The Reformation in Poland

Chapter IV The Conflict Between the Polish Nobility and the Clergy: Its Economic Aspects

Besides the great wealth of the church as such, there existed a whole series of potent causes, all essentially economic in their nature, leading to a revolt from the established church and furthering the spread of religious reform.

The social classes in Poland affected by the Reformation were the townspeople and the szlachta or nobility. Of the two the most influential class as well as the most instrumental in the promotion of the religious reform movement was the nobility. The townspeople were unfortunately largely of German nationality, foreigners in a foreign land, and consequently without either social or political influence. The nobility, however, was both Polish and politically powerful. In the sixteenth century it constituted not only the Polish nation but also the Polish state. Hence, as in Germany the Reformation owed its firm foothold to the protection of the German princes, so in Poland it owed its spread to the protection of the Polish nobility, particularly the magnates.

The political foundation underlying the szlachta’s favorable attitude toward the Reformation, its open revolt from the established church, its bitter and determined conflict with the Roman hierarchy, and its enthusiastic support of the new religious movement consisted of a number of special fundamental rights and privileges guaranteed it by various royal charters. The first important charter was the Pact of Koszyce of 1374. By this pact, in exchange for its consent to extend the right of succession to the Polish throne to the daughters of Louis of Hungary, including even the youngest, Jadwiga, the Polish nobility as a class was guaranteed exemption from all public burdens except a nominal tax of two “grosze” per “łan kmiecy,” which in reality was paid by the peasantry rather than by the nobility, freedom from royal levies of special or extraordinary taxes, compensation for military services outside the country and damages for injuries or losses sustained in the course of such foreign campaigns.355 Moreover, royal appointments to high public offices of state in any part of the country were restricted by this pact to the native nobility therein resident to the exclusion of possible foreign favorites of the crown.356 Thus, by this pact the szlachta obtained a very important economic advantage, and secured itself as a class against arbitrary fiscal oppression or political discrimination by the king.

In 1422, forced by fiscal and judicial abuses and economic oppression, particularly by the forcible measures employed by the clergy in their collection of tithes from heretical and recalcitrant Hussite members of the nobility,357 the szlachta took advantage of a war exigency, and in the camp at Czerwińsk, Mazovia, on the eve of a military expedition against the Teutonic Knights, exacted another charter from the king, Wladislaus Jagiello, known as the Privilege of Czerwińsk. By this charter, among other things, the Polish nobility was guaranteed inviolability of its hereditary property rights against any arbitrary action either of the king or any of his official representatives. The king promised the nobility not to seize or to confiscate, nor to allow any of his officials to seize or to confiscate the hereditary property of any one of his subjects, whatever his rank or condition, without due process of law.358 This royal guaranty henceforth precluded any unfair oppressive exactions from the szlachta under threat of confiscation of property or any arbitrary interference with the property rights of any szlachcic on the part of either the king or his officials. That the exaction of this guaranty was a foresighted master stroke on the part of the Polish nobility is proved by the Edict of Wieluń, issued only two years later, which decreed the confiscation of property of heretics.359 Had it not been for the Privilege of Czerwieńsk, the Polish nobility would have been left wholly at the mercy of the clergy.

A few years later Wladislaus Jagiello, desirous to secure the Polish throne for his sons, born of his fourth marriage, sought to obtain their recognition as his successors by the Polish estates. The Polish nobility acceded to the wish of the king, but in consideration of this concession sought and obtained at Jedlnia in 1430 the famous charter generally known as the “Neminem captivabimus, nisi jure victum” privilege. This charter constituted the Polish “habeas corpus” act. According to its terms no nobleman could be arrested except upon the verdict of a court or when actually caught in the act of committing arson, murder, rape, or village plunder.360 By its provisions the personal liberties of the Polish nobility were both enlarged and more securely guarded. The two privileges, that of Czerwieńsk and that of Jedlnia, were of great importance and value to the Polish nobility; the former guaranteed the inviolability of its property, the latter of its persons.

The other two very important charters obtained by the Polish nobility were the Statutes of Nieszawa of 1454 and the “Nihil Novi” Constitution framed by the Diet of Radom in 1505. The distinguishing features of these two documents were matters of jurisdiction and legislation. By the first the szlachta freed itself from the jurisdiction of royal administrative officials. From now on it was subject to the jurisdiction of the starostas, the royal administrative and judicial officials, only in four kinds of cases, arson, murder, rape, and theft. In other cases it was subject to the jurisdiction of provincial courts, for which, according to the Statutes of Nieszawa, it secured the privilege to nominate in the event of vacancies four candidates for judge, assistant judge, and court clerk. From these nominees of the provincial szlachta the king selected one for the respective vacancy.361 In this way by its control of the provincial judiciary the szlachta assured for itself a fairer administration of justice. By the second it freed itself from arbitrary legislation. According to the Constitution of Radom the king was not permitted to make any new laws without the common consent of the senate and the representatives of the szlachta.362 By this constitutional provision the rank and file of the nobility represented in the Chamber of Deputies came now into full control of legislation, and became masters of their own destinies.

By these charters the Polish nobility was guaranteed the most important fundamental rights and liberties of free citizens, freedom from taxation without its consent, security of person and of property, fair administration of justice, and immunity from arbitrary royal decrees jeopardizing its fundamental rights. Protected by these guaranties the Polish nobility was free to assume and to maintain any attitude it pleased toward the Reformation movement. It could with a reasonable degree of safety defy the king and Pope alike. This is what helps us to understand the spread of the Reformation in Poland in the face of numerous royal edicts against heresy and heretics, with their extremely severe penalties of exile, confiscation of property, infamy, and even death.

The economic basis of the ecclesiastical revolt of the Polish nobility, and a most powerful motive therefor, was created by the commercial and industrial transformation of Poland in the sixteenth century. The chief causes leading thereto were three significant historical events, all happening during the second half of the fifteenth century; namely, the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453, the discovery of America by Columbus in 1492, and Poland’s final complete triumph over the Order of the Teutonic Knights, sealed by the Peace of Thorn in 1466. The first closed the old paths of commerce with the Levant and the Orient; the second opened up new trade routes and new markets to the West; the third added West Prussia with the city of Danzig to Poland, and gave that country control of the lower course of the Vistula River and free access to the sea.

Owing to the first two historical events, the commercial centre of Europe shifted from the coasts of the Mediterranean to the coasts of the Atlantic and the Baltic, and the countries lying along these coasts profited by this change.363 The cities of Antwerp, Bruges, Amsterdam, and Danzig became great emporia of Northwestern Europe. Toward the close of the fifteenth and during the sixteenth centuries the commerce of the Baltic turned out to be the hub of European commerce with the port of Danzig as its centre. From 1466 on the commerce of that city grew steadily. In 1428 the number of ships that arrived in Danzig was 110. In the years 1422, 1429, 1430, and 1432 flotillas of 70, 61, 40, and 59 ships laden with corn sailed from its port. In 1474, 1475, and 1476 the ships arriving in Danzig numbered 403, 525, and 634 respectively. Again, in 1490, 1491, and 1492 the number of ships sailing from Danzig was 720, 607, and 562 for the respective years.364

The main articles of its import were cloth from the Netherlands, England, and Scotland; linen from Scotland; salt from France, Germany, England, and the Netherlands; horses from southern Sweden, Finland, and the islands of Oeland, Gottland, and Bornholm; iron from Sweden; and wines, beer, and hops, fish, and southern fruits and vegetables from the South of Europe.365 The principal articles of its export were agricultural and forest products, wheat, rye, barley, leguminous vegetables, lumber, ashes, pitch, and tar. The chief producer of its exports as well as the chief consumer of its imports was Poland.366 Toward the close of the fifteenth and throughout the sixteenth century that country was the granary of Southern and Western Europe. Its grain was in great demand in cities of Italy, Portugal, and Spain as well as in the markets of Holland, Scandinavia, France, and Scotland. In 1527 the Senate of Venice voted a premium on grain imported from Poland, and later in the second half of the sixteenth century a number of Italian rulers and the Pope himself addressed urgent requests to the city of Danzig for grain shipments.367 Its lumber and forest products were used by Holland, England, and Scotland for ship-building purposes.368

The annexation of West Prussia with the city of Danzig by the Treaty of Thorn, was, therefore, a very significant and happy event as regards the commercial and economic development of Poland. The place she had lost in the commerce of the East as a result of the fall of Constantinople into the hands of the Turks she now regained on the Baltic. This event enabled her to participate in the new world commerce by opening up to her a new unobstructed way to new and greater world markets. The change wrought was not only in the direction, but also in the nature and the volume of her commerce. The old eastern commerce was mainly transit commerce; its principal beneficiaries were the townspeople of the Polish cities. The new commerce assumed the form of export and import commerce; and its chief beneficiaries turned out to be the Polish nobles as the producers of export commodities.369

