Szlachta

Etymology In Polish, a nobleman is called a "szlachcic" and a noblewoman a "szlachcianka". The Polish term szlachta derived from the Old High German word slahta. In modern German Geschlecht – which originally came from the Proto-Germanic *slagiz, "blow", "strike", and shares the Anglo-Saxon root for "slaughter", or the verb "to slug" – means "breeding" or "gender". 17th-century Poles assumed szlachta came from the German schlachten, "to slaughter" or "to butcher", and was therefore related to the German word for battle, Schlacht. Some early Polish historians thought the term might have derived from the name of the legendary proto-Polish chief, Lech, mentioned in Polish and Czech writings. The szlachta traced their descent from Lech, who allegedly founded the Polish kingdom in about the fifth century. The Polish term szlachta designated the formalized, hereditary aristocracy In official Latin documents of the old Commonwealth, the hereditary szlachta were referred to as nobilitas from the Latin term. Until the second half of the 19th century, the Polish term '' (which now means "citizen") could be used as a synonym for szlachta landlords. This mistaken practice began due to the inferior economic status of many szlachta members compared to that of the nobility in other European countries (see also Estates of the Realm regarding wealth and nobility). The szlachta'' included those rich and powerful enough to be great magnates down to the impoverished with an aristocratic lineage, but with no land, no castle, no money, no village, and no subject peasants. Historian M.Ross wrote in 1835: "At least 60,000 families belong to this class, of which, however, only about 100 are wealthy; all the rest are poor." A few exceptionally wealthy and powerful szlachta members constituted the magnateria and were known as magnates (magnates of Poland and Lithuania). Composition Tadeusz Rejtan (lower right), with szlachta republican right of ending any Senate (Sejm) session and nullifying any legislation passed (Liberum veto), defying Russian, Prussian, and Austrian autocratic might to cease legalization of the First Partition of Poland, by halting the Partition Sejm's exit from the Senate chamber on 30 September 1773, in effect proclaiming, "Murder me, not Poland." Painting by Jan Matejko, 1866 Adam Zamoyski argues that the szlachta were not exactly the same as the European nobility nor a gentry, with no feudal dependence on a king, Over time, numerically most lesser szlachta became poorer, or were poorer than, their few rich peers with the same political status and status in law, and many lesser szlachta were worse off than commoners with land. They were called szlachta zagrodowa, that is, "farm nobility", from zagroda, a farm, often little different from a peasant's dwelling, sometimes referred to as drobna szlachta, "petty nobles" or yet, szlachta okoliczna, meaning "local". Particularly impoverished szlachta families were often forced to become tenants of their wealthier peers. They were described as szlachta czynszowa, or "tenant nobles" who paid rent. See "Szlachta categories" for more. Origins Poland in a 16th-century Polish woodcut The origins of the szlachta, while ancient, have always been considered obscure. forming a distinct element known as the Lechici/Lekhi (Lechitów) (the szlachta Boreyko coat of arms heralds a swastika), this hypothesis states this upper class was not of Slavonic extraction The szlachta were differentiated from the rural population. In harshly stratified and elitist Polish society, Wacław Potocki, herbu Śreniawa (1621–1696), proclaimed peasants "by nature" are "chained to the land and plow," that even an educated peasant would always remain a peasant, because "it is impossible to transform a dog into a lynx." The szlachta were noble in the Aryan (see Alans) sense -- "noble" in contrast to the people over whom they ruled after coming into contact with them. The laborers consisted of peasants in serfdom. The szlachta had the exclusive right to enter the clergy until the time of the three partitions of Poland–Lithuania, The szlachta regarded peasants as a lower species. Quoting Bishop of Poznań, Wawrzyniec Goślicki, herbu Grzymała (between 1530 and 1540–1607): "The kingdome of Polonia doth also consist of the said three sortes, that is, the king, nobility and people. But it is to be noted, that this word people includeth only knights and gentlemen. ... The gentlemen of Polonia doe represent the popular state, for in them consisteth a great part of the government, and they are as a Seminarie from whence Councellors and Kinges are taken." Escutcheons and hereditary coats of arms with eminent privileges attached is an honor derived from the ancient Germans. Where Germans did not inhabit, and where German customs were unknown, no such thing existed. The usage of heraldry in Poland was brought in by knights arriving from