Szlachta

For the village, see Szlachta, Pomeranian Voivodeship.
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.
Michał Kazimierz Ogiński, a nobleman from 18th century Poland and the Enlightenment

The szlachta (Polish: [ˈʂlaxta] ⓘ; Lithuanian: šlėkta) were the noble estate of the realm in the Kingdom of Poland, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and, as a social class, dominated those states[1] by exercising political rights and power.[2][3][4][5][6][7] Szlachta as a class differed significantly from the feudal nobility of Western Europe.[8][9] The estate was officially abolished in 1921 by the March Constitution.[1]

The origins of the szlachta are obscure and the subject of several theories.[10]: 207  Traditionally, its members owned land (allods),[11][12][5] often folwarks.[13] The szlachta secured substantial and increasing political power and rights throughout its history, beginning with the reign of King Casimir III the Great between 1333 and 1370 in the Kingdom of Poland[10]: 211  until the decline and end of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in the late 18th century. Apart from providing officers for the army, its chief civic obligations included electing the monarch and filling honorary and advisory roles at court that would later evolve into the upper legislative chamber, the Senate. The szlachta electorate[2] also took part in the government of the Commonwealth via the lower legislative chamber of the Sejm (bicameral national parliament), composed of representatives elected at local sejmiks (local szlachta assemblies). Sejmiks performed various governmental functions at local levels, such as appointing officials and overseeing judicial and financial governance, including tax-raising. The szlachta assumed various governing positions, including voivode, marshal of voivodeship, castellan, and starosta.[14]

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 and Ruthenian nobilities formally joined the szlachta.[10]: 211  As the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (1569–1795) evolved and expanded territorially after the Union of Lublin, its membership grew to include the leaders of Ducal Prussia and Livonia. Over time, membership in the szlachta grew to encompass around 8% to 15% of Polish-Lithuanian society, which made the membership an electorate that was several times larger than most noble classes in other countries; by contrast, nobles in Italy and France encompassed 1% during the early modern period.[2][15]

Despite often enormous differences in wealth and political influence, few distinctions in law existed between the great magnates and lesser szlachta.[2] The juridic principle of szlachta equality existed because szlachta land titles were allodial,[11] not feudal, involving no requirement of feudal service to a liege Lord.[5][6] Unlike absolute monarchs who eventually took reign in most other European countries, the Polish king was not an autocrat and not the szlachta's overlord.[5][16] The relatively few hereditary noble titles in the Kingdom of Poland were bestowed by foreign monarchs, while in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, princely titles were mostly inherited by descendants of old dynasties.[citation needed] During the three successive Partitions of Poland between 1772 and 1795, most of the szlachta began to lose legal privileges and social status, while szlachta elites became part of the nobilities of the three partitioning powers.

  1. ^ a b "Szlachta. Szlachta w Polsce", Encyklopedia PWN
  2. ^ a b c d Davies, Ivor Norman Richard; Dawson, Andrew Hutchinson; Jasiewicz, Krzysztof [in Polish]; Kondracki, Jerzy Aleksander [in Polish]; Wandycz, Piotr Stefan (2 June 2017). "Poland". Encyclopædia Britannica. p. 15. Retrieved 24 April 2021. 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.
  3. ^ Hutton, Richard Holt; Bagehot, Walter (January 1864). "The Races of the Old World". National Review. London, England: Robson and Levey: 484. Retrieved 9 Oct 2014. 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.
  4. ^ Ross, M. (1835). "A Descriptive View of Poland: Character, Manners, and Customs of the Poles". A history of Poland from its foundation as a state to the present time; including a full account of the recent patriotic struggle to re-establish its independence. To which is prefixed, a descriptive view of the country, its natural history, cities and towns, and the manners and customs of its inhabitants. Newcastle upon Tyne, England: Pattison and Ross. p. 51. 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.
  5. ^ a b c d Skwarczyński, Paweł (June 1956). "The Problem of Feudalism in Poland up to the Beginning of the 16th Century". The Slavonic and East European Review. 34 (83). Salisbury House, Station Road, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire county, ENGLAND: Modern Humanities Research Association: 299. JSTOR 4204744. 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.
  6. ^ a b Zamoyski, Adam (1998) [1987]. The Polish Way: A Thousand-year history of the Poles and their culture (Fourth Printing ed.). New York: Hippocrene Books. p. 24. ISBN 0-7818-0200-8. 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.
  7. ^ Struve, Kai (2008). "Citizenship and National Identity: the Peasants of Galicia during the 19th Century" (PDF). In Wawrzeniuk, Piotr (ed.). SOCIETAL CHANGE AND IDEOLOGICAL FORMATION AMONG THE RURAL POPULATION OF THE BALTIC AREA 1880-1939 (History). Flemingsberg, Huddinge municipality, Stockholm county, KINGDOM OF SWEDEN: Södertörns högskola. pp. 76–77. ISBN 978-91-85139-11-8. 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.
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference zamoyski-not-gentry-not-nobility was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  9. ^ Cite error: The named reference dmowski-clan-system was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  10. ^ a b c Davies, Norman (1982). God's Playground: A History of Poland, Volume I - The Origins to 1795. Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-05351-7.
  11. ^ a b Skwarczyński, Paweł (June 1956). "The Problem of Feudalism in Poland up to the Beginning of the 16th Century". The Slavonic and East European Review. 34 (83). Salisbury House, Station Road, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire county, ENGLAND: Modern Humanities Research Association: 298. JSTOR 4204744. 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.
  12. ^ Ross, M. (1835). "A Descriptive View of Poland: Character, Manners, and Customs of the Poles". A history of Poland from its foundation as a state to the present time; including a full account of the recent patriotic struggle to re-establish its independence. To which is prefixed, a descriptive view of the country, its natural history, cities and towns, and the manners and customs of its inhabitants. Newcastle upon Tyne, England: Pattison and Ross. p. 51. 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.
  13. ^ Szulc, Halina. (1995) Morfogeneza Osiedli Wiejskich w Polsce, Continuo, ISBN 83-86682-00-0, especially p. 59. In Polish but with a decent Summary in English about patterns of rural settlement in Poland since the Middle Ages. http://rcin.org.pl/igipz/Content/685/Wa51_5218_r1995-nr163_Prace-Geogr.pdf [accessed 2018-11-08]
  14. ^ Góralski, Zbigniew (1998). Urzędy i godności w dawnej Polsce. LSW. ISBN 83-205-4533-1. (Pol.)
  15. ^ Kamen, Henry (2021). Early Modern European Society (3rd ed.). New Haven and London: Yale University Press. p. 107. ISBN 978-0-415-15865-7.
  16. ^ Topór-Jakubowski, Theodore. "It's Time to End the Myth That Polish Immigrants Were Peasants". West European Grand Priory, International Order of St Stanislas. Croxteth House, Liverpool, Lancashire county, Merseyside, North West England, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM: Order of St Stanislas. Archived from the original on 4 July 2002. Retrieved 24 April 2021. 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.