This change in commercial routes and in the nature and volume of the new commerce exerted a profound influence on Poland’s economic and social conditions. The great demand for grain in Western Europe and Poland’s new and easy access to world markets led to a revival of Polish agriculture, resulting in a more intensive cultivation of the soil, increasing exports of agricultural products, growing prosperity, and in new deepening interest on the part of the Polish nobility in agriculture rather than in war. Thus, while Western Europe was rapidly passing from an agricultural to an industrial stage of economic development, Poland after the middle of the fifteenth century became transformed into an intensely agricultural country, growing and exporting grain by way of the Vistula and the Baltic to meet the demand of western markets.370

To facilitate the new commerce all hitherto existing trade restrictions and barriers were removed, tolls on products transported either by water or by land were abolished, and commerce was given free movement. By a statute of Casimir Jagiello of the year 1447 the principal navigable rivers of Poland were opened to unobstructed water transportation, the public good and abundance of necessary commodities being now regarded as more important than fishing rights. At the same time all internal tolls were annulled and abolished and their collection prohibited.371 The new regulations with their penalties for their transgressors were renewed and reaffirmed in the reign of John Albert in 1496.372 And since there were some who disregarded these statutory provisions, as for instance the burghers of Thorn, John Albert promised to exercise special vigilance in their enforcement in order that water transportation to Danzig might be free and safe.373 Nevertheless, in spite of these laws, there still were complaints in the Diet of 1538 against the collection of transport tolls by private individuals. In consequence of these all privileges granted private individuals and towns to levy and collect road and bridge tolls, with the exception of such as were necessary for the convenience of the travelling public, were abrogated altogether.374 Due to the removal of all commercial barriers and obstructions and a good and convenient channel of export, such as the Vistula was, Poland’s commerce grew by leaps and bounds, bringing unprecedented prosperity to the country.

To meet somewhat adequately the demands of trade and at the same time to take advantage of the unusual opportunities for gain and enrichment, the Polish landowners turned to agriculture in dead earnest. This caused a change in the method of agriculture and created a great demand for more land and for more labor. Intensive agriculture and large scale production of agricultural products became the rule of the day. From the middle of the fifteenth century on through the sixteenth century the demesne estates of the Polish nobles and of the clergy were in process of enlargement by various methods. Waste and fallow lands were brought under cultivation, swamps were drained and made productive, and forests were cleared and the clearings were converted into fertile farms.375 Expropriation of village mayorships was another method by which the demesne estates were being enlarged. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries Polish princes, and following their example, the magnates and the clergy, in order to encourage colonization, offered special inducements to German colonizing entrepreneurs by allowing them for their services a certain amount of land free of charge and of all public burdens, and by granting them special rights and privileges, which placed them practically on an equal footing with the Polish nobility. These mayorships with their rights and privileges were hereditary. By a statute of 1423, however, the Polish landlords were given the right to buy out these village mayorships from their owners.376 The steps necessary to be taken were to summon such a village mayor before a “judicium terrestre,” and to notify him of the intention of the lord of the manor to expropriate him. To be sure, the statute declared that this procedure was to be applied only against useless or rebellious mayors; but there was nothing easier to prove than the rebelliousness of a village mayor whom the lord of the manor wanted to expropriate. This method of enlarging the demesne estates was profitable to the lords in more ways than one. It transferred to the seigniorial reserve and its lord not only the land of the expropriated village mayor or mayors, but also the labor, the feudal dues, and all the rights and privileges which the village mayor or mayors formerly enjoyed.377 This practice lasted from the middle of the fifteenth to the middle of the sixteenth century, and was resorted to by the Polish clergy as well as by the Polish nobility.378

Still another method of increasing the demesne estates of the lords was by incorporating into the demesne estate temporarily vacant peasant leaseholds. This practice became very common after the middle of the fifteenth century. Owing to the depreciation of money values and the rise of prices, especially for agricultural products, lands leased to peasants at a certain fixed money rental were not very profitable. The lands of the manorial estate cultivated by the lord directly by forced labor were yielding far more alluring returns. Hence, it came about that whenever a peasant left his lot, the lord of the manor, instead of settling it by leasing it out to another peasant family, simply annexed it to his seigniorial reserve and cultivated it by forced labor. This practice proved so profitable that the lords began gradually to resort to all sorts of oppressive methods for the purpose of driving the tenant peasants away from their leaseholds, so that they could then declare the deserted leaseholds as vacant, and annex them to their demesne estates. There were also instances of unceremonious transfers of peasant families to the manors and of straightforward seizures of their leaseholds. This was frequently done in case a peasant’s house burned down. Instead of rebuilding it, the lord preferred to show his hospitality by transfering the peasant’s family to the manor, where they became his servants.379 The incorporation of deserted peasant lots into the lord’s private domain was especially tempting inasmuch as such “deserted” or “vacant” peasant lots were free from the “poradlne” or “łanowe,” a tax of two “grosze” paid by the nobility into the royal treasury.380

Land ownership was looked upon as a special privilege of the Polish nobility. The szlachta, therefore, strove with determination toward its complete monopolization and toward the monopolization of agricultural production.381 Its next step was to exclude the townspeople from land ownership, to prohibit the clergy further to enlarge their landed estates, and to restrict access to all the higher ecclesiastical offices with their rich benefices to itself and its sons. To that end it employed legislative means. By the Constitution of 1496 the Polish nobility excluded the townspeople together with the peasantry from owning any landed estates and from access to any high offices in the church. According to the provisions of that document people of plebeian rank could neither buy new landed estates, nor continue to hold those they were already in possession of. They were called upon to dispose of their lands as speedily as convenient under penalty of being deprived of them.382 In like manner they were excluded also from the higher appointments in the church. Lured by the wealth connected with these appointments, the Polish nobility by law restricted eligibility to them to its own class.383 The restrictions regarding ecclesiastical appointments were reaffirmed by the Constitution of 1505, and violations of them were to be punished by perpetual exile and confiscation of property.384 These restrictions, however, were frequently disregarded and violated. Foreigners and plebeians in favor at the papal court succeeded in getting cathedral appointments and appointments to other high church offices and lucrative benefices. Against these flagrant violations of the law the szlachta rose in protest at the Diet of 1532, demanding enforcement of the statutes of 1496 and 1505 and punishment not only of those who contrary to law secured higher ecclesiastical appointments, but also of those who helped them to get these appointments.385 But these protests and the new constitutional provisions seemed to remain without effect, for in 1533 the szlachta of Great Poland presented the king with a memorial, protesting again against appointments of foreigners and plebeians to cathedral churches. The king in order to pacify the szlachta, issued a new decree, reemphasizing the fact that foreigners and plebeians were excluded from all higher ecclesiastical benefices under penalty of banishment and confiscation of property.386 However, it seems that the king himself did not conform to law; for in 1534 the szlachta presented a petition to him, requesting him to have regard for his own subjects, their laws and customs, to treat them with greater consideration than foreigners and plebeians, and not to appoint the latter to any high ecclesiastical offices or as his secretaries.387 The continued disregard and violations of these constitutional restrictions angered the szlachta, and stirred it up to a growing and more determined opposition not only to the clergy, but also to Rome and the Roman Church at large, driving it more and more into the enemy’s camp, the Reformation. To add fuel to the fire, the king, pressed by the Roman clergy,388 issued February 4, 1535, a severe edict against heretical doctrines and books, the attendance of the Polish youth at Wittenberg or any other place infected with heresy, and ordered any such students to return home under penalty of deprivation of all honors and of perpetual exile.389 The result was that at the following Diet, held the same year, the szlachta directed a strong attack upon the class privileges of the clergy, and actually succeeded in having the Diet pass three measures relative to the problem of “the execution of laws,” which threatened the very foundation of the church’s rights and privileges. These measures called upon all churches and monastic institutions to present at the next Diet their charters for examination, the purpose being to annul all such rights and privileges of the church as were contrary to the principles of public law and welfare.390 The sessions of the Diet were very stormy, and the property of the clergy, together with their privileges, was the object of contention. In 1533, Bishop Chojeński wrote to Archbishop Krzycki, primate of Poland, as follows:

