocracy, not a little of their blood also, to the subordinate population.
Once admitted within the pale of nobility, every honour of the state, and even the kingly office, was open, there being a perfect equality of civil rights.
By the laws of Poland, a noble is a person who possesses a freehold estate, or who can prove his descent from ancestors formerly possessing a freehold, following no trade or commerce, and at liberty to choose the place of his habitation; so that this description includes all persons above burghers and peasants.
... 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.
The Polish peasant in the past was a very humble member of the Polish community – in fact he scarcely belonged to it at all. He had for 350 years no civic rights whatever. He was the serf of his master. It was only the easy-going and patriarchal relations between squire and peasant that made life tolerable for the latter.
At least 60,000 families belong to this class [szlachta], of which, however, only about 100 are wealthy; all the rest are poor.
But the Parliament was at best a clumsy body, as the deputies were not free agents, but were bound by their mandates from the real sovereign bodies, the local Diets or Sejmiki. The representative of a Sejmik had the right of vetoing all legislation in the Sejm, since he spoke for a whole province or tribe.
... through all modern Polish history it was Roman republicanism that formed the ideal of the republican gentry. The Roman precedent was even quoted to justify serfdom, which was a modified form of Roman slavery.
Poland was the great power of East Central Europe, and the Polish Sejm dictated to the East as despotically as the Roman Senate itself.
.... 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.
Aleksander Świętochowski, on the other hand, wrote as follows: 'If from the deeds of the Polish nobility we took away excesses and the exclusiveness of caste, ...'
Miano Szlachty, pochodzi od Lechitów (The name of the nobility, derived from the Lechites).
Kmiecie czyli lud pospolity wolny (Kmiecie is the common free people), ...
Their ideal was that of a Greek city State—a body of citizens, a small trading class, and a mass of labourers.
The peasants of Poland, as in all feudal countries, were serfs, or slaves; and the value of an estate was not estimated from its extent, but from the number of peasants, who were transferred, like cattle, from one master to another.
LINEA FAMILIAE RADWAN
Later on each family began to take the name of some village or town, with the addition of -ski, which is the Polish equivalent for the French de or German von.
Thus John of Zamość called himself John Zamoyski, Stephen of Potok called himself Potocki. Although time has scattered most families far from their original home, nearly all the names of the genuinely Polish szlachta can be traced back to some locality.
Originally a member of the Polish szlachta used simply his Christian name, and the title of the coat of arms which was common to all the members of his clan.
Dąbrowfcij, cognominati Zedlowie ...
The use of the Latin language was universal in Poland well into the eighteenth century, and many words from Latin have been assimilated by the Polish language and have added to its vocabulary and its expressiveness.
In 1784, Prince Charles de Ligne from Belgium, who was trying to obtain Polish noble status, supposedly said, 'It is easier to become a duke in Germany, than to be counted among Polish nobles,' quoted in Kulikowski, Heraldyka szlachecka, 27.
It made the Polish gentleman more remote from the peasant, to whom he was not only a master, but a foreign, somewhat exotic, neighbour. The civilization of the manor, even allowing for social and cultural differences, had very little in common with the life of the cottage.
Ranging from the poorest landless yeomen to the great magnates, the szlachta insisted on the equality of all its members. As a political nation it was more numerous (8–10 percent) than the electorate of most European states even in the early 19th century.
Throughout most of Europe the medieval system of estates evolved into absolutism, but in the Commonwealth it led to a szlachta democracy inspired by the ideals of ancient Rome, to which parallels were constantly drawn.
The Commonwealth gradually came to be dominated by the szlachta, which regarded the state as an embodiment of its rights and privileges.
{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)The boundaries between nobility and peasants (and other social groups) persisted well into the 19th and 20th centuries. A shocking proof of how terribly effective this Sarmatian ideology was, can be found in a personal letter of Zygmunt Krasiński, one of the three greatest Polish Romantic poets in the 19th century (and a descendant of an aristocratic family). In the mid-19th century Krasiński wrote to his English friend Henry Reeve: 'Believe me and rest assured that apart from aristocracy there's nothing in Poland: no talent, no bright minds, nor sense of sacrifice. Our third state [bourgeoisie] is nonsense; our peasants are machines. Only we [szlachta] are Poland.'