Silesia, Lusatia, Meissen, and Bohemia. Migrations from here were the most frequent, and the time period was the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Concerning the early Polish tribes, geography contributed to long-standing traditions. The Polish tribes were internalized and organized around a unifying religious cult, governed by the wiec, an assembly of free tribesmen. Later, when safety required power to be consolidated, an elected prince was chosen to govern. The election privilege was usually limited to elites. and to which they would return were their wealth lost. The Period of Division (1138–1314), which included nearly 200 years of fragmentation and which stemmed from Bolesław III's division of Poland among his sons, was the genesis of the political structure where the powerful landowning szlachta (możni, both ecclesiastical and lay), whose land was in allodium, not feudal tenure, The process of Polonization took place over a lengthy period. At first only the leading members of the nobility were involved. Gradually the wider population became affected. Major effects on the lesser Lithuanian nobility occurred after various sanctions were imposed by the Russian Empire, such as removing Lithuania from the names of the Gubernyas shortly after the November Uprising. After the January Uprising the sanctions went further, and Russian officials began to intensify Russification, and banned the printing of books in Lithuanian. Ruthenia After the principalities of Halych and Volhynia became integrated with the Grand Duchy, Ruthenia's nobility gradually rendered loyalty to the multilingual and cultural melting pot that was the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Many noble Ruthenian families intermarried with Lithuanians. The rights of Orthodox nobles were nominally equal to those enjoyed by the Polish and Lithuanian nobility, but they were put under cultural pressure to convert to Catholicism. It was a policy that was greatly eased in 1596 by the Union of Brest. See, for example, the careers of Senator Adam Kisiel and Jerzy Franciszek Kulczycki. ==Origins of szlachta surnames==

of szlachcic John of Ujazd sealed with the Srzeniawa coat of arms by unknown artist. It is located at the church of Czchów, Kraków Voivodeship, Lesser Poland province, Crown of the Kingdom of Poland; 1450. The Proto-Slavic suffix "-ьskъ" means "characteristic of", "typical of". This suffix exists in Polish as "-ski" (feminine: "-ska"). It's attached to surnames derived from a person's occupation, characteristics, patronymic surnames, or toponymic surnames (from a person's place of residence, birth or family origin). In antiquity, the szlachta used topographic surnames to identify themselves. The expression "z" (meaning "from" sometimes "at") plus the name of one's patrimony or estate (dominion) carried the same prestige as "de" in French names such as "de Châtellerault", and "von" or "zu" in German names such as "von Weizsäcker" or "zu Rhein". For example, the family name of counts Litwiccy (Litwicki) was formed with the patronymic suffix -ic from the ethnic name Litwa, i.e. Lithuania, 'nation of Lithuanians'. It refers to the early modern empire of Central Europe, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1569–1648). In Polish "z Dąbrówki" and "Dąbrowski" mean the same thing: "of, from Dąbrówka." At least since the 17th century the surnames/cognomens of szlachta families became fixed and were inherited by following generations, remaining in that form until today. Prior to that time, a member of the family A member of the family would be identified as, for example, "Jakub z Dąbrówki", herbu Radwan, (Jacob to/at Dąbrówki of the knights' clan Radwan coat of arms), or "Jakub z Dąbrówki, Żądło (cognomen) (later a przydomek/nickname/agnomen), herbu Radwan" (Jacob to/at [owning] Dąbrówki with the distinguishing name Żądło of the knights' clan Radwan coat of arms), or "Jakub Żądło, used the Roman naming convention of the tria nomina (praenomen, nomen, and cognomen) and foreigners, hence why multiple surnames are associated with many Polish coat of arms. Example – Jakub: Radwan Żądło-Dąbrowski (sometimes Jakub: Radwan Dąbrowski-Żądło) Praenomen Jakub Nomen (nomen gentile—name of the gens Czcikowski, Dostojewski, Górski, Nicki, Zebrzydowski, etc. Agnomen (nickname, Polish ): Żądło (prior to the 17th century, was a cognomen Each knights' clan/gens/ród had its coat of arms, and there were only a limited number. Almost without exception, there were no family coat of arms. Each coat of arms bore a name, the clan's call word. In most instances, the coat of arms belonged to many families within the clan. Heritability The tradition of differentiating between a coat of arms and a lozenge granted to women, did not develop in Poland. By the 17th century, invariably, men and women inherited a coat of arms from their father. When mixed marriages