History of Poland during the Jagiellonian dynasty

History of Poland during the Jagiellonian dynasty is the period in the history of Poland that spans the late Middle Ages and early Modern Era. Beginning with the Lithuanian Grand Duke Jogaila (Władysław II Jagiełło), the Jagiellonian dynasty (1386–1572) formed the Polish–Lithuanian union. The partnership brought vast Lithuania-controlled Rus' areas into Poland's sphere of influence and proved beneficial for the Poles and Lithuanians, who coexisted and cooperated in one of the largest political entities in Europe for the next four centuries.

In the Baltic Sea region Poland's struggle with the Teutonic Knights continued and included the Battle of Grunwald (1410) and in 1466 the milestone Peace of Thorn under King Casimir IV Jagiellon; the treaty created the future Duchy of Prussia. In the south Poland confronted the Ottoman Empire and the Crimean Tatars, and in the east helped Lithuania fight the Grand Duchy of Moscow. Poland's and Lithuania's territorial expansion included the far north region of Livonia.

Poland was developing as a feudal state, with predominantly agricultural economy and an increasingly dominant landed nobility component. The Nihil novi act adopted by the Polish Sejm (parliament) in 1505, transferred most of the legislative power from the monarch to the Sejm. This event marked the beginning of the period known as "Golden Liberty", when the state was ruled by the "free and equal" Polish nobility.

Protestant Reformation movements made deep inroads into the Polish Christianity, which resulted in unique at that time in Europe policies of religious tolerance. The European Renaissance currents evoked in late Jagiellonian Poland (kings Sigismund I the Old and Sigismund II Augustus) an immense cultural flowering.

Late Middle Ages (14th–15th century)

Jagiellonian monarchy

Further information: History of Lithuania

Władysław II Jagiełło

In 1385 the Union of Krewo was signed between Queen Jadwiga of Poland and Jogaila, the Grand Duke of Lithuania, the last pagan state in Europe. The act arranged for Jogaila's baptism (after which Jogaila was known in Poland by his baptismal name, Władysław, and the Polish version of his Lithuanian name, Jagiełło) (Zamoyski, the Polish Way) and for the couple's marriage and constituted the beginning of the Polish–Lithuanian union. The Union strengthened both nations in their shared opposition to the Teutonic Knights and the growing threat of the Grand Duchy of Moscow.

Vast expanses of Rus' lands, including the Dnieper River basin and extending south to the Black Sea, were at that time under Lithuanian control. Lithuania fought the invading Mongols and had taken advantage of the power vacuum in the south and east resulting from the Mongol destruction of Kievan Rus'. The population of the Grand Duchy's enlarged territory was accordingly heavily Ruthenian and Eastern Orthodox. The territorial expansion caused Lithuania's confrontation with the Grand Duchy of Moscow, which found itself emerging from the Tatar rule and in a expanding .

Uniquely in Europe, the union connected two states geographically located on the opposite sides of the great civilizational divide between the Western or Latin, and the Eastern or Byzantine worlds. The consequences of this fact would be felt throughout the history of the region that, at the time of the Union of Krewo, comprised Poland and Lithuania.

The Union's intention was to create a common state under King Władysław Jagiełło, but the Polish ruling oligarchy's idea of incorporation of Lithuania into Poland turned out to be unrealistic. There were going to be territorial disputes and warfare between Poland and Lithuania or Lithuanian factions; the Lithuanians at times had even found it expedient to conspire with the Teutonic Knights against the Poles. Geographic consequences of the dynastic union and the preferences of the Jagiellonian kings accelerated the process of reorientation of Polish territorial priorities to the east.

Between 1386 and 1572 Poland and Lithuania, joined until 1569 by a personal union, were ruled by a succession of constitutional monarchs of the Jagiellonian dynasty. The political influence of the Jagiellonian kings was diminishing during this period, which was accompanied by the ever increasing role in central government and national affairs of landed nobility. The royal dynasty however had a stabilizing effect on Poland's politics. The Jagiellonian Era is often regarded as a period of maximum political power, great prosperity, and in its later stage, the Golden Age of Polish culture.

Social and economic developments

Poland and Lithuania 1386–1434

The 13th and 14th century feudal rent system, under which each estate had well defined rights and obligations, degenerated around the 15th century, as the nobility tightened their control of the production, trade and other economic activities, created many directly owned agricultural enterprises known as folwarks (feudal rent payments were being replaced with forced labor on lord's land), limited the rights of the cities and pushed most of the peasants into serfdom. Such practices were increasingly sanctioned by the law. For example, the Piotrków Privilege of 1496, granted by King Jan Olbracht, banned rural land purchases by townspeople and severely limited the ability of peasant farmers to leave their villages. Polish towns, lacking national representation protecting their class interests, preserved some degree of self-government (city councils and jury courts), and the trades were able to organize and form guilds. The nobility soon excused themselves from their principal duty – mandatory military service in case of war (pospolite ruszenie). The nobility's split into two main layers was institutionalized (never legally formalized) in the Nihil novi "constitution" of 1505, which required the king to consult general sejm, that is the Senate (highest level officials), as well as the lower chamber of (regional) deputies, the Sejm proper, before enacting any changes. The masses of ordinary szlachta competed or tried to compete against the uppermost rank of their class, the magnates, for the duration of Poland's independent existence.

Poland and Lithuania in personal union under Jagiełło

Sarcophagus of King Władysław Jagiełło, Wawel Cathedral

The first king of the new dynasty was the Grand Duke of Lithuania Jogaila, or Władysław II Jagiełło as the King of Poland. He was elected a king of Poland in 1386, after becoming a Catholic Christian and marrying Jadwiga of Anjou, daughter of Louis I, who was Queen of Poland in her own right. Latin Rite Christianization of Lithuania followed. Jogaila's rivalry in Lithuania with his cousin Vytautas, opposed to Lithuania's domination by Poland, was settled in 1392 and in 1401 in the Union of Vilnius and Radom: Vytautas became the Grand Duke of Lithuania for life under Jogaila's nominal supremacy. The agreement made possible close cooperation between the two nations, necessary to succeed in the upcoming struggle with the Teutonic Order. The Union of Horodło (1413) specified the relationship further and had granted privileges to the Roman Catholic (as opposed to Eastern Orthodox) portion of Lithuanian nobility.