I exceedingly regret the way the Diet dissolved, especially when I reflect and see where it all tends and to what consequences such beginnings are apt to lead. Would that it might not result in destruction of our clerical estate! For we see now the most arrogant and audacious people, to whose insatiable passions there is nothing sacred or inviolable, who draw inspiration and power from their wilfulness and impunity, lie in wait for the church’s property. It is the duty of your Reverence, who are the head and primate of our clerical estate in these parts of ours, to watch diligently that their impious purposes may not be realized in our times at least.391

When it became evident that the king did not intend to carry out the wishes of the Diet of 1535, the szlachta of Great Poland instructed its deputies to the Diet of 1536-1537 to insist on “the execution of laws,” which included the matter of the church’s privileges. At this Diet the Chamber of Deputies raised, therefore, most violent protests against the abuses described, and vigorously demanded conformity to law and restoration of all illegally acquired benefices and church property. At the same time the Chamber demanded that henceforth the king appoint to abbacies and other lucrative church benefices only native Poles of noble birth, or plebeians of Polish nationality in the event that there are not enough candidates of noble birth to fill vacancies. The leaders in this movement were Raphael Leszczyński, Stanislaus Myszkowski, Nicholas Krzycki, and John Sierakowski, who later on became well-known champions of the Reformation movement.392 Moreover, in 1538 the Diet passed a law, according to which anyone receiving anything contrary to statutory enactments by courting the favor of the Vatican was thereby ipso facto proscribed and his possessions were confiscated. By the same law all church dignitaries residing in Rome away from their appointments were recalled, and if they failed to return to the country within a specified time, they were to be deprived of their offices and banished, and were not to be permitted to enter the country.393

But high ecclesiastical offices richly endowed were after all limited in number. If the Polish nobility was to find larger access to the landed property of the church, it had to get to it in other ways, which it did. If the secular nobles were keen in buying up village mayorships, so were the Polish clergy. In fact, they were in possession of more mayorships than the secular nobles.394 Then, too, their landed estates were further augmented by bequests of pious persons. These things were a thorn in the flesh to the Polish nobility. It sought ways and means of preventing this constant increase of church property. As early as 1510 testamentary bequests of real estate property to the church were prohibited by statutory enactment.395 In 1534 the szlachta at its provincial diets unanimously demanded that the General Diet restrain the clergy from buying up village mayorships, with the result that in the end a law was enacted prohibiting all transfers of estates with nobility rights and privileges to the clergy whether by gift, sale, or any other method.396 The stormy Diet of 1536-1537 went still further, demanding the secularization of all ecclesiastical estates and the sale to the szlachta of all the newly acquired lands of the clergy.397 Nor did the nobles stop at mere demands and legislative enactments; occasionally they took matters directly into their hands. For instance, whenever and wherever there was an opportunity to seize the land of a parish priest or a prebendary, the nobles were quite ready to take advantage of it. In the sixteenth century, influenced and encouraged by the Reformation movement, the Polish nobles did not hesitate to resort to that method of dealing with ecclesiastical property, and of thus enlarging their own demesne estates.398

Moreover, the revival of agriculture created a demand not only for more land, but also for more labor, and cheap labor. We have already noted that farming by tenant peasants was not any more profitable to the landlords in the sixteenth century, and that there was a strong tendency to annex the peasant leaseholds to the demesne estates. But as the demesne estates increased in size the labor problem grew more acute every day. To solve it, the noble landlords began to change the status of the peasants by legislation. Thus former free peasants became gradually, as a result of a series of legislative enactments, glebae adscripti. They were not any longer free to leave their masters at will; and if they did, their masters had the right to demand their return, or to pursue them and bring them back.399 Of a family of peasant children, only one might leave the estate on which he was born, and go to the city into service, or for the purpose of study or of learning a trade.400 An only child was forbidden to leave the land; he had to pass into the serfdom of his parents.401 And if a peasant youth escaped, he was to be restored to his master under penalty of forty marks.402 Not only were the Polish peasants bound to the soil in the sixteenth century, they were now also compelled to do forced labor on their masters’ estates. In 1477 the provincial diet of “Ziemia chełmska” established one day a week of forced peasant labor on the estate of the lord. In 1520 the General Diets of Thorn and Bydgoszcz extended this local provision to the peasants on all the manors in the country.403 Thus what had hitherto been a matter of private arrangement was now made a statutory and universal obligation. And gradually as time went on the number of forced labor was increased to two days a week and more.404 Worst of all, under the influence of Roman law, which recognized only masters and slaves, the Polish peasants lost also their standing before the law, and were subjected wholly to the jurisdiction of their lords.405 This removed the last vestige of the peasants’ personal rights, and made them practically the property of the aristocratic landlords.

Besides monopolizing agricultural production, the Polish nobles obtained exemption from export and import duties on all products raised on their own estates for export and on all goods imported for their own use and not for trade.406 By this stroke they secured a monopoly advantage in trade also, and became the chief beneficiaries of all its benefits to the detriment and destruction of the Polish town population.

The changes in Poland’s commerce and agriculture in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries had a very important bearing on the country’s problems of defense and finance. They disqualified the Polish nobility for warfare, and they undermined the revenues of the state. The szlachta, settled on the land, grew more attached to the soil and to the life of country gentlemen than to the camp and the discomforts of military service. Stimulated by the new commercial opportunities and the prospect for gain and enrichment, it naturally became more interested in agriculture and in exports of its agricultural products than in warfare and military expeditions. The rewards of agriculture and of commerce were greater, more certain, less hazardous, and consequently more alluring than those of war. Moreover, the changes in warfare, resulting from the invention of gunpowder, demanded the employment of new methods in the conduct of war, called for more costly equipment, which the warriors had to provide themselves at their own expense, and were fraught with greater perils to life. Naturally, therefore, the nobility grew reluctant to leave the soil, and to engage in war; and when actually called out in emergency in “pospolite ruszenie” it was far more interested in political than in military maneuvers, in extracting new privileges from the king than in vanquishing the enemy. Whether as a defensive or as an offensive force the “pospolite ruszenie” became now both physically inadequate and temperamentally unfit for war. Yet the country’s wars with the Teutonic Knights, Russia, Moldavia, Courland, and the city of Danzig, and its constant menace of Tartar invasion called for a strong and ever-ready military force to repel aggression, subdue rebellion, and to protect the borders in order to guard the country’s safety and to maintain its integrity and prestige.

These conditions created the necessity of hiring mercenaries. But mercenaries had to be paid. This called for more state funds, which, however, were very hard to raise. The old revenues, which even under ordinary conditions would have been inadequate for the new needs, were rendered all the more inadequate by the fact that their sources instead of being increased were actually diminished. This was due to a number of causes. The lavish generosity of the Polish kings, particularly the Jagiellos, greatly reduced the royal domain and the royal income therefrom. Exemption of the nobility by the Pact of Koszyce (1374) from all taxation except two grosze per łan kmiecy and by the Constitution of 1496 from all export and import duties, and of the clergy from all public burdens and responsibilities, contributed to the depletion of the royal treasury and to the weakening of the country’s defense. This evil was still further accentuated by the processes of annexing “vacant” peasant leaseholds to the demesne estates and of buying up of village mayorships by the clergy. The first withdrew the annexed peasant lands from taxation;407 the second rendered the mayorships free from participation in the country’s defense. Out of a total number of 14,000 village mayorships, which had in the past participated in the “pospolite ruszenie,” only 2,000 still answered the call to arms by 1539, according to a complaint of the deputies at the Diet of Cracow of that year.408 These things combined to impoverish the royal treasury, to put the king in constant financial straits, and to jeopardize the peace and security of the country.

To eliminate these difficulties and to provide adequate defense for the country, special contributions or taxes had to be voted from time to time. The demand for these special contributions grew greater and more frequent as time went on. With every year the nobility felt the burden of defense more keenly. It looked around for help and for new sources of revenue. These were by no means hard to find. The wealth and resources of the clergy presented an excellent source of defensive strength. The szlachta began, therefore, to demand the participation of the clergy in the responsibilities and burdens of public life and of the country’s defense. This resulted in a sharp conflict between the clergy and the Polish nobility, a conflict which lasted for two centuries and which found expression in the fifteenth century in the Hussite movement and in the sixteenth in the Reformation.