developed after the partitions, that is between commoners and members of the nobility, as a courtesy, children could claim a coat of arms from their distaff side, but this was only tolerated and could not be passed on to the next generation. The brisure was rarely used. All children would inherit the coat of arms and title of their father. This partly accounts for the relatively large proportion of Polish families who had claim to a coat of arms by the 18th century. Another factor was the arrival of titled foreign settlers, especially from the German lands and the Habsburg Empire. Illegitimate children could adopt the mother's surname and title by the consent of the mother's father, but would sometimes be adopted and raised by the natural father's family, thereby acquiring the father's surname, though not the title or arms. == Ennoblement ==

Kingdom of Poland The number of lawfully granted ennoblements (naturalization) The close of the late 18th century (see below) was a period in which a definite increase in the number of ennoblements can be noted. This can most readily be explained in terms of the ongoing decline and eventual collapse of the Commonwealth and the resulting need for soldiers and other military leaders (see: Partitions of Poland, King Stanisław August Poniatowski). Estimated number of ennoblements According to heraldic sources 1,600 is the total estimated number of all lawful ennoblements throughout the history of Kingdom of Poland and Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth from the 14th century onward (half of which were performed in the final years of the late 18th century). Types of ennoblement: • Adopcja herbowa – The "old way" of ennoblement, popular in the 14th century, connected with adoption into an existing szlachta clan by an act of the king. The king granted a fragment of his own coat of arms establishing an alliance with the king's family, or a knight performed an adoption under their coat of arms, which required the confirmation of the king.{{cite book • Skartabellat – Introduced by pacta conventa of the 17th century (since 1669), this was ennoblement into a sort of "conditional" or "graduated nobility" status. Skartabels could not hold public offices or be members of the Sejm, but after three generations, the descendants of these families would "mature" to full szlachta status. In 1775 another requirement was imposed – they had to acquire a landed estate.{{cite book • Indygenat – from the Latin expression, indigenatus, recognition of foreign noble status. A foreign noble, after acquiring indygenat status, received all privileges of a Polish szlachcic. In Polish history, 413 foreign noble families were recognized. Prior to the 17th century this was done by the King and Sejm, after the 17th century it was done only by the Sejm. • "secret ennoblement" – This was of questionable legal status and was often not recognized by many szlachta members. It was typically granted by the elected monarch without the required legal approval of the Sejm. Grand Duchy of Lithuania In the late 14th century, in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Vytautas the Great reformed the Grand Duchy's army: instead of calling all men to arms, he created forces comprising professional warriors—bajorai ("nobles"; see the cognate "boyar"). As there were not enough nobles, Vytautas trained suitable men, relieving them of labor on the land and of other duties; for their military service to the Grand Duke, they were granted land that was worked by hired men (veldams). The newly formed noble families generally took up, as their family names, the Lithuanian pagan given names of their ennobled ancestors; this was the case with the Goštautai, Radvilos, Astikai, Kęsgailos and others. These families were granted their coats of arms under the Union of Horodlo (1413). In 1506, King Sigismund I the Old confirmed the position of the Lithuanian Council of Lords in state politics and limited entry into the nobility. == Privileges ==

Specific rights of the szlachta included: '' • The right to hold outright ownership of land (Allod) , wearing the Order of the White Eagle. on his way to his execution, 26 May 1584. Sketch by Jan Matejko, 1860 Significant legislative changes in the status of the szlachta, as defined by Robert Bideleux and Ian Jeffries, consist of its 1374 exemption from the land tax, a 1425 guarantee against the 'arbitrary arrests and/or seizure of property' of its members, a 1454 requirement that military forces and new taxes be approved by provincial Sejms, and statutes issued between 1496 and 1611 that prescribed the rights of commoners. Many sejms issued decrees over the centuries in an attempt to resolve this issue, but with little success. It is unknown what percentage of the Polish nobility came from the 'lower orders' of society, but there are historians who claim nobles of such base origins formed a 