Struggle with the Teutonic Knights

Battle of Grunwald (or Tannenberg)

The Great War of 1409–1411, precipitated by the Lithuanian uprising in the Order controlled Samogitia, included the Battle of Grunwald (Tannenberg), where the Polish and Lithuanian-Rus' armies completely defeated the Teutonic Knights. The offensive that followed lost its impact with the ineffective siege of Malbork (Marienburg). The failure to take the fortress and eliminate the Teutonic (later Prussian) state had for Poland dire historic consequences in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. The Peace of Thorn (1411) had given Poland and Lithuania rather modest territorial adjustments, including Samogitia. Afterwards there were negotiations and peace deals that didn't hold, more military campaigns and arbitrations. One attempted, unresolved arbitration took place at the Council of Constance. There in 1415, Paulus Vladimiri, rector of the Kraków Academy, presented his Treatise on the Power of the Pope and the Emperor in respect to Infidels, in which he advocated tolerance, criticized the violent conversion methods of the Teutonic Knights, and postulated that pagans have the right to peaceful coexistence with Christians and political independence. This stage of the Polish-Lithuanian conflict with the Teutonic Order ended with the Treaty of Melno in 1422. Another war (see Battle of Pabaiskas) was concluded in the Peace of Brześć Kujawski in 1435.

Hussite movement; Polish–Hungarian union

Bishop Zbigniew Oleśnicki with a colleague in a foundation scene

During the Hussite Wars (1420–1434), Jagiełło, Vytautas and Sigismund Korybut were involved in political and military maneuvering concerning the Czech crown, offered by the Hussites first to Jagiełło in 1420. Zbigniew Oleśnicki became known as the leading opponent of a union with the Hussite Czech state.

The Jagiellonian dynasty was not entitled to automatic hereditary succession, as each new king had to be approved by nobility consensus. Władysław Jagiełło had two sons late in life from his last wife, Sophia of Halshany. In 1430 the nobility agreed to the succession of the future Władysław III, only after the King gave in and guaranteed the satisfaction of their new demands. In 1434 the old monarch died and his minor son Władysław was crowned; the Royal Council led by Bishop Oleśnicki undertook the regency duties.

King Casimir IV Jagiellon was married to Elisabeth of Habsburg; of their many children four became kings

In 1438 the Czech anti-Habsburg opposition, mainly Hussite factions, offered the Czech crown to Jagiełło's younger son Casimir. The idea, accepted in Poland over Oleśnicki's objections, resulted in two unsuccessful Polish military expeditions to Bohemia.

After Vytautas' death in 1430 Lithuania became embroiled in internal wars and conflicts with Poland. Casimir, sent as a boy by King Władysław on a mission there in 1440, was surprisingly proclaimed by the Lithuanians a Grand Duke of Lithuania, and stayed in Lithuania.

Oleśnicki gained the upper hand again and pursued his long-term objective of Poland's union with Hungary. At that time Turkey embarked on a new round of European conquests and threatened Hungary, which needed the powerful Polish–Lithuanian ally. Władysław III in 1440 assumed also the Hungarian throne. Influenced by Julian Cesarini, the young king led the Hungarian army against the Ottoman Empire in 1443 and again in 1444. Like his mentor, Władysław Warneńczyk was killed at the Battle of Varna.

Casimir Jagiellon, sarcophagus sculpture by Veit Stoss, Wawel Cathedral

Beginning toward the end of Jagiełło's life, Poland was practically governed by a magnate oligarchy led by Oleśnicki. The rule of the dignitaries was actively opposed by various szlachta groups. Their leader Spytek of Melsztyn was killed during an armed confrontation in 1439, which allowed Oleśnicki to purge Poland of the remaining Hussite sympathizers and pursue his other objectives without significant opposition.

Casimir IV Jagiellon

In 1445 Casimir, the Grand Duke of Lithuania, was asked to assume the Polish throne vacated by the death of his brother Władysław. Casimir was a tough negotiator and did not accept the Polish nobility's conditions for his election. He finally arrived in Poland and was crowned in 1447 on his terms. Becoming a King of Poland Casimir also freed himself from the control the Lithuanian oligarchy had imposed on him; in the Vilnius Privilege of 1447 he declared the Lithuanian nobility having equal rights with Polish szlachta. In time Kazimierz Jagiellończyk was able to remove from power Cardinal Oleśnicki and his group, basing his own power on the younger middle nobility camp instead. A conflict with the pope and the local Church hierarchy over the right to fill vacant bishop positions Casimir also resolved in his favor.

War with the Teutonic Order and its resolution

Late medieval Kraków (Cracow)

In 1454 the Prussian Confederation, an alliance of Prussian cities and nobility opposed to the increasingly oppressive rule of the Teutonic Knights, asked King Casimir to take over Prussia and stirred up an armed uprising against the Knights. Casimir declared a war on the Order and a formal incorporation of Prussia into the Polish Crown; those events led to the Thirteen Years' War. The weakness of pospolite ruszenie (the szlachta wouldn't cooperate without new across-the-board concessions from Casimir) prevented a takeover of all of Prussia, but in the Second Peace of Thorn (1466) the Knights had to surrender the western half of their territory to the Polish Crown (the areas known afterwards as Royal Prussia, a semi-autonomous entity), and to accept Polish-Lithuanian suzerainty over the remainder (the later Ducal Prussia). Poland regained Pomerelia and with it the all-important access to the Baltic Sea, as well as Warmia. In addition to land warfare, naval battles had taken place, where ships provided by the City of Danzig (Gdańsk) successfully fought Danish and Teutonic fleets.

Other 15th-century Polish territorial gains, or rather revindications, included the Duchy of Oświęcim and Duchy of Zator on Silesia's border with Lesser Poland, and there was notable progress regarding the incorporation of the Piast Masovian duchies into the Crown.

Turkish and Tatar wars

Mikołaj Kamieniecki, the first Grand Hetman (chief military commander) of the Polish Crown

The influence of the Jagiellonian dynasty in Central Europe had been on the rise. In 1471 Casimir's son Władysław became a king of Bohemia, and in 1490 also of Hungary. The southern and eastern outskirts of Poland and Lithuania became threatened by Turkish invasions beginning in the late 15th century. Moldavia's involvement with Poland goes back to 1387, when Petru I, Hospodar of Moldavia, seeking protection against the Hungarians, paid Jagiełło homage in Lviv, which gave Poland access to the Black Sea ports. In 1485 King Casimir undertook an expedition into Moldavia, after its seaports were overtaken by the Ottoman Turks. The Turkish controlled Crimean Tatars raided the eastern territories in 1482 and 1487, until they were confronted by King Jan Olbracht (John Albert), Casimir's son and successor. Poland was attacked in 1487–1491 by remnants of the Golden Horde. They had invaded into Poland as far as Lublin before being beaten at Zaslavl. King John Albert in 1497 made an attempt to resolve the Turkish problem militarily, but his efforts were unsuccessful as he was unable to secure effective participation in the war by his brothers, King Ladislaus II of Bohemia and Hungary and Alexander, the Grand Duke of Lithuania, and because of the resistance on the part of Stephen the Great, the ruler of Moldavia. More Ottoman Empire-instigated destructive Tatar raids took place in 1498, 1499 and 1500. John Albert's diplomatic peace efforts that followed were finalized after the king's death in 1503, resulting in a territorial compromise and an unstable truce.