In Poland two, near-nations appeared – nobles and peasants, and between them there was a Jewish wall.
To distance itself from the peasants, the nobility (and clergy) cultivated a belief in their genetic superiority over the peasants.
Nobility does not enter, or does so very unwillingly, into marriages with serfs, regarding them as a lower species.
A deep division between enserfed peasants and gentry landowners had developed in the early modern Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The noble estate, the szlachta, monopolized the political rights and consequently only the szlachta, as constituted by the Commonwealth's sovereign, according to the early modern understanding of the concept, as well as the Polish nation and its members, were considered to be citizens.
The fact that the Polish term obywatel ("citizen") could be used as a synonym for gentry landlords until the second half of the 19th century shows how strong this concept was within Polish culture.
The peasants feared the reestablishment of a Polish state because they expected it to be the state of their landlords. Their memory of independent Poland, conveyed from one generation to the next, was one of landlord wilfulness and a lack of rights.
The most important and the most numerous section of the peasantry in late medieval and early modern Poland was the kmiecie (Latin: cmethones), full peasant holders of hereditary farms with an average size in the region under study of half a mansus, which was equivalent to eight hectares. Farms belonging to kmiecie were largely self-sufficient, although some of them were, to varying extents, engaged in production for the market. Other, less numerous, sections of the peasantry were the zagrodnicy (Latin: ortulani), or smallholders, and the ogrodnicy, or cottagers, who farmed small plots of land. These two categories of peasants were not able to support themselves and their families from their land, so they earned extra money as hired labourers on their landlords' land, or that of the kmiecie. Apart from the holders of large or small farms, Polish villages were also inhabited by so-called komornicy, landless lodgers who earned wages locally. This group included village craftsmen, while the wealthiest kmiecie included millers and innkeepers.
Scutchions, and coats of Armes haereditary, where they have any eminent Priviledges, are Honourable; otherwise not: for their Power consisteth either in such Priviledges, or in Riches, or some such thing as is equally honoured in other men. This kind of Honour, commonly called Gentry, has been derived from the Antient Germans. For there never was any such thing known, where the German Customes were unknown. Nor is it now any where in use, where the Germans have not inhabited.
The article highlights the role of Latin as the language of communication of the nobility living in Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. At the beginning discusses the concept 'latinitas', which meant not only the correct Latin, but also pointed to the ideological content of antiquity passed through the language of the ancient Romans. ... We studied Latin armorial 'Orbis Polonus' by Simon Okolski (Cracow 1641-1645). ... It concludes that Okolski consciously wrote his work in the language of the ancient Romans.
As the knights owned their land, there was no room or need for any intermediaries between them and the king. All of them were equal before the king; but they were not king's tenants, and the king was not their overlord. Their relationship to the king was not feudal, i.e., based on feudal dependence, but rather it was regulated by public law. ... From the fact that the knights were equal before the king, the theory of equality was evolved, which later became one of the important features of the constitution.
The resistance to the royal policy was so strong however that by far the greater part of the land was held by the knights as allodial, not as feudal property, which is in striking contrast to the land conditions in England.
In 1459 Ostroróg submitted a memorandum to the parliament (sejm), suggesting that the palatines, or provincial governors, should be given the title of prince and their sons the titles of barons and counts. The title of count was suggested by him for a castellanus. But all these suggestions were not accepted. The composition of the king's council provides another distinction between the system in Poland and regular feudal systems elsewhere.
The knights, except in the few cases already referred to, possessed full ownership of their land, and the peasant small-holders, apart from an insignificant minority, were tenants, to whom the system of feudal tenure applied.
This peculiarity may be best illustrated by the example given by Paprocki [50] who mentions the Rosciszewski family which took a surname different from the names of the land properties it had owned. Those of the Rosciszewski family who settled in Chrapunia became known as Chrapunskis; those who settled in Strykwina were known as Strykwinskis; and those who settled in Borkow became known as Borkowskis. Since they shared a common ancestor and belonged to the same clan - they were entitled to bear the same arms as Rosciszewskis.