The Polish clergy’s privileged character respecting their participation in public responsibilities and burdens constituted the most sensitive point of difference between the Polish szlachta and the Polish Roman Catholic clergy.409 According to Casimir’s Code the duty of participation in the country’s defense rested upon all hereditary estates of the Polish knighthood, regardless of the fact as to whether any of their owners happened to belong at a particular time to the ranks of the clergy or not.410 Moreover, it was very early established that lands newly acquired by the church were subject to military service. A statute of 1437 provided that all church lands acquired by purchase within the last forty years and those that might be thus acquired in the future were required to render military service.411 But throughout the fifteenth century the owners of these lands were clever and successful enough in evading these provisions and in maintaining the principle of their freedom from participation in the country’s defense. In 1506 at the Diet of Lublin they even succeeded in securing royal sanction of their freedom from rendering military service due from these lands. Gradually, contrary to the law of Casimir the Great, they extended this principle of their exemption from military service even to their hereditary lands and to village mayorships purchased by them.412

Naturally, the Polish szlachta rose in arms. It demanded that the mayors of ecclesiastical villages render military service as did the mayors of secular villages; that if the clergy objected, they should produce their privileges exempting the mayors of their villages from that public duty; that the Diet should prohibit the clergy from buying village mayorships; that all newly acquired ecclesiastical lands should be sold to the nobility, which was bearing the burden of public defense; that the clergy be placed on the same footing with the secular nobility in respect of participation in public defense; that their lands be secularized and the income from them be used for purposes of public defense; and that the clergy assume their fair share of special taxes levied by the diets. To be sure, all these demands were not made at once; but they were all made with varying insistence in the course of the first three-quarters of the sixteenth century.

According to a statute of Casimir the Great of the year 1347 the mayors of ecclesiastical villages as well as the mayors of secular villages were required to participate in military expeditions.413 This obligation was reaffirmed by the Constitution of 1538,414 and again in 1550.415 But, as we have already noted, the clergy succeeded in evading these statutory provisions not only throughout the fifteenth, but also in the sixteenth century. It is not strange, therefore, to find that as the burden of defense was increasing in weight the Polish nobility repeatedly demanded that the mayors of ecclesiastical villages take part in the country’s defense in compliance with the law. The first demand of this nature in the sixteenth century was made as early as 1510; then we find it repeated at the Diet of 1536-1537; and again in 1563. In 1510 the king referred the question at issue to the provincial synod for review, and the synod was to report on it at a subsequent general diet.416 But the matter was evidently laid aside and remained so as long as it was possible to keep it from coming to the front again; for when it was brought up at the Diet of 1536-1537, it was again treated in a similar manner. The bishops agreed to comply with the law, provided it was proved to them that the mayors of their villages were subject to military service. Their special privileges, which they claimed to possess, were to be examined at the following synod, and then the matter was to be reported on at the general diet.417 Presumably the matter stopped there as before; for at the Diet of 1558-1559 the Chamber of Deputies raised the old question again, and demanded of the bishops the presentation of their special privileges exempting the mayors of ecclesiastical villages from military service. But even then the clergy did not produce this documentary evidence until at the Diet of 1563; and when actually produced, it was found wanting, owing to its indefiniteness.418

The stubborn opposition of the Polish hierarchy to share in the burden of defense in this mild form caused the Polish nobility to stiffen its demands. Since the Polish bishops so strenuously objected to the participation of the mayors of ecclesiastical villages in the pospolite ruszenie, the szlachta came forward at the Diet of Thorn in 1520 with the demand that the clergy as a class be put on the same level as the secular nobility in regard to military service.419 All the clergy in possession of landed estates were to participate in the pospolite ruszenie along with the szlachta. This demand was renewed and firmly insisted upon at a local diet of the nobility of Great Poland at Kolo in 1533, at the General Diet of 1535,420 and even as late as 1562 at the Diet of Piotrków.421 This summary demand on the part of the Polish nobility that the clergy as a landowning class share equally with the szlachta the burden of defense startled the clergy, and finally induced them to present their documentary privileges, on which they based their claim of exemption from the burden of defense at the subsequent Diet of Piotrków, which met in the fall of 1563. On examination these documents were found to be anything but explicit and clear; yet the nobility had relented by this time, and ceased pressing this particular demand any further.422

Owing to this stubborn opposition on the part of the clergy to their personal participation in military service and to that of the bailiffs of ecclesiastical villages as well, the Polish nobility turned its attack now directly upon the landed property and the incomes of the clergy. In 1534 and in 1535 it vehemently protested against the purchases of village bailiwicks by the clergy. In 1536-1537, at the Diet of Piotrków, it went still further, and urgently demanded the secularization of all ecclesiastical property. As a result of this determined stand, a plan was actually agreed upon between the Chamber of Deputies and the secular members of the Senate for partial secularization of church lands. According to this plan all ecclesiastical lands acquired by the clergy whether by gift or by purchase since Louis the Great, 1370-1382, were to be sold to the nobility.423 The demand for the secularization of ecclesiastical estates was first made in the first half of the fifteenth century, then in 1524, with increasing vigor and insistence at the Diet of Piotrków in 1536-1537, and again in 1576.424 How determined the Polish nobility was to get hold of the property of the clergy may be seen from the fact that in 1539, when the old king, Sigismund I, was critically ill, a conspiracy was actually formed, the purpose of which was not to recognize Sigismund Augustus in the event of his father’s death until he agreed to and sanctioned the confiscation of one-third of the church lands for purposes of national defense.425 The leaders in this conspiracy, as well as in the rebellion of 1537, were Martin and Peter Zborowski, ardent advocates of the Reformation after 1550.

Nor were the incomes of the clergy to escape the Polish nobility’s attack. Whenever the country was in financial straits, the nobility in a general diet assembled voted special taxes to meet special emergencies. The clergy, however, were not liable to these special taxes voted by the diets. They claimed exemption from them. Yet they did come forward in each emergency with a voluntary contribution, known as “subsidium charitativum.” This was based on a general estimate of the clergy’s general income. As this estimate usually constituted only one-third and frequently one-eighth of the real income of the clergy, their voluntary contributions based on such estimates were obviously far below their ability to pay. Manifestly this was unfair and unjust to the nobility. It, therefore, demanded that the clergy pay a contribution based on an evaluation of their specific sources of revenue, such as their estates, their tithes, and other sources of income.426

To this demand of the nobility the clergy were most decidedly opposed. At the same time they were not a little apprehensive that it might result in consequences unfavorable to them. To safeguard themselves, they voted a liberal contribution of 40,000 florins in 1511 for the purpose of redemption of certain royal lands in Red Russia; and in exchange for this contribution they exacted from the king a solemn pledge that henceforth they would be free from military obligations and from all other burdens, with the exception of the customary subsidium charitativum, based on an evaluation of their general income, in cases of a pospolite ruszenie. A written document confirming the pledge of 1511 was issued to the clergy by the king, December 10, 1515.427 This furnished the clergy a certain legal basis for their opposition to the nobility’s demands. When, therefore, the Diets of 1525 and 1527 imposed a tax on the specific sources of the clergy’s income, the clergy at their Synod of Łęczyce in 1527, owing to a threatening Tartar invasion, again voted a voluntary contribution to the country’s needs, but flatly refused to be taxed by the diets.428

But if the clergy were stubborn in their resistence to taxation by the diets, so were the diets in their insistence on such taxation of clerical property. At the Diet of 1525 a revaluation of ecclesiastical property was proposed. The bishops opposed this course resolutely, fearing that a precedent might be established for the diet to tax their tithes. Their fear was not groundless. In 1529 at the Diet of Warsaw the deputies refused to take up the business of the diet until the bishops declared what percentage of their tithes they would give as a contribution to the defense of the country. The bishops strenuously objected on the ground that the nobles did not tax their own incomes but insisted on taxing those of the clergy. The conflict reached a deadlock, and finally the whole question was referred to the king. When at the subsequent diet, called for November 11, 1530, at Piotrków, the Chamber of Deputies moved to impose a tax on the tithes of the clergy, its attempt encountered a determined opposition, not only on the part of the clergy, but also on the part of the king. In consequence of this combined clerical and royal opposition the Chamber developed an equally solid front against the immunities of the church, and demanded the passage of a law taxing the clergy in proportion to the real value of all their property. In case the clergy refused to comply, the deputies threatened to suspend all payments of tithes, and to put the proposed law through and in force at the very next pospolite ruszenie of the szlachta.429

Nor was this an empty threat. For more than a century and a half, ever since the reign of Casimir the Great (1333-1370), the Polish nobility had chafed under the burden of church tithes. In its relation to the king it was free from all special compulsory taxes for the benefit of the royal treasury, save a nominal tax of two grosze per łan kmiecy, paid in reality by the tenant peasants rather than by the landlords themselves. But in its relation to the church it was not as free. The burden of church tithes rested upon it. Originally voluntary, it became compulsory in the first half of the fifteenth century; and it was a burden that could not be shifted. It was, also, a burden which the clergy never failed to exact.