Crimean Khanate invasions in Poland and Lithuania continued also during the reign of King Alexander in 1502 and 1506; in 1506 the Tatars were defeated at the Battle of Kletsk by Michael Glinski.

Moscow's threat to Lithuania; Sigismund I

Poland, Poland's fiefs (striped) and Lithuania in 1466

Lithuania was increasingly threatened by the growing power of the Grand Duchy of Moscow. Through the campaigns of 1471, 1492 and 1500 Moscow took over much of Lithuania's eastern possessions. The Grand Duke Alexander was elected King of Poland in 1501, after the death of John Albert. In 1506 he was succeeded by Sigismund I the Old (Zygmunt I Stary) in both Poland and Lithuania, as the political realities were drawing the two states closer together. Prior to that Sigismund had been a Duke of Silesia by the authority of his brother Ladislaus II of Bohemia, but like other Jagiellon rulers before him, he had not pursued the Polish Crown's claim to Silesia.

Culture in the Late Middle Ages

The culture of the 15th century Poland was mostly medieval. Under favorable social and economic conditions the crafts and industries in existence already in the preceding centuries became more highly developed, and their products were much more widespread. Paper production was one of the new industries, and printing developed during the last quarter of the century. In 1473 Kasper Straube produced in Kraków the first Latin print, in 1475 in Wrocław (Breslau) Kasper Elyan printed for the first time in Polish, and after 1490 from Schweipolt Fiol's shop in Kraków came the world's oldest prints in Cyrillic, namely Old Church Slavonic language religious texts.

Luxury items were in high demand among the increasingly prosperous nobility, and to a lesser degree among the wealthy town merchants. Brick and stone residential buildings became common, but only in cities. The mature Gothic style was represented not only in architecture, but also prominently in sacral wooden sculpture. The altar of Veit Stoss in St. Mary's Church in Kraków is one of the most magnificent in Europe art works of its kind.

The University of Kraków – Collegium Maius courtyard

The Kraków University, which stopped functioning after the death of Casimir the Great, was renewed and rejuvenated around 1400. Augmented by a theology department, the "academy" was supported and protected by Queen Jadwiga and the Jagiellonian dynasty members, which is reflected in its present name. Europe's oldest department of mathematics and astronomy was established in 1405. Among the university's prominent scholars were Stanisław of Skarbimierz, Paulus Vladimiri and Albert of Brudzewo, Copernicus' teacher.

The precursors of Polish humanism, John of Ludzisko and Gregory of Sanok, were professors at the university. Gregory's court was the site of an early literary society at Lwów (Lviv), after he had become the archbishop there. Scholarly thought elsewhere was represented by Jan Ostroróg, a political publicist and reformist, and Jan Długosz, a historian, whose Annals is the largest in Europe history work of his time and a fundamental source for history of medieval Poland. There were also active in Poland distinguished and influential foreign humanists. Filippo Buonaccorsi, a poet and diplomat, who arrived from Italy in 1468 and stayed in Poland until his death in 1496, established in Kraków another literary society. Known as Kallimach, he wrote the lives of Gregory of Sanok, Zbigniew Oleśnicki, and very likely that of Jan Długosz. He tutored and mentored the sons of Casimir IV and postulated unrestrained royal power. Conrad Celtes, a German humanist, organized in Kraków the first in this part of Europe humanist literary and scholarly association Sodalitas Litterarum Vistulana.

Early Modern Era (16th century)

Agriculture-based economic expansion

King Alexander Jagiellon with Chancellor Jan Łaski

The folwark, a serfdom based large-scale farm and agricultural business, was a dominant feature on Poland's economic landscape beginning in the late 15th century and for the next 300 years. This dependence on nobility-controlled agriculture diverged the ways of central-eastern Europe from those of the western part of the continent, where, in contrast, elements of capitalism and industrialization were developing to a much greater extent than in the East, with the attendant growth of the bourgeoisie class and its political influence. The combination of the 16th century agricultural trade boom in Europe, with the free or cheap peasant labor available, made during that period the folwark economy very profitable.

Alexander Jagiellon presiding over the Senate

The 16th century saw also further development of mining and metallurgy, and technical progress took place in various commercial applications. Great quantities of exported agricultural and forest products floated down the rivers and transported by land routes resulted in positive trade balance for Poland throughout the 16th century. Imports from the West included industrial and luxury products and fabrics.

Most of the grain exported was leaving Poland through Danzig (Gdańsk), which because of its location at the terminal point of the Vistula and its tributaries waterway and of its Baltic seaport trade role became the wealthiest, most highly developed, and most autonomous of the Polish cities. It was also by far the largest center of crafts and manufacturing. Other towns were negatively affected by Danzig's near-monopoly in foreign trade, but profitably participated in transit and export activities. The largest of them were Kraków (Cracow), Poznań, Lwów (Lviv), and Warszawa (Warsaw), and outside of the Crown, Breslau (Wrocław). Thorn (Toruń) and Elbing (Elbląg) were the main, after Danzig, cities in Royal Prussia.

Burghers and nobles

The Late-Gothic Altar of Veit Stoss was funded by the burghers of Kraków

During the 16th century, prosperous patrician families of merchants, bankers, or industrial investors, many of German origin, still conducted large-scale business operations in Europe or lent money to Polish noble interests, including the royal court. Some regions were relatively highly urbanized, for example in Greater Poland and Lesser Poland at the end of the 16th century 30% of the population lived in cities. 256 towns were founded, most in Red Ruthenia. The townspeople's upper layer was ethnically multinational and tended to be well-educated. Numerous burgher sons studied at the Academy of Kraków and at foreign universities; members of their group are among the finest contributors to the culture of Polish Renaissance. Unable to form their own nationwide political class, many, despite the legal obstacles, melted into the nobility.

The nobility or szlachta in Poland constituted a greater proportion (up to 10%) of the population, than in other European countries. In principle they were all equal and politically empowered, but some had no property and were not allowed to hold offices, or participate in sejms or sejmiks, the legislative bodies. Of the "landed" nobility some possessed a small patch of land which they tended themselves and lived like peasant families (mixed marriages gave some peasants one of the few possible paths to nobility), while the magnates owned dukedom-like networks of estates with several hundred towns and villages and many thousands of subjects. The 16th century Poland was a "republic of nobles", and it was the nobility's "middle class" that formed the leading component during the later Jagiellonian period and afterwards, but the magnates held the highest state and church offices. At that time szlachta in Poland and Lithuania was ethnically diversified and belonged to various religious denominations. During this period of tolerance such factors had little bearing on one's economic status or career potential. Jealous of their class privilege ("freedoms"), the Renaissance szlachta developed a sense of public service duties, educated their youth, took keen interest in current trends and affairs and traveled widely. While the Golden Age of Polish Culture adopted the western humanism and Renaissance patterns, the style of the nobles beginning in the second half of the century acquired a distinctly eastern flavor. Visiting foreigners often remarked on the splendor of the residencies and consumption-oriented lifestyle of wealthy Polish nobles.