It should not be difficult to understand then, why prince Charles de Ligne from Belgium, who in 1784 was trying to receive the Polish nobility status, supposedly commented that: It is easier to become duke in Germany, then to be counted among Polish nobles [34]. Indeed, from the moment of the prohibition of private adoptions, Polish nobility became a closed cast [caste] ...
Now slavery is a condition of the body, since a slave is to the master a kind of instrument in working; wherefore children follow the mother in freedom and bondage; whereas in matters pertaining to dignity as proceeding from a thing's form, they follow the father, for instance in honors, franchise, inheritance and so forth. The canons are in agreement with this (cap. Liberi, 32, qu. iv, in gloss.: cap. Inducens, De natis ex libero ventre) as also the law of Moses (Exodus 21). ... It is because the son derives honor from his father rather than from his mother that in the genealogies of Scripture, and according to common custom, children are named after their father rather than from their mother. But in matters relating to slavery they follow the mother by preference.
Podobnie głosił Wacław Potocki h. Śreniawa, że chłopi 'z natury' są 'sprawieni do ziemi i do pługa', że nawet wykształcony chłop zawsze pozostanie chłopem, bo 'niepodobna przerobić psa na rysia'; ... (Wacław Potocki, herbu Śreniawa, proclaimed peasants 'by nature' are 'chained to the land and plow,' that even an educated peasant would always remain a peasant, because 'it is impossible to transform a dog into a lynx.')
... the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth of Two Nations (from 1385 until the Third Partition of 1795) paralleled the Roman Empire in that -- whether we like it or not -- full rights of citizenship were limited to the governing elite, called szlachta in Polish ... It is not truly correct to consider the szlachta a class; they actually were more like a caste, the military caste, as in Hindu society.
Membership in the Polish szlachta was hereditary. ... (and the family knighthood, rycerstwo, in itself) ... The paramount principle regarding Polish nobility is that it was hereditary. ... one Rudolf Lambert had successfully proven his right to hereditary knighthood (szlachectwo) ... He [Nikodem Tadeusz] was also Marshal of the Knighthood (using the word rycerz and not szlachcic ...)
In ancient times, the nobility was the ruling class of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth with the exclusive right to enjoy full citizenship. Nobility was hereditary in the male line, and the knight's shield was an outward sign of this.
DĄBROWSCY h. RADWAN z Dąbrówki pod Piasecznem, w ziemi warszawskiej, w różnych stronach osiedli, przeważnie w ziemi rożańskiej. Przydomek ich "Żądło". Żyjący w połowie XV-go wieku Jakub z Dąbrówki, ...
The same bizarre logic was applied to the Polish intelligentsia, who led the Polish resistance movement. To the Nazis, these leaders were largely Nordic which enabled them 'To be active in contrast to the fatalistic Slavonic elements.' The implication was obvious: If the Polish elite were re-Germanized, then the mass of Polish people would be denied a dynamic leadership class.
Posiadanie ziemi * Ziemia na której gospodarowali chłopi nie stanowiła ich własności. Jej rzeczywistym właścicielem był pan określonych dóbr: król, zwykły szlachcic lub kościół. Chłop był więc tylko użytkownikiem ziemi. Zwyczajowo było to użytkowanie dziedziczne - przekazywane na męskich potomków. Pan wsi mógł zawsze jednak usunąć chłopa z gospodarstwa. (The plot of land on which the peasants lived and resided was not their property. The owner was a particular estate: king, nobleman, or church. Therefore, the peasant was only a land user. Land use and residence was hereditary - the use transmitted to male descendants. However, the village master could always evict the peasant from the plot of land.)