Conflicts over the payment of tithes were, therefore, frequent. They occurred as early as the reign of Casimir the Great,430 and as time went on they grew more bitter and more frequent. Owing to the growth of the church in wealth and of the clergy in arrogance as a result of Wladislaus Jagiello’s great liberality and even subserviency, the nobility was forced to consider measures at the Convocations of Piotrków in 1406 and 1407 for protection against this exploitation.431 By the Privilege of Czerwieńsk forced from the king in 1422 it further secured itself against the relentless exaction of tithes.432 A decade later the special privileges concerning tithes given the clergy by Wladislaus Jagiello in 1433,433 and the king’s assurance that he would assist in the collection of this tax, are evidence of the difficulties encountered. To force the clergy to desist from their pretensions, the nobility, under the leadership of Andrew Zbonsz, Spytek of Melsztyn, and John Strasz, decided at the Convocation of Piotrków, August 15, 1435, to withhold the payment of tithes altogether.434 A similar resolution was adopted by the Confederation of 1439.435 These decisions, however, were never fully carried out in practice. In the second half of the fifteenth century, influenced by the economic changes that were taking place and encouraged by such radical humanistic ideas as those of John Ostrorog, embodied in his “Monumentum pro reipublicae ordinatione congestum,” the Polish nobility moved still more resolutely toward the abolition of the tithes.436

In the sixteenth century this conflict became even more determined. If the nobility objected to the tithes in the preceding century, it did so now all the more. The wealth of the church had increased as a result of the economic changes in progress, the incomes of the clergy were princely, the needs of the country greater and more exacting; and yet the clergy shirked all public burdens and responsibilities. Naturally, therefore, the nobility began to withhold the payments of tithes. The situation was so serious that the clergy became very much concerned. At several of the provincial synods, notably those of 1544 and 1551, they gave a good deal of time to discussions of ways and means by which to force the nobility to pay tithes.437 But the situation seemed to be beyond repair. Incensed at the immunities, pretensions, and exactions of the clergy, the nobility was turning away in great numbers from the established church to the Reformation after 1550, and thereby was cutting down ecclesiastical revenues.

This touched the clergy in the most tender spot, and aroused them to action. To save its revenues, the church began to resort to the use of its ecclesiastical jurisdiction; it summoned the rebellious nobles before its episcopal courts, and if they did not relent and penitently submit, they were placed under the ban of the church. This procedure put the nobility, their persons, their honor, their property, and their very lives at the mercy of the clergy. Their very existence, individual and collective, was in jeopardy as long as they were subject to the jurisdiction of episcopal courts. That such a situation could not last long soon became perfectly evident. The indignation of the nobility rose to a high pitch. The relation between the two estates became more tense and hostile than ever, and inevitably precipitated a bitter struggle over the fundamental question of ecclesiastical jurisdiction.

The jurisdiction of the clergy now became an intolerable burden to the Polish nobility. Its scope had gradually expanded until, in the fifteenth century, in spite of protests and attempts to fix limits, it came to cover not only questions of religion, but also all sorts of civil matters. In fact, it so happened that there was scarcely a question that the ecclesiastical courts regarded as foreign to their jurisdiction. Their authority, moreover, was greatly strengthened when the government, by the Edict of Wieluń (1424) and by a statute of 1458 confirming it, committed the execution of their verdicts to the starostas, thus lending the clergy the executive arm of civil authority.438

The administration of justice by ecclesiastical courts in Poland in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was very harsh, arbitrary, and light-minded. The most severe penalty, namely, that of excommunication, which carried the confiscation of property, deprivation of honor, exile and death, was frequently inflicted upon offenders for most trivial offenses. A noble was in danger of excommunication for getting into a fight and beating a precentor, an organist, or a grave-digger, not to speak of more serious offenses, such as seizing or withholding the tithes.439 Sometimes a landlord was excommunicated for offenses committed by his peasants on the ground that he should have used his authority to bring the peasants to terms and into submission to the church. So terrible in its consequences was the church’s excommunication in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries that everyone dreaded it.

Naturally, then, attempts were made very early to define and limit the scope and authority of ecclesiastical jurisdiction. At the Convocation of 1420, in answer to the synodical statutes of Nicholas Tromba, archbishop of Gniezno, the nobility forbade its members to appeal to ecclesiastical courts.440 According to a document of 1433, issued to Bishop Bodzanta of Cracow, laymen were not to be cited before ecclesiastical courts.441 In 1447 the nobility sought to confine episcopal jurisdiction to matters strictly ecclesiastical, such as questions of faith, heresy, marriage, and religious indifference in cases of those that had not confessed once a year at least.442 Disputes over tithes, seized or withheld, according to this foregoing agreement between the nobility and the clergy, were to be settled in episcopal courts, but they were to be adjudicated according to law. If the accused failed to answer the first summons, a second one was to be issued to him at his expense; and he could not be excommunicated until he was duly tried.443 In matters belonging to civil courts the clergy were forbidden by the Statute of 1496 to summon persons before their courts.444 By the Constitution of 1505 civil matters were withdrawn from episcopal courts altogether, and henceforth ecclesiastical judges were forbidden to adjudicate them.445 Furthermore, to avoid complications in the administration of justice and to minimize difficulties in the execution of verdicts, the Diet of 1532 called upon the clergy in synod assembled to determine what cases they regarded as belonging to their jurisdiction, and instructed the commission appointed to revise existing laws to define the exact scope of the jurisdiction of the spiritual and secular courts.446 Unfortunately, the commission allowed the episcopal courts too wide a scope, and consequently its report was rejected. The Statute of 1543 again undertook to define the jurisdiction of the two classes of courts, but it was in force for one year only.447 And once more, a statute of 1550, confirming existing laws, provided that no person should be summoned before any court unless his case fell within the jurisdiction of that court,448 and a clergyman was forbidden to hold the office of clerk in a secular provincial court.449

By 1550 the question of ecclesiastical jurisdiction became one of the burning questions of the day. It was precipitated by Orzechowski’s defiance of ecclesiastical authority. Stanislaus Orzechowski was a nobleman priest in the diocese of Przemyśl. He publicly announced that he would enter the state of matrimony. Bishop Dziaduski of Przemyśl in turn announced publicly that if Orzechowski should carry out his intention he would excommunicate him at once, depriving him of honor, confiscating his hereditary property, and exiling him from the country. The bishop’s threat was a sweeping violation of the most fundamental rights of the nobility by the clergy. It endangered the nobility as a class. The Polish nobles were not slow to see that Orzechowski’s case was not merely a question of church discipline, and that if the Bishop of Przemyśl was allowed to carry out his threat, their property and their lives would not be safe. They took up Orzechowski’s case as their own, and rose to his defense. They viewed the episcopal threat as an attack upon them and their liberties, and therefore resolved to stand by Orzechowski. The matter came before the Diet of 1550. Orzechowski found supporters in some of the most influential magnates of Poland, like James Górka, Martin Zborowski, Raphael Leszczyński, Nicholas Radziwill, and Nicholas Oleśnicki, all of them adherents and champions of the Reformation. Through the intervention of John Tarnowski, grand hetman of Poland, and Peter Kmita, starosta of Przemyśl, a compromise was effected, the terms of which were that Orzechowski was to apply to the Pope for sanction of his intention and was not to be married until he received the Pope’s permission.450

The compromise was absurd. It did not settle anything; it only delayed the settlement of the question raised. Górka and Zborowski, therefore, spurred on Orzechowski to break the compromise agreement and to carry out his plan in defiance of episcopal authority.451 The magnate Nicholas Oleśnicki of Pińczów decided to make a test case of the whole issue. On the advice of the Italian reformer Franciscus Stankar, he broke openly with Roman Catholicism, accepting the Reformed faith and taking away from the monks at Pińczów their church and monastery. Immediately the Polish bishops brought charges against him. He was tried, not according to the canon law of the church, but according to the law of the country, before the king and the senate. He was acquitted on condition that he dismiss Stankar and restore the seized monastery to the monks, neither of which orders Oleśnicki actually carried out.452

Thus spurred on by his friends, Orzechowski took courage, renounced his clerical vows, and entered the state of matrimony. Bishop Dziaduski, struck with consternation, did not at first know what to do, but in the end resolved to carry out his threat, On April 8, 1551, he issued his verdict against Orzechowski, annulling his marriage and excommunicating him. On presentation of the case by the primate to the king, Sigismund Augustus confirmed the episcopal verdict in accordance with his pledge given the Polish bishops in December, 1550,453 and instructed Peter Kmita, starosta of Przemyśl, to execute it. At the same time the king issued an order to all the starostas to execute the verdicts of episcopal courts in all cases of condemned and excommunicated heretics. Excommunicated by the church, Orzechowski was deprived of honor and property, exiled from the country, and in danger of being put to death, if caught.454