Reformation

Sigismund I the Old

In a situation analogous with that of other European countries, the progressive internal decay of the Polish Church created conditions favorable for the dissemination of the Reformation ideas and currents. For example, there was a chasm between the lower clergy and the nobility-based Church hierarchy, which was quite laicized and preoccupied with temporal issues, such as power and wealth, often corrupt. The middle nobility, which had already been exposed to the Hussite reformist persuasion, increasingly looked at the Church's many privileges with envy and hostility.

The teachings of Martin Luther were accepted most readily in the regions with strong German connections: Silesia, Greater Poland, Pomerania and Prussia. In Danzig (Gdańsk) in 1525 a lower-class Lutheran social uprising took place, bloodily subdued by Sigismund I; after the reckoning he established a representation for the plebeian interests as a segment of the city government. Königsberg and the Duchy of Prussia under Albrecht Hohenzollern became a strong center of Protestant propaganda dissemination affecting all of northern Poland and Lithuania. Sigismund I quickly reacted against the "religious novelties", issuing his first related edict in 1520, banning any promotion of the Lutheran ideology, or even foreign trips to the Lutheran centers. Such attempted (poorly enforced) prohibitions continued until 1543.

Wawel Castle Renaissance courtyard

Sigismund's son Sigismund II Augustus (Zygmunt II August), a monarch of a much more tolerant attitude, guaranteed the freedom of the Lutheran religion practice in all of Royal Prussia by 1559. Besides Lutheranism, which, within the Polish Crown, ultimately found substantial following mainly in the cities of Royal Prussia and western Greater Poland, the teachings of the persecuted Anabaptists and Unitarians, and in Greater Poland the Czech Brothers, were met, at least among the szlachta, with a more sporadic response.

In Royal Prussia, 41% of the parishes were counted as Lutheran in the second half of the 16th century, but that percentage kept increasing. According to Kasper Cichocki, who wrote in the early 17th century, only remnants of Catholicism were left there in his time. Lutheranism was strongly dominant in Royal Prussia throughout the 17th century, with the exception of Warmia (Ermland).

Danzig (Gdańsk) Town Hall

Around 1570, of the at least 700 Protestant congregations in Poland-Lithuania, over 420 were Calvinist and over 140 Lutheran, with the latter including 30-40 ethnically Polish. Protestants encompassed approximately 1/2 of the magnate class, 1/4 of other nobility and townspeople, and 1/20 of the non-Orthodox peasantry. The bulk of the Polish-speaking population had remained Catholic, but the proportion of Catholics became significantly diminished within the upper social ranks.

Calvinism on the other hand, in mid 16th century gained many followers among both the szlachta and the magnates, especially in Lesser Poland and Lithuania. The Calvinists, who led by Jan Łaski were working on unification of the Protestant churches, proposed the establishment of a Polish national church, under which all Christian denominations, including Eastern Orthodox (very numerous in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Ukraine), would be united. After 1555 Sigismund II, who accepted their ideas, sent an envoy to the pope, but the papacy rejected the various Calvinist postulates. Łaski and several other Calvinist scholars published in 1563 the Bible of Brest, a complete Polish Bible translation from the original languages, an undertaking financed by Mikołaj Radziwiłł the Black. After 1563–1565 (the abolishment of state enforcement of the Church jurisdiction), full religious tolerance became the norm. The Polish Catholic Church emerged from this critical period weakened, but not badly damaged (the bulk of the Church property was preserved), which facilitated the later success of Counter-Reformation.

Poznań City Hall

Among the Calvinists, who also included the lower classes and their leaders, ministers of common background, disagreements soon developed, based on different views in the areas of religious and social doctrines. The official split took place in 1562, when two separate churches were officially established, the mainstream Calvinist, and the smaller, more reformist, known as the Polish Brethren or Arians. The adherents of the radical wing of the Polish Brethren promoted, often by way of personal example, the ideas of social justice. Many Arians (Piotr of Goniądz, Jan Niemojewski) were pacifists opposed to private property, serfdom, state authority and military service; through communal living some had implemented the ideas of shared usage of the land and other property. A major Polish Brethren congregation and center of activities was established in 1569 in Raków near Kielce, and lasted until 1638, when Counter-Reformation had it closed. The notable Sandomierz Agreement of 1570, an act of compromise and cooperation among several Polish Protestant denominations, excluded the Arians, whose more moderate, larger faction toward the end of the century gained the upper hand within the movement.

The act of the Warsaw Confederation, which took place during the convocation sejm of 1573, provided guarantees, at least for the nobility, of religious freedom and peace. It gave the Protestant denominations, including the Polish Brethren, formal rights for many decades to come. Uniquely in 16th-century Europe, it turned the Commonwealth, in the words of Cardinal Stanislaus Hosius, a Catholic reformer, into a "safe haven for heretics".

Culture of Polish Renaissance

Golden Age of Polish culture

Nicolaus Copernicus

The Polish "Golden Age", the period of the reigns of Sigismund I and Sigismund II, the last two Jagiellonian kings, or more generally the 16th century, is most often identified with the rise of the culture of Polish Renaissance. The cultural flowering had its material base in the prosperity of the elites, both the landed nobility and urban patriciate at such centers as Cracow and Danzig. As was the case with other European nations, the Renaissance inspiration came in the first place from Italy, a process accelerated to some degree by Sigismund I's marriage to Bona Sforza. Many Poles traveled to Italy to study and to learn its culture. As imitating Italian ways became very trendy (the royal courts of the two kings provided the leadership and example for everybody else), many Italian artists and thinkers were coming to Poland, some settling and working there for many years. While the pioneering Polish humanists, greatly influenced by Erasmus of Rotterdam, accomplished the preliminary assimilation of the antiquity culture, the generation that followed was able to put greater emphasis on the development of native elements, and because of its social diversity, advanced the process of national integration.

Literacy, education and patronage of intellectual endeavors

Bona Sforza, the educated and powerful queen, contributed to educational patronage

Beginning in 1473 in Cracow (Kraków), the printing business kept growing. By the turn of the 16th/17th century there were about 20 printing houses within the Commonwealth, 8 in Cracow, the rest mostly in Danzig (Gdańsk), Thorn (Toruń) and Zamość. The Academy of Kraków and Sigismund II possessed well-stocked libraries; smaller collections were increasingly common at noble courts, schools and townspeople's households. Illiteracy levels were falling, as by the end of the 16th century almost every parish ran a school.