'significant' element of the szlachta. Self-promotion and aggrandizement were not confined to commoners. Often, members of the lower szlachta sought further ennoblement from foreign, therefore less verifiable, sources. That is, they might acquire by legitimate means or otherwise, such as by purchase, one of a selection of foreign titles ranging from Baron, Marchese, Freiherr to Comte, all readily translatable into the Polish Hrabia. Alternatively, they would simply appropriate a title by conferring it upon themselves. An example of this is cited in the case of the last descendant of the Ciechanowiecki family, who managed to restore a genuinely old Comital title, but whose actual origins are shrouded in 18th-century mystery. Accretion of sovereignty to the szlachta The szlachta secured many rights not secured to the nobility of other countries. Over time, each new monarch ceded to them further privileges. Those privileges became the basis of the Golden Liberty in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Despite having a king, Poland was considered the 'nobility's Commonwealth' because Royal elections in Poland were in the hands of members of a hereditary class. Poland was therefore the domain of this class, and not that of the king or the ruling dynasty. This arose in part because of the extinction of male heirs in the original royal dynasties: first, the Piasts, then the Jagiellons. As a result, the nobility took it upon itself to choose "the Polish king" from among the dynasties' matrilinial descendants. Poland's successive kings granted privileges to the nobility upon their election to the throne – the privileges having been specified in the king-elect's Pacta conventa – and at other times, in exchange for ad hoc leave to raise an extraordinary tax or a pospolite ruszenie, a military call up. Poland's nobility thus accumulated a growing array of privileges and immunities. In 1355 in Buda King Casimir III the Great issued the first country-wide privilege for the nobility, in exchange for their agreeing that if Casimir had no male heirs, the throne would pass to his nephew, Louis I of Hungary. Casimir further decreed that the nobility would no longer be subject to 'extraordinary' taxes or have to use their own funds for foreign military expeditions. Casimir also promised that when the royal court toured, the king and the court would cover all expenses, instead of requiring facilities to be provided by the local nobility. Privilege of Koszyce and others In 1374 King Louis of Hungary approved the Privilege of Koszyce (przywilej koszycki) to guarantee the Polish throne for his daughter, Jadwiga. He broadened the definition of membership of the nobility and exempted the entire class from all but one tax (łanowy) a limit of 2 groszes per łan of land, Old Polish units of measurement. In addition, the King's right to raise taxes was effectively abolished: no new taxes would be levied without the agreement of the nobility. Henceforth, district offices were also reserved exclusively for local nobility, as the Privilege of Koszyce forbade the king to grant official posts and major Polish castles to foreign knights. Finally, the privilege obliged the king to pay indemnities to nobles injured or taken captive during a war outside Polish borders. In 1422 King Władysław II Jagiełło was constrained by the Privilege of Czerwińsk (przywilej czerwiński), which established the inviolability of nobles' property. Their estates could not be confiscated except upon the verdict of a court. It also made him cede some jurisdiction over fiscal policy to the Royal Council, later, the Senate of Poland, including the right to mint coinage. In 1430, with the Privileges of Jedlnia, confirmed at Kraków in 1433, Polish: przywileje jedlneńsko-krakowskie, based partially on his earlier Brześć Kujawski privilege (25 April 1425), King Władysław II Jagiełło granted the nobility a guarantee against arbitrary arrest, similar to the English Magna Carta's habeas corpus, known from its own Latin name as "neminem captivabimus nisi jure victum". Henceforth, no member of the nobility could be imprisoned without a warrant from a court of justice. The king could neither punish nor imprison any noble on a whim. King Władysław's quid pro quo for the easement was the nobles' guarantee that the throne would be inherited by one of his sons, who would be bound to honour the privileges granted earlier to the nobility. On 2 May 1447 the same king issued the Wilno Pact, or Wilno Privilege, which gave the Lithuanian boyars the same rights as those already secured by the Polish szlachta. In 1454, King Casimir IV granted the Nieszawa Statutes – Polish: statuty cerkwicko-nieszawskie, clarifying the legal basis of voivodship sejmiks – local parliaments. The king could promulgate new laws, raise taxes, or call for a mass military call up pospolite ruszenie, only with the consent of the sejmiks, and