The news of Orzechowski’s excommunication by Bishop Dziaduski and of the royal confirmation of the episcopal verdict without a trial came like a lightning stroke from the clear sky. Orzechowski’s case was the first instance in the history of the Polish Commonwealth of a noble deprived of honor and of his hereditary possessions and condemned to exile and death as a result of episcopal excommunication, without due trial, according to law, guaranteed the Polish nobility by the Charter of Jedlnia (1483). Immediately the nobles, not only of Orzechowski’s province, but of the whole of Poland, rose as one man against this high-handed attack on their liberties both by the clergy and by the king. Orzechowski’s neighbors were ready to defend him in case the starosta tried to execute the verdict; but Peter Kmita neither dared, nor wanted to execute it. He preferred to wait and see what the Diet of 1552 was going to do about the whole matter.455

The local diets of 1551, at which the szlachta elected the deputies to the General Diet of 1552, fairly seethed with the indignation of the Polish nobility. The clergy, on the other hand, greatly elated over their apparent victory and pleased with the king’s stand regarding the Orzechowski affair, called a synod at Piotrków, at which they decided to bind the king still closer to their cause by offering him the estates of all condemned heretics; and to frighten the nobility into submission they excommunicated at this synod Stadnicki and Lasocki, two very influential and popular heretics in their respective palatinates. The excommunicated magnates went from one local diet to another, informed the szlachta of the ecclesiastical verdicts, reported the resolutions of the synod, and read the king’s pledge given the bishops secretly in 1550 in exchange for their consent to Queen Barbara’s coronation, and which had been secured and made public by Nicholas Lutomirski, castellan of Zawichow. They called upon the szlachta to defend their lives and property.456

The indignation and anger of the nobility of Little Poland rose so high that it almost reached the point of massacring the clergy and of bringing in Protestant ministers from abroad to take their places. As deputies to the Diet of 1552 they chose the most decided opponents of the clergy, and instructed them to take up no measures until the king defined episcopal authority and invalidated the above mentioned verdicts of episcopal courts.457

The Diet of 1552 convened at Piotrków. The secular nobility, both the senators and the deputies, were in a most hostile frame of mind toward the clergy. Even as faithful a Catholic as Hetman Jan Tarnowski refused to shake hands with Bishop Dziaduski of Przemyśl, turning away from him, when the latter came to the hetman’s house to greet him.458 Raphael Leszczyński, president of the Chamber of Deputies, stood with his head covered during the celebration of the opening mass. When the diet had been duly opened, the Chamber, under the leadership of Leszczyński, unequivocally demanded the abolition of episcopal jurisdiction, stating that no other measure would be considered until that demand was complied with. The secular portion of the Senate, under the leadership of Jan Tarnowski, did not go quite so far, but it seconded the Chamber’s demand to this extent, that it, too, called for bringing ecclesiastical jurisdiction within the limits of law.459 The Polish nobility stood firm by their demand for the abolition of ecclesiastical jurisdiction. The bishops, on the other hand, were equally determined not to surrender it. The decision rested finally with the king. After a bitter struggle of two months, due partly to the royal vacillation, the king at last handed a decision that in all cases of heresy the bishops have jurisdiction. The verdict created no small consternation among the secular senators as well as among the deputies. But, though apparently fully victorious, the bishops, sensing the feeling against them and taking counsel of wisdom in time, consented to suspension of their jurisdiction for one year until at the next diet or at a national synod the country’s laws and the church’s canons could be harmonized, provided the nobles agreed to continue the payment of tithes.460

This concession on the part of the Polish episcopate, did not, however, conciliate the Polish nobility. The nobles felt that their rights and liberties had been outraged and were in danger of being completely violated. The turn of events in 1552 made them only all the more determined to fight. In great numbers they came out now for the Reformation. Inside of one year nearly all the Polish nobility, according to Dr. Kubala, left the Roman Catholic Church and embraced the faith of the Reformation. The speed with which the Polish nobles tried to change their form of worship had no parallel. They invited reformers from abroad; they converted their manor houses into places of worship; they built hospitals, schools, and homes of refuge for persecuted dissidents; and the new doctrines were preached through the whole length and breadth of the country.461 Great Poland, where the influence of Hussitism still survived, accepted, under the leadership of James Ostrorog, the tenets of faith and form of worship of the Bohemian Brethren. By 1557 there were thirty Bohemian Brethren churches in Great Poland, and all the leading aristocratic families, the Ostrorogs, the Leszczyńskis, the Tomickis, the Krotowskis, and the Opalińskis, turned Protestant.462 Little Poland, under the leadership of the Zborowskis, Nicholas Oleśnicki, and Stanislaus Stadnicki, became Calvinistic. In “terra Sandeceniensis,” the home province of Orzechowski, all the nobility became Protestant by 1554; and by 1560, according to a letter of Bishop Przyrębski to Bishop Kamerini, one hundred and sixty churches in Little Poland broke away from the jurisdiction of the Church of Rome.463 In Lithuania, under the leadership of Nicholas Radziwill, the foremost aristocratic families accepted Calvinism. They were the Radziwills, the Kiszkas, the Chlebowiczes, the Sapiehas, the Słuźkis, the Zawiszes, the Wiśniowieckis, the Wojnas, the Paces, the Abramowiczes, the Wołowiczes, the Ogińskis, the Zienowiczes, the Pruńskis, the Naruszewiczes, the Talwoczes, the Drohostajskis, the Puzynas, the Szemiotas, the Gruźewskis, the Góreckis, and others. By 1559 the Catholics in Lithuania constituted only one-thousandth part of the population.464 So strong was the sentiment now against the Church of Rome that men well known for their antagonism to Rome, like James Uchański and Andrew Frycz Modrzewski, were selected and sent as Poland’s delegates to the Council of Trent.465 In 1535 at the Diet at Piotrków the calling of a National Synod to adjust the existing differences and difficulties was agreed upon, and a delegation was dispatched to Rome by the king with a request for the Pope’s sanction of that plan as well as of a number of practical reforms. Needless to say, the desired papal sanction was not granted. On the contrary, the Pope immediately sent a legate to Poland in the person of Alois Lippomano, bishop of Verona, to stave off any such possibilities. In his first interview with the king Lippomano advised the Polish monarch, for the sake of an example and a warning, to execute twenty leading dissidents. Owing to his harshness and lack of tact, this papal nuncio became so unpopular in Poland, that when in 1556 he entered the Diet Chamber, the deputies shouted: “Salve, progenies viperarum!”466 At the Diet of 1557 security and freedom were guaranteed all foreign Reformed ministers.467

As to episcopal jurisdiction, this became a lost cause after 1552. The bishops, having once agreed to its suspension, though only temporary, were unable to recover it again, in spite of desperate attempts.468 By a statute of the Diet of 1562-1563, all excommunicated persons were admitted to provincial and fortress courts (do sądow ziemskich i grodzkich) with their grievances and complaints, and the starostas were instructed to respect the constitutionally guaranteed privileges of the szlachta.469 The result was that no one wanted now either to appeal to or to appear in any episcopal court. This took the teeth out of ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Moreover, by the Constitution of 1565 the clergy were forbidden to summon before their courts starostas who in compliance with the statutory law of 1562-1563 refused to execute the verdicts of episcopal courts.470 Deprived of the executive arm of civil authority, ecclesiastical courts became powerless and their verdicts of no effect. This was a great victory for the Polish nobility. At last their lives and their property were safe from further attacks of the clergy through arbitrary exercise of their ecclesiastical jurisdiction.

All the grievances of the Polish nobility in the sixteenth century were summed up and the remedies for these grievances were contained in the demand for “the execution of laws.” It was a demand of the Polish nobility for a return to the fundamental constitutional laws of the land, for conformity in private and public life to these laws, and for elimination of abuses. Many of the social and political ills and problems of the times were due either to disregard or to open violation of existing constitutional and statutory laws. For instance, after 1454 and particularly so after 1504, it became illegal for the king either to pledge or to grant any part of his royal lands to any private individual or to any institution without the sanction of the diet.471 The extravagant liberality of the Polish rulers had made it necessary to make these restrictions; they were intended to safeguard the royal domain from undue diminution, the royal treasury from embarassing impoverishment, and the country from inadequate defense. Also, it became illegal after 1454, and especially after 1505, for the king to make any new laws or to issue edicts having the force of new laws without the common consent of the two chambers of the diet.472 It was illegal, also, for the clergy to enlarge their landed estates either by purchase or by gift, while they evaded the responsibility of participation in the country’s defense.473 Likewise, it was illegal for the king to confer upon them special privileges, exempting them from various public burdens.474 Moreover, it was a flagrant violation of the constitutionally guaranteed rights of the szlachta for the clergy to sit as their judges in matters of life, liberty, and property.475 Yet all these violations and abuses had become so common that they almost had the force of perfectly lawful acts and practices. For a time they were tolerated. But when they began seriously to interfere with the liberties and economic interests of the Polish nobility, the nobles rose against them resolutely, and with determination demanded a general reformation of conditions.