The Lubrański Academy, an institution of higher learning, was established in Poznań in 1519. The Reformation resulted in the establishment of a number of gymnasiums, academically oriented secondary schools, some of international renown, as the Protestant denominations wanted to attract supporters by offering high quality education. The Catholic reaction was the creation of Jesuit colleges of comparable quality. The Kraków University in turn responded with humanist program gymnasiums of its own.

The university itself experienced a period of prominence at the turn of the 15th/16th century, when especially the mathematics, astronomy and geography faculties attracted numerous students from abroad. Latin, Greek, Hebrew and their literatures were likewise popular. By the mid 16th century the institution entered a crisis stage, and by the early 17th century regressed into Counter-reformational conformism. The Jesuits took advantage of the infighting and established in 1579 a university college in Vilnius, but their efforts aimed at taking over the Academy of Kraków were unsuccessful. Under the circumstances many elected to pursue their studies abroad.

Zygmunt I Stary, who built the presently existing Wawel Renaissance castle, and his son Sigismund II Augustus, supported intellectual and artistic activities and surrounded themselves with the creative elite. Their patronage example was followed by ecclesiastic and lay feudal lords, and by patricians in major towns.

Science

Marcin Kromer

Polish science reached its culmination in the first half of the 16th century. The medieval point of view was criticized, more rational explanations were attempted. Copernicus' De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, published in Nuremberg in 1543, shook up the traditional value system extended into an understanding of the physical universe, doing away with its Christianity-adopted Ptolemaic anthropocentric model and setting free the explosion of scientific inquiry. Generally the prominent scientists of the period resided in many different regions of the country, and increasingly, the majority were of urban, rather than noble origin.

Nicolaus Copernicus, a son of a Toruń trader from Kraków, made many contributions to science and the arts. His scientific creativity was inspired at the University of Kraków, at the institution's height; he also studied at Italian universities later. Copernicus wrote Latin poetry, developed an economic theory, functioned as a cleric-administrator, political activist in Prussian sejmiks, and led the defense of Olsztyn against the forces of Albrecht Hohenzollern. As an astronomer, he worked on his scientific theory for many years at Frombork, where he died.

Josephus Struthius became famous as a physician and medical researcher. Bernard Wapowski was a pioneer of Polish cartography. Maciej Miechowita, a rector at the Cracow Academy, published in 1517 Tractatus de duabus Sarmatiis, a treatise on the geography of the East, an area in which Polish investigators provided first-hand expertise for the rest of Europe.

The Counsellor by Goslicius in English

Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski was one of the greatest theorists of political thought in Renaissance Europe. His most famous work, On the Improvement of the Commonwealth, was published in Kraków in 1551. Modrzewski criticized the feudal societal relations and proposed broad realistic reforms. He postulated that all social classes should be subjected to the law to the same degree, and wanted to moderate the existing inequities. Modrzewski, an influential and often translated author, was a passionate proponent of peaceful resolution of international conflicts. Bishop Wawrzyniec Goślicki (Goslicius), who wrote and published in 1568 a study entitled De optimo senatore (The Counsellor in the 1598 English translation), was another popular and influential in the West political thinker.

Historian Marcin Kromer wrote De origine et rebus gestis Polonorum (On the origin and deeds of Poles) in 1555 and in 1577 Polonia, a treatise highly regarded in Europe. Marcin Bielski's Chronicle of the Whole World, a universal history, was written ca. 1550. The chronicle of Maciej Stryjkowski (1582) covered the history of Eastern Europe.

Literature

Modern Polish literature begins in the 16th century. At that time the Polish language, common to all educated groups, matured and penetrated all areas of public life, including municipal institutions, the legal code, the Church and other official uses, coexisting for a while with Latin. Klemens Janicki, one of the Renaissance Latin language poets, a laureate of a papal distinction, was of peasant origin. Another plebeian author, Biernat of Lublin, wrote his own version of Aesop's fables in Polish, permeated with his socially radical views.

Mikołaj Rej

A Literary Polish language breakthrough came under the influence of the Reformation with the writings of Mikołaj Rej. In his Brief Discourse, a satire published in 1543, he defends a serf from a priest and a noble, but in his later works he often celebrates the joys of the peaceful but privileged life of a country gentleman. Rej, whose legacy is his unbashful promotion of the Polish language, left a great variety of literary pieces. Łukasz Górnicki, an author and translator, perfected the Polish prose of the period. His contemporary and friend Jan Kochanowski became one of the greatest Polish poets of all time.

The Dismissal of the Greek Envoys by Jan Kochanowski (1578)

Kochanowski was born in 1530 into a prosperous noble family. In his youth he studied at the universities of Kraków, Königsberg and Padua and traveled extensively in Europe. He worked for a time as a royal secretary, and then settled in the village of Czarnolas, a part of his family inheritance. Kochanowski's multifaceted creative output is remarkable for both the depth of thoughts and feelings that he shares with the reader, and for its beauty and classic perfection of form. Among Kochanowski's best known works are bucolic Frascas (trifles), epic poetry, religious lyrics, drama-tragedy The Dismissal of the Greek Envoys, and the most highly regarded Threnodies or laments, written after the death of his young daughter.

The poet Mikołaj Sęp Szarzyński, an intellectually refined master of small forms, bridges the late Renaissance and early Baroque artistic periods.

Music

Following the European and Italian in particular musical trends, the Renaissance music was developing in Poland, centered around the royal court patronage and branching from there. Sigismund I kept from 1543 a permanent choir at the Wawel castle, while the Reformation brought large scale group Polish language church singing during the services. Jan of Lublin wrote a comprehensive tablature for the organ and other keyboard instruments. Among the composers, who often permeated their music with national and folk elements, were Wacław of Szamotuły, Mikołaj Gomółka, who wrote music to Kochanowski translated psalms, and Mikołaj Zieleński, who enriched the Polish music by adopting the Venetian School polyphonic style.

Architecture, sculpture and painting

Sigismund's Chapel of Wawel Cathedral

Architecture, sculpture and painting developed also under Italian influence from the beginning of the 16th century. A number of professionals from Tuscany arrived and worked as royal artists in Kraków. Francesco Fiorentino worked on the tomb of Jan Olbracht already from 1502, and then together with Bartolommeo Berrecci and Benedykt from Sandomierz rebuilt the royal castle, which was accomplished between 1507 and 1536. Berrecci also built Sigismund's Chapel at Wawel Cathedral. Polish magnates, Silesian Piast princes in Brzeg, and even Kraków merchants (by the mid 16th century their class economically gained strength nationwide) built or rebuilt their residencies to make them resemble the Wawel Castle. Kraków's Sukiennice and Poznań City Hall are among numerous buildings rebuilt in the Renaissance manner, but Gothic construction continued alongside for a number of decades.