The most important and the most numerous section of the peasantry in late medieval and early modern Poland was the kmiecie (Latin: cmethones), full peasant holders of hereditary farms with an average size in the region under study of half a mansus, which was equivalent to eight hectares. Farms belonging to kmiecie were largely self-sufficient, although some of them were, to varying extents, engaged in production for the market. Other, less numerous, sections of the peasantry were the zagrodnicy (Latin: ortulani), or smallholders, and the ogrodnicy, or cottagers, who farmed small plots of land. These two categories of peasants were not able to support themselves and their families from their land, so they earned extra money as hired labourers on their landlords' land, or that of the kmiecie. Apart from the holders of large or small farms, Polish villages were also inhabited by so-called komornicy, landless lodgers who earned wages locally. This group included village craftsmen, while the wealthiest kmiecie included millers and innkeepers.
Photographs from the family archive of Jan Majewski; Tadeusz Żądło Dąbrowski [herbu Radwan]...
1. The right to hold outright ownership of land - not as a fief, conditional upon service to the liege Lord, but absolutely in perpetuity unless sold.
I would also like to add, for myself, that the szlachta possessed the exclusive right to enter the clergy up until the time of the three partitions.
1. The right to hold outright ownership of land - not as a fief, conditional upon service to the liege Lord, but absolutely in perpetuity unless sold.
... the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth of Two Nations (from 1385 until the Third Partition of 1795) paralleled the Roman Empire in that -- whether we like it or not -- full rights of citizenship were limited to the governing elite, called szlachta in Polish ... It is not truly correct to consider the szlachta a class; they actually were more like a caste, the military caste, as in Hindu society.
The article highlights the role of Latin as the language of communication of the nobility living in Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. At the beginning discusses the concept 'latinitas', which meant not only the correct Latin, but also pointed to the ideological content of antiquity passed through the language of the ancient Romans. ... We studied Latin armorial 'Orbis Polonus' by Simon Okolski (Cracow 1641-1645). ... It concludes that Okolski consciously wrote his work in the language of the ancient Romans.
In Poland two, near-nations appeared – nobles and peasants, and between them there was a Jewish wall.
Podobnie głosił Wacław Potocki h. Śreniawa, że chłopi 'z natury' są 'sprawieni do ziemi i do pługa', że nawet wykształcony chłop zawsze pozostanie chłopem, bo 'niepodobna przerobić psa na rysia'; ... (Wacław Potocki, herbu Śreniawa, proclaimed peasants 'by nature' are 'chained to the land and plow,' that even an educated peasant would always remain a peasant, because 'it is impossible to transform a dog into a lynx.')
I would also like to add, for myself, that the szlachta possessed the exclusive right to enter the clergy up until the time of the three partitions.
To distance itself from the peasants, the nobility (and clergy) cultivated a belief in their genetic superiority over the peasants.
Nobility does not enter, or does so very unwillingly, into marriages with serfs, regarding them as a lower species.
Photographs from the family archive of Jan Majewski; Tadeusz Żądło Dąbrowski [herbu Radwan]...
This peculiarity may be best illustrated by the example given by Paprocki [50] who mentions the Rosciszewski family which took a surname different from the names of the land properties it had owned. Those of the Rosciszewski family who settled in Chrapunia became known as Chrapunskis; those who settled in Strykwina were known as Strykwinskis; and those who settled in Borkow became known as Borkowskis. Since they shared a common ancestor and belonged to the same clan - they were entitled to bear the same arms as Rosciszewskis.
It should not be difficult to understand then, why prince Charles de Ligne from Belgium, who in 1784 was trying to receive the Polish nobility status, supposedly commented that: It is easier to become duke in Germany, then to be counted among Polish nobles [34]. Indeed, from the moment of the prohibition of private adoptions, Polish nobility became a closed cast [caste] ...
Posiadanie ziemi * Ziemia na której gospodarowali chłopi nie stanowiła ich własności. Jej rzeczywistym właścicielem był pan określonych dóbr: król, zwykły szlachcic lub kościół. Chłop był więc tylko użytkownikiem ziemi. Zwyczajowo było to użytkowanie dziedziczne - przekazywane na męskich potomków. Pan wsi mógł zawsze jednak usunąć chłopa z gospodarstwa. (The plot of land on which the peasants lived and resided was not their property. The owner was a particular estate: king, nobleman, or church. Therefore, the peasant was only a land user. Land use and residence was hereditary - the use transmitted to male descendants. However, the village master could always evict the peasant from the plot of land.)