Their demand for “the execution of laws” was directed particularly against the special privileges and immunities, real or pretended, of the clergy.476 Beginning with the Diet of 1511,477 both the secular and the regular clergy were repeatedly called upon by the diets of the sixteenth century to justify their specially privileged status and their evasion of public responsibilities and burdens by presenting their charters for examination, until at last they were forced to comply with this demand in part at least.478 The continued insistence on the part of the nobility on the clergy’s participation in public burdens resulted finally in the imposition by the Diet of 1563 of a regular tax on episcopal property and tithes.479 In the struggle regarding ecclesiastical jurisdiction the nobility appealed to its privileges of 1422, 1433, 1454, and the Constitution of 1505, demanding the annulment of all royal edicts against heresy as unconstitutional, together with ecclesiastical jurisdiction in matters involving the nobility’s constitutional rights to life and property. As a result of this appeal and demand the king issued instructions to the starostas in 1563 to respect the constitutional rights of the nobility. By this act the royal edicts against heresy and episcopal jurisdiction, whether in cases of heresy or of refusal to pay tithes, became invalidated and rendered of no effect.480

Thus, we see that the conflict between the Polish nobility and the ecclesiastical authorities in the sixteenth century, resulting in the former’s extensive revolt from the established church, was due mainly to the wealth of the Polish clergy, their immunities from public burdens, and their abuse of episcopal jurisdiction; for these not only increased the burdens of the Polish nobility, but also seriously menaced its social and economic status. Whatever particular form this conflict assumed, its underlying motives were essentially economic and social rather than religious or even purely political.

Notes

355 Guaranteeing to compensate the szlachta for their participation in foreign expeditions and for injuries sustained in them, Louis of Hungary simply confirmed and further enlarged a right which had been previously granted by Casimir the Great by the Statute of Wiślice of 1347, where we read: “Sed extra Regni metas nobis servire non sunt obligati, nisi ipsis satis competens satisfactio per nos impendatur, vel per nos specialiter fuerint petiti et rogati ad hoc” (Vol. leg., vol. i, fol. 44).

356 Ibid., fol. 57.

357 Sokołowski, vol. i, p. 295.

358 “… item, ut gratia uberiori consolentur a nobis, etiam nos fide et servitiis amplioribus prosequantur, promittimus, quod exnunc et de caetero nunquam alicujus subditi Regni nostri, cujuscunque dignitatis, eminentiae, status aut gradus fuerit, bona haereditaria recipiemus, confiscabimus, recipi vel confiscari faciemus, nec se de eis per nos vel officiales nostros vel alios quoscunque homines intromittemus vel intromitti faciemus pro quibuscunque excessibus aut culpis, nisi prius super hoc preccedat judicium nostrorum, quos ad hoc deputaverimus, cum nostris praelatis, baronibus, matura cogitio et sententia sequatur” (Vol. leg., vol. i, fol. 83).

359 See Appendix, No. 1.

360 “Caeterum promittimus et spondemus, quod nullum terrigenam possessionatum pro aliquo excessu seu culpa capiemus seu capi mandabimus, nec aliquam vindictam in ipso faciemus, nisi judicio rationabiliter fuerit convictus, et manus nostras vel nostrorum Capitaneorum per judices ejusdem terrae, in qua idem terrigena residet, praesentatus; illo tamen homine, qui in furto et publico maleficio (ut pote incendio, homicidio voluntario, raptu virginum et mulierum, villarum depopulationibus aut spoliis) deprehenderetur; similiter illis, qui de se nollent debitam facere cautionem vel dare juxta quantitatem excessus vel delicti, duntaxat exceptis. Nulli autem bona seu possessiones recipiemus, nisi fuerit judicialiter per judices competentes vel Barones nostros nobis condemnatus” (Vol. leg., vol. i, fol. 93).

361 Ibid., fol. 250.

362 Ibid., vol. i, folios 299-300. “De non faciendis constitutionibus sine consensu conciliariorum et Nuntiorum Terrestrium.”

363 Henry C. Vedder, The Reformation in Germany, New York, 1914, p. 33; Adam Szelągowski, Money and the Overturning of Prices in the 16th and 17th Century in Poland (Pieniądz i przewrót cen w XVI i XVII ieku w Polsce), Lwów, 1902, pp. 60-63.

364 Szelągowski, p. 65.
365 Ibid., pp. 66-67.
366 Ibid., pp. 67-68.
367 Ibid., pp. 71-72.
368 Ibid., pp. 67-68.
369 Ibid., p. 73.
370 Cf. Ibid., pp. 73, 82.

371 Vol. leg., vol. i, fol. 151-152; also fol. 153, par. “De his qui telonea absque concessione Regum exigunt.”

372 Ibid., fol. 257-258, art. “De liberis navigationibus et fluminibus ex nomine liberis.”

373 Ibid., fol. 255-259, par. “De fluviis ad navigandum aperiendis praesertim circa Thorunium” and “De Thorunen, impedimento et navigatione.”

374 Ibid., fol. 517, par. “De teloneis pontalibus, aggeralibus.…”

375 Kazimierz Rakowski, A History of the Economic Development of the Polish State (Dzieje rozwoju ekonomicznego państwa polskiego), Warsaw, 1909, p. 134.

376 Ibid., p. 130.
377 Ibid., p. 131.
378 Ibid., p. 132.
379 Ibid., pp. 135-136.
380 Ibid., p. 135.
381 Ibid., p. 141.

382 Vol. leg., vol. i, fol. 271, par. “De civibus et plebeis oppida, et bona alia in iure Terrestri non possessuris.”

383 Ibid., folios 262-265, par. “De plebeis ad majores ecclesias non recipiendis” and “De numero plebeorum ad ecclesias recipiendorum.”

384 Ibid., folios 302-303, par. “De numero plebeorum ad ecclesias cathedrales suscipiendorum” and “Statuta ecclesiarum.…”

385 Cf. ibid., folios 511-512; Reformation in Poland, vol. ii, No. 7, p. 182.

386 Acta Tom., vol. xiii, No. 2, cited by Dr. Pociecha in Reformation in Poland, vol. ii, No. 7, p. 182.

387 Reformation in Poland, vol. ii, No. 7, p. 183.

388 “Adscripsi ego in legatione nostra, omnibus approbantibus, ut Mtas Regia serio mandaret capitaneis omnibus statuta et decreta vetera adversus excomunicatos et haereticos exequi, quorum latens venenum in locis insignioribus et libellis famosis et aliis indiciis sese prodit,” wrote Primate Krzycki to Bishop Tomicki from Piotrków, Dec. 19, 1534 (cited by Dr. Wladislaus Pociecha in Reformation in Poland, vol. ii, No. 7, p. 166).

389 “Sacra tamen Mtas Regia Serenissimus Dominus noster his diebus ad omnes dignitarios et capitaneos edictum misit severum dogmata et libros prohibendo et jubet punire severo tali haeresi contaminatos atque a studiis haereticorum revocat adolescentes sub poena perpetui exilii,” wrote M. Drzewicki to Jan Dantyszek from Gniezno, March 11, 1535 (cited by Dr. Pociecha in ibid., n. 3).

390 Reformation in Poland, vol. ii, No. 7, pp. 166-167.
391 Ibid., p. 167.
392 Ibid., pp. 167, 183.
393 Vol. leg., vol. i, folios 526-627, par. “De plebeiis et cortesanis.”
394 Kutrzeba, p. 93; Reformation in Poland, vol. ii, No. 7, p. 174.

395 Vol. leg., vol. i, fol. 369, par. “De testamentis condendis”; see also fol. 374.

396 Reformation in Poland, vol. ii, No. 7, pp. 174, 176.
397 Ibid., pp. 173-175, 176.
398 Rakowski, p. 145.

399 See Vol. leg., vol. i, fol. 259, par. “De fugitivis kmethonibus”; fol. 367, par. “De colonis fugitivis restituendis”; fol. 503, par. “Consulentes commoditati rei communis domesticae Regni nostri.…”; fol. 524, par. “De profugis kmethonibus.”