Between 1580 and 1600 Jan Zamoyski commissioned the Venetian architect Bernardo Morando to build the city of Zamość. The town and its fortifications were designed to consistently implement the Renaissance and Mannerism aesthetic paradigms.

Tombstone sculpture, often inside churches, is richly represented on graves of clergy and lay dignitaries and other wealthy individuals. Jan Maria Padovano and Jan Michałowicz of Urzędów count among the prominent artists.

Painted illuminations in Balthasar Behem Codex are of exceptional quality, but draw their inspiration largely from Gothic art. Stanisław Samostrzelnik, a monk in the Cistercian monastery in Mogiła near Kraków, painted miniatures and polychromed wall frescos.

Republic of middle nobility; execution movement

Sigismund II Augustus, the last Jagiellonian king; his actions facilitated the Union of Lublin

The Polish political system in the 16th century was contested terrain as the middle gentry (szlachta) sought power. Kings Sigismund I the Old and Sigismund II Augustus manipulated political institutions to block the gentry. The kings used their appointment power and influence on the elections to the Sejm. They issued propaganda upholding the royal position and provided financing to favoured leaders of the gentry. Seldom did the kings resort to repression or violence. Compromises were reached so that in the second half of the 16th century—for the only time in Polish history—the "democracy of the gentry" was implemented.

During the reign of Sigismund I, szlachta in the lower chamber of general sejm (from 1493 a bicameral legislative body), initially decidedly outnumbered by their more privileged colleagues from the senate (which is what the appointed for life prelates and barons of the royal council were being called now), acquired a more numerous and fully elected representation. Sigismund however preferred to rule with the help of the magnates, pushing szlachta into the "opposition".

After the Nihil novi act of 1505, a collection of laws known as Łaski's Statutes was published in 1506 and distributed to Polish courts. The legal pronouncements, intended to facilitate the functioning of a uniform and centralized state, with ordinary szlachta privileges strongly protected, were frequently ignored by the kings, beginning with Sigismund I, and the upper nobility or church interests. This situation became the basis for the formation around 1520 of the szlachta's execution movement, for the complete codification and execution, or enforcement, of the laws.

Wawel Hill, the castle and the cathedral

In 1518 Sigismund I married Bona Sforza d'Aragona, a young, strong-minded Italian princess. Bona's sway over the king and the magnates, her efforts to strengthen the monarch's political position, financial situation, and especially the measures she took to advance her personal and dynastic interests, including the forced royal election of the minor Sigismund Augustus in 1529 and his premature coronation in 1530, increased the discontent among szlachta activists.

The opposition middle szlachta movement came up with a constructive reform program during the Kraków sejm of 1538/1539. Among the movement's demands were termination of the kings' practice of alienation of royal domain, giving or selling land estates to great lords at the monarch' discretion, and a ban on concurrent holding of multiple state offices by the same person, both legislated initially in 1504. Sigismund I's unwillingness to move toward the implementation of the reformers' goals negatively affected the country's financial and defensive capabilities.

The relationship with szlachta had only gotten worse during the early years of the reign of Sigismund II Augustus and remained bad until 1562. Sigismund Augustus' secret marriage with Barbara Radziwiłł in 1547, before his accession to the throne, was strongly opposed by his mother Bona and by the magnates of the Crown. Sigismund, who took over the reign after his father's death in 1548, overcame the resistance and had Barbara crowned in 1550; a few months later the new queen died. Bona, estranged from her son returned to Italy in 1556, where she died soon afterwards.

Jagiellon family portraits by Lucas Cranach the Younger

The Sejm, until 1573 summoned by the king at his discretion (for example when he needed funds to wage a war), composed of the two chambers presided over by the monarch, became in the course of the 16th century the main organ of the state power. The reform-minded execution movement had its chance to take on the magnates and the church hierarchy (and take steps to restrain their abuse of power and wealth) when Sigismund Augustus switched sides and lent them his support at the sejm of 1562. During this and several more sessions of parliament, within the next decade or so, the Reformation inspired szlachta was able to push through a variety of reforms, which resulted in a fiscally more sound, better governed, more centralized and territorially unified Polish state. Some of the changes were too modest, other had never become completely implemented (e. g. recovery of the usurped Crown land), but nevertheless for the time being the middle szlachta movement was victorious.

Mikołaj Sienicki, a Protestant activist, was a parliamentary leader of the execution movement and one of the organizers of the Warsaw Confederation.

Resources and strategic objectives

Royal Prussia shown in light pink, Ducal Prussia striped

Despite the favorable economic development, the military potential of 16th century Poland was modest in relation to the challenges and threats coming from several directions, which included the Ottoman Empire, the Teutonic state, the Habsburgs, and Muscovy. Given the declining military value and willingness of pospolite ruszenie, the bulk of the forces available consisted of professional and mercenary soldiers. Their number and provision depended on szlachta-approved funding (self-imposed taxation and other sources) and tended to be insufficient for any combination of adversaries. The quality of the forces and their command was good, as demonstrated by victories against a seemingly overwhelming enemy. The attainment of strategic objectives was supported by a well-developed service of knowledgeable diplomats and emissaries. Because of the limited resources at the state's disposal, the Jagiellonian Poland had to concentrate on the area most crucial for its security and economic interests, which was the strengthening of Poland's position along the Baltic coast.

Prussia; struggle for Baltic area domination

Further information: Polish–Teutonic War (1519–21)

Danzig (Gdańsk) around the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries; the medieval port crane on the right

The Peace of Thorn of 1466 reduced the Teutonic Knights, but brought no lasting solution to the problem they presented for Poland and their state avoided paying the prescribed tribute. The chronically difficult relations had gotten worse after the 1511 election of Albrecht as Grand Master of the Order. Faced with Albrecht's rearmament and hostile alliances, Poland waged a war in 1519; the war ended in 1521, when mediation by Charles V resulted in a truce. As a compromise move Albrecht, persuaded by Martin Luther, initiated a process of secularization of the Order and the establishment of a lay duchy of Prussia, as Poland's dependency, ruled by Albrecht and afterwards by his descendants. The terms of the proposed pact immediately improved Poland's Baltic region situation, and at that time also appeared to protect the country's long-term interests. The treaty was concluded in 1525 in Kraków; the remaining state of the Teutonic Knights (East Prussia centered on Königsberg) was converted into the Protestant (Lutheran) Duchy of Prussia under the King of Poland and the homage act of the new Prussian duke in Kraków followed.