Now slavery is a condition of the body, since a slave is to the master a kind of instrument in working; wherefore children follow the mother in freedom and bondage; whereas in matters pertaining to dignity as proceeding from a thing's form, they follow the father, for instance in honors, franchise, inheritance and so forth. The canons are in agreement with this (cap. Liberi, 32, qu. iv, in gloss.: cap. Inducens, De natis ex libero ventre) as also the law of Moses (Exodus 21). ... It is because the son derives honor from his father rather than from his mother that in the genealogies of Scripture, and according to common custom, children are named after their father rather than from their mother. But in matters relating to slavery they follow the mother by preference.
In ancient times, the nobility was the ruling class of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth with the exclusive right to enjoy full citizenship. Nobility was hereditary in the male line, and the knight's shield was an outward sign of this.
Ranging from the poorest landless yeomen to the great magnates, the szlachta insisted on the equality of all its members. As a political nation it was more numerous (8–10 percent) than the electorate of most European states even in the early 19th century.
The Polish peasant in the past was a very humble member of the Polish community – in fact he scarcely belonged to it at all. He had for 350 years no civic rights whatever. He was the serf of his master. It was only the easy-going and patriarchal relations between squire and peasant that made life tolerable for the latter.
But the Parliament was at best a clumsy body, as the deputies were not free agents, but were bound by their mandates from the real sovereign bodies, the local Diets or Sejmiki. The representative of a Sejmik had the right of vetoing all legislation in the Sejm, since he spoke for a whole province or tribe.
... through all modern Polish history it was Roman republicanism that formed the ideal of the republican gentry. The Roman precedent was even quoted to justify serfdom, which was a modified form of Roman slavery.
Throughout most of Europe the medieval system of estates evolved into absolutism, but in the Commonwealth it led to a szlachta democracy inspired by the ideals of ancient Rome, to which parallels were constantly drawn.
Poland was the great power of East Central Europe, and the Polish Sejm dictated to the East as despotically as the Roman Senate itself.
The Commonwealth gradually came to be dominated by the szlachta, which regarded the state as an embodiment of its rights and privileges.
Podobnie głosił Wacław Potocki h. Śreniawa, że chłopi 'z natury' są 'sprawieni do ziemi i do pługa', że nawet wykształcony chłop zawsze pozostanie chłopem, bo 'niepodobna przerobić psa na rysia'; ... (Wacław Potocki, herbu Śreniawa, proclaimed peasants 'by nature' are 'chained to the land and plow,' that even an educated peasant would always remain a peasant, because 'it is impossible to transform a dog into a lynx.')
Their ideal was that of a Greek city State—a body of citizens, a small trading class, and a mass of labourers.
Later on each family began to take the name of some village or town, with the addition of -ski, which is the Polish equivalent for the French de or German von.
Thus John of Zamość called himself John Zamoyski, Stephen of Potok called himself Potocki. Although time has scattered most families far from their original home, nearly all the names of the genuinely Polish szlachta can be traced back to some locality.
Originally a member of the Polish szlachta used simply his Christian name, and the title of the coat of arms which was common to all the members of his clan.
DĄBROWSCY h. RADWAN z Dąbrówki pod Piasecznem, w ziemi warszawskiej, w różnych stronach osiedli, przeważnie w ziemi rożańskiej. Przydomek ich "Żądło". Żyjący w połowie XV-go wieku Jakub z Dąbrówki, ...
The use of the Latin language was universal in Poland well into the eighteenth century, and many words from Latin have been assimilated by the Polish language and have added to its vocabulary and its expressiveness.
It made the Polish gentleman more remote from the peasant, to whom he was not only a master, but a foreign, somewhat exotic, neighbour. The civilization of the manor, even allowing for social and cultural differences, had very little in common with the life of the cottage.