400 “Statuimus quod tantummodo unus filius de villa a patre recedere possit ad servitia, et praesertim ad studia, aut literarum, aut artificiorum, reliqui maneant in haereditate cum patribus” (ibid., fol. 260).

401 “Et si unicus fuerit, ille in haereditate maneat et laboret in domo cum parentibus, vel in eadem haereditate quam parentes incolunt, aut domicilium, aut servitium, aut victum acquirat” (ibid., fol. 260).

402 “Quod si aliquis adolescens villanus, praeter istud decretum, fugiens repertus fuerit, sive in civitatibus et oppidis sive alibi ubicunque, ille domino loci illius a quo fugit, sine juris strepitu restituatur, sub poena quatuordecim marcarum, et nihilominus illi qui eum retinuerint, poena toties quoties secus fecerint soluta, ad restitutionem sint astricti” (ibid., fol. 260).

403 Ibid., fol. 394, par. “De laboribus kmethonum”; and fol. 396, par. “kmethones unum diem, plus minusve, septimantim laborent.”

404 Kutrzeba, p. 96; Rakowski, pp. 148-149; Źr. dz. vol. viii, p. 395.

405 Vol. leg., vol. i, Constitutions of 1523 and 1532.

406 Ibid., folios 261-262, par. “De libertate nobilium in theloneis”; fol. 298, par. “De teloneis in terra et aqua solvendis et non solvendis”; see also folios 375, 517, 594.

407 Ibid., fol. 375, par. “Ut de agris, hortis, et Scultetiis desertis, publicae contributiones non exigantur.”

408 Reformation in Poland, vol. ii, No. 7, p. 174.

409 Ibid., p. 173.

410 Vol. leg., vol. i, fol. 6, par. “De clericis bona haereditaria habentibus ad bellum ituris.”

411 Reformation in Poland, vol. ii, No. 7, p. 174.

412 Ibid.

413 “Quia onus praesertim quod omnes tangit inter plures divisum facilius deportatur. Quapropter statuimus, quod indifferenter omnes sculteti tam spiritualium quam etiam saecularium personarum juxta ipsorum facultates ad quamlibet expeditionem nobiscum transire teneantur” (Vol. leg., vol. i, fol. 5).

414 See ibid., fol. 532, par. “De Scultetis spiritualium.”

415 See Zakrzewski, pp. 117, 118.

416 Balzer, Corpus juris Polonici, vol. iii, No. 51, par. 17; Reformation in Poland, vol. ii, No. 7, p. 174.

417 “Visum est, ut si probatum fuerit Scultetos spiritualium teneri ad expeditionem bellicam, Sculteti eorum sint obligati deinceps Nobiscum in bellum proficisci: praeter eos qui privilegiis essent ab expeditione exempti et liberati; quae privilegia, domini spirituales, in Synodo proximo, postquam praeterita, propter mortem Domini Archiepiscopi effectum sortita non est, se recensere promiserunt, et illa post modum in Conventu Generali Regni, proxime post Synodum futuro exhibebunt; ut ex illis fiat cognitio de immunitate Scultetorum seu Advocatorum; vel obligatione ad praestandam et sustinendam bellicam expeditionem” (Vol. leg. vol. i, fol. 532).

418 See above, p. 60, cf. Vol. leg., vol. ii, fol. 623, par. 56.

419 Acta Tom., vol. v, p. 128, cited by Dr. Pociecha in Reformation of Poland, vol. ii, No. 7, p. 174.

420 Reformation in Poland, vol. ii, No. 7, p. 174.
421 Vol. leg., vol. ii, fol. 623, par. 55.
422 See ibid.; above, p. 60.
423 Reformation in Poland, vol. ii, No. 7, p. 176.
424 See above, p. 98; Reformation in Poland, pp. 174-175.
425 Zakrzewski, pp. 237-238.
426 Reformation in Poland, vol. ii, No. 7, pp. 176-177.

427 Balzar, Corpus juris, vol. iii, No. 181; see also Reformation in Poland, vol. ii, No. 7, p. 177.

428 Reformation in Poland, vol. ii, No. 7, p. 177.

429 Ibid., p. 179; Acta Tom., vol. xii, p. 402, as cited by Dr. Pociecha.

430 See Kutrzeba, p. 83.
431 Smoleński, p. 76; Caro, vol. iv, pp. 85-89.
432 Sokołowski, vol. i, p. 295.
433 Vol. leg. vol. i, fols. 95-104; Caro, vol. iv, p. 40.
434 See Caro, vol. iv, pp. 115, 116.
435 Krasiński, vol. i, p. 52.
436 Caro, vol. iv, p. 115; Smoleński, p. 81.
437 Kakrzewski, pp. 64, 243.
438 Vol. leg., vol. i, folios 85-86; folios 194-195; “Ex quo etiam,” etc.
439 Kubala, p. 22.
440 Smoleński, p. 76.

441 “Praeterea volumus quod laici deinceps pro debitis et in aliis causis civilibus per clericos, ad forum ecclesiasticum non trahantur, nisi forte sit causa spiritualis, vel spirituali annexa, aut debitum fuerit decimale” (Vol. leg., vol. i, fol. 102).

442 Caro, vol. iv, pp. 310-311.
443 Ibid., p 311.
444 Vol. leg., vol. i, fol. 277, “De inhibitionibus ecclesiasticis ad judicia.”

445 “… quapropter decernimus et statuimus, quod judices spirituales saecularia judicia non exerceant neque judicent in futurum” (Vol. leg., vol. i, fol. 304).

446 Ibid., vol. i, fol. 506, “Prospicientes,” etc.
447 Ibid., vol. i, folios 578-581, “Differentias judiciorum,” etc.
448 Ibid., vol. ii, fol. 598, par. 41.
449 Ibid., vol. ii, fol. 597, par. 37.
450 Kubala, pp. 26-27.
451 Ibid., p. 27.
452 Ibid., p. 55.

453 “… Pollicemur, nos hereticos expugnaturos, ex regno nostro propulsaturos, ecclesiasticas item personas eorumque jura defensuros et conservaturos” (cited from Wegierski, by ibid., p. 100n.)

454 Ibid., pp. 28, 30, 55.
455 Ibid., p. 30.
456 Ibid., p. 30.
457 Ibid., p. 30.
458 Ibid., p. 31.
459 Ibid., p. 31.
460 Ibid., pp. 35-37, 55-56.
461 Ibid., p. 56.
462 Ibid., pp. 58, 101, n. 42.
463 Ibid., pp. 58, 101, n. 43.
464 Ibid., pp. 58, 101, n. 46.
465 Ibid., p. 56.
466 Ibid., p. 67.
467 Ibid., p. 58.
468 See above, pp. 59-60.
469 Vol. leg., vol. ii, fol. 625, par. 68; cf. fol. 692, par. 74.
470 Ibid., vol. ii, fol. 692, par. 74.
471 Ibid., vol. i, folios 184, 298-299, “De mode bonorum Regalium inscribendorum.”

472 Ibid., vol. i, fol. 299-300, “De non faciendis constitutionibus sine consensu Consiliariorum et Nuntiorum Terrestrium” et “De constitutionibus novis per proclamationes publicandis.”

473 Cf. Caro, vol. iv, p. 311; Ref. in Poland, vol. ii, No. 7, p. 174.

474 Compare, for instance, this special privilege given by Sigismund Augustus to Martin Cromer, canon of Cracow and the king’s secretary. “Sigismundus Augustus etc. Planum, testamentumque facimus universis, quorum interest, quia contributionem, in proxima Piothrocoviensi synodo decretam et laudatam, ven. Martino Cromero, canonico Cracoviensi, secretario nostro, ex omnibus sacerdotiis in diocesi Cracoviensi remisimus, remittimusque praesentibus litteris, ac de ea ipsum quietamus ac liberamus, volentes omnio, ut contributionis eius nomine nihil ab eo per collectores illius exigatur. In cuius rei fidem manu nostra praesentibus subscripsimus et sigillum nostrum imprimi fecimus. Datum Gostinii, 20 mai anno Dni 1552.” T. Wierzbowski, Materials for a History of Polish Writings (Materyały do Piśmiennictwa Polskiego), Warsaw, 1904, vol. ii, p. 7, No. 15. This is a sample of many similar exemptions given the clergy.

475 Note Charters of 1422, 1433, 1454, and 1505.
476 Balzar, Corpus juris polonici, vol. iii, No. 261, pars. 7, 8, 10.
477 Ibid., No. 69, pars. 16, 19.
478 See above, p. 60.
479 See above, pp. 60-61.

480 Vol. leg., vol. ii, fol. 625, pars. 68, 74, 692; cf. above, pp. 60, 134.