Konstanty Ostrogski, the first Grand Hetman of Lithuania

In reality the House of Hohenzollern, of which Albrecht was a member, the ruling family of the Margraviate of Brandenburg, had been actively expanding its territorial influence; for example already in the 16th century in Farther Pomerania and Silesia. Motivated by a current political expediency, Sigismund Augustus in 1563 allowed the Brandenburg elector branch of the Hohenzollerns, excluded under the 1525 agreement, to inherit the Prussian fief rule. The decision, confirmed by the 1569 sejm, made the future union of Prussia with Brandenburg possible. Sigismind II, unlike his successors, was however careful to assert his supremacy. The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, ruled after 1572 by elective kings, was even less able to counteract the growing importance of the dynastically active Hohenzollerns.

In 1568 Sigismund Augustus, who had already embarked on a war fleet enlargement program, established the Maritime Commission. A conflict with the City of Gdańsk (Danzig), which felt that its monopolistic trade position was threatened, ensued. In 1569 Royal Prussia had its legal autonomy largely taken away, and in 1570 Poland's supremacy over Danzig and the Polish King's authority over the Baltic shipping trade were regulated and received statutory recognition (Karnkowski's Statutes).

Wars with Moscow

Further information: Muscovite–Lithuanian Wars

Battle of Orsha 1514

In the 16th century the Grand Duchy of Moscow continued activities aimed at unifying the old Rus' lands still under Lithuanian rule. The Grand Duchy of Lithuania had insufficient resources to counter Moscow's advances, already having to control the Rus' population within its borders and not being able to count on loyalty of Rus' feudal lords. As a result of the protracted war at the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries, Moscow acquired large tracts of territory east of the Dnieper River. Polish assistance and involvement were increasingly becoming a necessary component of the balance of power in the eastern reaches of the Lithuanian domain.

Under Vasili III Moscow fought a war with Lithuania and Poland between 1512 and 1522, during which in 1514 the Russians took Smolensk. That same year the Polish-Lithuanian rescue expedition fought the victorious Battle of Orsha under Hetman Konstanty Ostrogski and stopped the Duchy of Moscow's further advances. An armistice implemented in 1522 left Smolensk land and Severia in Russian hands. Another round of fighting took place during 1534–1537, when the Polish aid led by Hetman Jan Tarnowski made possible the taking of Gomel and fiercely defeated Starodub. New truce (Lithuania kept only Gomel), stabilization of the border and over two decades of peace followed.

The Jagiellons and the Habsburgs; Ottoman Empire expansion

Marcin Bielski's chronicle: Hetman Jan Tarnowski during the siege of Starodub (1535), where Tarnowski ordered the execution of 1400 Muscovite defenders-prisoners

In 1515, during a congress in Vienna, a dynastic succession arrangement was agreed to between Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor and the Jagiellon brothers, Vladislas II of Bohemia and Hungary and Sigismund I of Poland and Lithuania. It was supposed to end the Emperor's support for Poland's enemies, the Teutonic and Russian states, but after the election of Charles V, Maximilian's successor in 1519, the relations with Sigismund had worsened.

The Jagiellon rivalry with the House of Habsburg in central Europe was ultimately resolved to the Habsburgs' advantage. The decisive factor that damaged or weakened the monarchies of the last Jagiellons was the Ottoman Empire's Turkish expansion. Hungary's vulnerability greatly increased after Suleiman the Magnificent took the Belgrade fortress in 1521. To prevent Poland from extending military aid to Hungary, Suleiman had a Tatar-Turkish force raid southeastern Poland–Lithuania in 1524. The Hungarian army was defeated in 1526 at the Battle of Mohács, where the young Louis II Jagiellon, son of Vladislas II, was killed. Subsequently, after a period of internal strife and external intervention, Hungary was partitioned between the Habsburgs and the Ottomans.

The 1526 death of Janusz III of Masovia, the last of the Masovian Piast dukes line (a remnant of the fragmentation period divisions), enabled Sigismund I to finalize the incorporation of Masovia into the Polish Crown in 1529.

From the early 16th century the Pokuttya border region was contested by Poland and Moldavia (see Battle of Obertyn). A peace with Moldavia took effect in 1538 and Pokuttya remained Polish. An "eternal peace" with the Ottoman Empire was negotiated by Poland in 1533 to secure frontier areas. Moldavia had fallen under Turkish domination, but Polish-Lithuanian magnates remained actively involved there. Sigismund II Augustus even claimed "jurisdiction" and in 1569 accepted a formal, short-lived suzerainty over Moldavia.

Livonia; struggle for Baltic area domination

Further information: Livonian War

Poland and Lithuania in 1526

Because of its desire to control Livonian Baltic seaports, especially Riga, and other economic reasons, in the 16th century the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was becoming increasingly interested in extending its territorial rule to Livonia, a country, by the 1550s largely Lutheran, traditionally ruled by the Brothers of the Sword knightly order. This put Poland and Lithuania on a collision course with Moscow and other powers, which had also attempted expansion in that area.

Soon after the 1525 Kraków (Cracow) treaty, Albrecht (Albert) of Hohenzollern, seeking a dominant position for his brother Wilhelm, the Archbishop of Riga, planned a Polish–Lithuanian fief in Livonia. What happened instead was the establishment of a Livonian pro-Polish–Lithuanian party or faction. Internal fighting in Livonia took place when the Grand Master of the Brothers concluded in 1554 a treaty with Moscow, declaring his state's neutrality regarding the Russian–Lithuanian conflict. Supported by Albrecht and the magnates Sigismund II declared a war on the Order. Grand Master Wilhelm von Fürstenberg accepted the Polish–Lithuanian conditions without a fight, and according to the 1557 Poswol treaty, a military alliance obliged the Livonian state to support Lithuania against Moscow.

Livonia in 1534, before the Livonian War

Other powers aspiring to the Livonian Baltic access responded with partitioning of the Livonian state, which triggered the lengthy Livonian War, fought between 1558 and 1583. Ivan IV of Russia took Dorpat (Tartu) and Narva in 1558, and soon the Danes and Swedes had occupied other parts of the country. To protect the integrity of their country, the Livonians now sought a union with the Polish–Lithuanian state. Gotthard Kettler, the new Grand Master, met in Vilnius (Vilna, Wilno) with Sigismund Augustus in 1561 and declared Livonia a vassal state under the Polish King. The agreement of November 28 called for secularization of the Brothers of the Sword Order and incorporation of the newly established Duchy of Livonia into the Rzeczpospolita ("Republic") as an autonomous entity. Under the Union of Vilnius the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia was also created as a separate fief, to be ruled by Kettler. Sigismund II obliged himself to recover the parts of Livonia lost to Moscow and the Baltic powers, which had led to grueling wars with Russia (1558–1570 and 1577–1582) and heavy struggles having to do also with the fundamental issues of control of the Baltic trade and freedom of navigation.

The Baltic region policies of the last Jagiellon king and his advisors were the most mature of the 16th century Poland's strategic programs. The outcome of the efforts in that area was to a considerable extent successful for the Commonwealth. The conclusion of the above wars took place during the reign of King Stephen Báthory.

Poland and Lithuania in real union under Sigismund II

Further information: History of Lithuania

The burials of Sigismund I and Sigismund II inside Sigismund's Chapel

Sigismund II's childlessness added urgency to the idea of turning the personal union between Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania into a more permanent and tighter relationship; it was also a priority for the execution movement. Lithuania's laws were codified and reforms enacted in 1529, 1557, 1565–1566 and 1588, gradually making its social, legal and economic system similar to that of Poland, with the expanding role of the middle and lower nobility. Fighting wars with Moscow under Ivan IV and the threat perceived from that direction provided additional motivation for the real union for both Poland and Lithuania.

The process of negotiating the actual arrangements turned out to be difficult and lasted from 1563 to 1569, with the Lithuanian magnates, worried about losing their dominant position, being at times uncooperative. It took Sigismunt II's unilateral declaration of the incorporation into the Polish Crown of substantial disputed border regions, including most of Lithuanian Ukraine, to make the Lithuanian magnates rejoin the process, and participate in the swearing of the act of the Union of Lublin on July 1, 1569. Lithuania for the near future was becoming more secure on the eastern front. It's increasingly Polonized nobility made in the coming centuries great contributions to the Commonwealth's culture, but at the cost of Lithuanian national development.

The Lithuanian language survived as a peasant vernacular and also as a written language in religious use, from the publication of the Lithuanian Catechism by Martynas Mažvydas in 1547. The Ruthenian language was and remained in the Grand Duchy's official use even after the Union, until the takeover of Polish.

The Commonwealth: multicultural, magnate dominated

Conception of the Polish Crown of Stanisław Orzechowski, a szlachta ideologist. In 1564 Orzechowski wrote Quincunx, in which he expounded principles of a state identified with its nobility.

By the Union of Lublin a unified Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (Rzeczpospolita) was created, stretching from the Baltic Sea and the Carpathian mountains to present-day Belarus and western and central Ukraine (which earlier had been Kievan Rus' principalities). Within the new federation some degree of formal separateness of Poland and Lithuania was retained (distinct state offices, armies, treasuries and judicial systems), but the union became a multinational entity with a common monarch, parliament, monetary system and foreign-military policy, in which only the nobility enjoyed full citizenship rights. Moreover, the nobility's uppermost stratum was about to assume the dominant role in the Commonwealth, as magnate factions were acquiring the ability to manipulate and control the rest of szlachta to their clique's private advantage. This trend, facilitated further by the liberal settlement and land acquisition consequences of the union, was becoming apparent at the time of, or soon after the 1572 death of Sigismund Augustus, the last monarch of the Jagiellonian dynasty.

One of the most salient characteristics of the newly established Commonwealth was its multiethnicity, and accordingly diversity of religious faiths and denominations. Among the peoples represented were Poles (about 50% or less of the total population), Lithuanians, Latvians, Rus' people (corresponding to today's Belarusians, Ukrainians, Russians or their East Slavic ancestors), Germans, Estonians, Jews, Armenians, Tatars and Czechs, among others, for example smaller West European groups. As for the main social segments in the early 17th century, nearly 70% of the Commonwealth's population were peasants, over 20% residents of towns, and less than 10% nobles and clergy combined. The total population, estimated at 8–10 millions, kept growing dynamically until the middle of the century. The Slavic populations of the eastern lands, Rus' or Ruthenia, were solidly, except for the Polish colonizing nobility (and Polonized elements of local nobility), Eastern Orthodox, which portended future trouble for the Commonwealth.

Jewish settlement

Rzeczpospolita in 1569; the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, having lost lands to the Russian state and to Lithuania's partner Poland, is much smaller than a hundred years earlier

Poland had become the home to Europe's largest Jewish population, as royal edicts guaranteeing Jewish safety and religious freedom, issued during the 13th century (Bolesław the Pious, Statute of Kalisz of 1264), contrasted with bouts of persecution in Western Europe. This persecution intensified following the Black Death of 1348–1349, when some in the West blamed the outbreak of the plague on the Jews. As scapegoats were sought, the increased Jewish persecution led to pogroms and mass killings in a number of German cities, which caused an exodus of survivors heading east. Much of Poland was spared from the Black Death, and Jewish immigration brought their valuable contributions and abilities to the rising state. The number of Jews in Poland kept increasing throughout the Middle Ages; the population had reached about 30,000 toward the end of the 15th century, and, as refugees escaping further persecution elsewhere kept streaming in, 150,000 in the 16th century. A royal privilege issued in 1532 granted the Jews freedom to trade anywhere within the kingdom. Massacres and expulsions from many German states continued until 1552–1553. By the mid-16th century, 80% of the world's Jews lived and flourished in Poland and in Lithuania; most of western and central Europe was by that time closed to Jews. In Poland–Lithuania the Jews were increasingly finding employment as managers and intermediaries, facilitating the functioning of and collecting revenue in huge magnate-owned land estates, especially in the eastern borderlands, developing into an indispensable mercantile and administrative class. Despite the partial resettlement of Jews in Western Europe following the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648), a great majority of world Jewry had lived in Eastern Europe (in the Commonwealth and in the regions further east and south, where many migrated), until the 1940s.

See also

• History of Poland during the Piast dynasty
• History of Lithuania
• History of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (1569–1648)

Notes

a.^{^} This is true especially regarding legislative matters and legal framework. Despite the restrictions the nobility imposed on the monarchs, the Polish kings had never become figureheads. In practice they wielded considerable executive power, up to and including the last king, Stanisław August Poniatowski. Some were at times even accused of absolutist tendencies, and it may be for the lack of sufficiently strong personalities or favorable circumstances that none of the kings had succeeded in significant and lasting strengthening of the monarchy.

b.^{^} 13 in Greater Poland, 59 in Lesser Poland, 32 in Mazovia, and 153 in Red Ruthenia.

Further reading

• The Cambridge History of Poland (two vols., 1941–1950) online edition vol 1 to 1696
• Butterwick, Richard, ed. The Polish-Lithuanian Monarchy in European Context, c. 1500-1795. Palgrave, 2001. 249 pp. online edition
• Davies, Norman. Heart of Europe: A Short History of Poland. Oxford University Press, 1984.
• Davies, Norman. God's Playground: A History of Poland. 2 vol. Columbia U. Press, 1982.
• Pogonowski, Iwo Cyprian. Poland: A Historical Atlas. Hippocrene, 1987. 321 pp.
• Sanford, George. Historical Dictionary of Poland. Scarecrow Press, 2003. 291 pp.
• Stone, Daniel. The Polish-Lithuanian State, 1386-1795. U. of Washington Press, 2001.
• Zamoyski, Adam. The Polish Way. Hippocrene Books, 1987. 397 pp.