the nobility were protected from judicial abuses. The Nieszawa Statutes also curbed the power of the magnates, as the Sejm, the national parliament, had the right to elect many officials, including judges, voivods and castellans. These privileges were demanded by the szlachta in exchange for their participation in the Thirteen Years' War. First Royal Election The first "free election" (Polish: wolna elekcja) of a king took place in 1492. In fact, some earlier Polish kings had been elected with help from assemblies such as those that put Casimir II on the throne, thereby setting a precedent for free elections. Only senators voted in the 1492 free election, which was won by John I Albert. For the duration of the Jagiellonian Dynasty, only members of that royal family were considered for election. Later, there would be no restrictions on the choice of candidates. In 1493 the Sejm, began meeting every two years at Piotrków. It comprised two chambers: • a Senate of 81 bishops and other dignitaries • a Chamber of Deputies of 54 deputies representing their respective domains. The numbers of senators and deputies later increased. On 26 April 1496 King John I Albert granted the Privilege of Piotrków. The Statutes of Piotrków increased the nobility's feudal power over serfs. It bound the peasant to the land, and only one son though not the eldest, was permitted to leave the village. Townsfolk mieszczaństwo were prohibited from owning land. Positions in the Church hierarchy were restricted to nobles. On 23 October 1501, the Polish–Lithuanian union was reformed by the Union of Mielnik. It was there that the tradition of a coronation Sejm was founded. Here again, the lesser nobility, lesser in wealth only – not in rank – attempted to reduce the power of the Magnates with a law that made them impeachable before the Senate for malfeasance. However, the Act of Mielnik of 25 October did more to strengthen the Magnate-dominated Senate of Poland than the lesser nobility. Nobles as a whole were given the right to disobey the King or his representatives — non praestanda oboedientia, and to form confederations, armed opposition against the king or state officials if the nobles found that the law or their legitimate privileges were being infringed. , the Election of 1573''. Painting by Jan Matejko On 3 May 1505 King Alexander I Jagiellon granted the Act of Nihil novi nisi commune consensu – "I accept nothing new except by common consent". This forbade the king to pass new laws without the consent of the representatives of the nobility in the assembled Sejm, thus greatly strengthening the nobility's powers. Essentially, this act marked the transfer of legislative power from the king to the Sejm. It also marks the beginning of the First Rzeczpospolita, the period of a szlachta-run "Commonwealth". In 1520 the Act of Bydgoszcz granted the Sejm the right to convene every four years, with or without the king's permission. At about that time the Executionist Movement, seeking to oversee law enforcement, began to take shape. Its members sought to curb the power of the Magnates at the Sejm and to strengthen the power of the monarch. In 1562 at the Sejm in Piotrków they forced the Magnates to return many leased crown lands to the king, and the king to create a standing army wojsko kwarciane. One of the most famous members of this movement was Jan Zamoyski. End of the Jagiellonian dynasty , first elected monarch of Poland-Lithuania Until the death of Sigismund II Augustus, the last king of the Jagiellonian dynasty, all monarchs had to be elected from within the royal family. However, from 1573, practically any Polish noble or foreigner of royal blood could potentially become a Polish–Lithuanian monarch. Every newly elected king was supposed to sign two documents: the Pacta conventa, the king's "pre-election pact", and the Henrican articles, named after the first freely elected king, Henry of Valois. The latter document was a virtual Polish constitution and contained the basic laws of the Commonwealth: • Free election of kings • Religious tolerance • The Sejm to meet every two years • Foreign policy controlled by the Sejm • A royal advisory council chosen by the Sejm • Official posts restricted to Polish and Lithuanian nobles • Taxes and monopolies set up by the Sejm only • Nobles' right to disobey the Monarch should s/he break any of these laws. In 1578 king, Stefan Batory, created the Crown Tribunal to reduce the enormous pressure on the Royal Court. This placed much of the monarch's juridical power in the hands of the elected szlachta deputies, further strengthening the nobility as a class. In 1581 the Crown Tribunal was joined by a counterpart in Lithuania, the Lithuanian Tribunal. Magnate oligarchy . Drawing by Jan Matejko, circa 1893 For many centuries, wealthy and powerful members of the szlachta sought to gain legal privileges over their peers. In 1459 Ostroróg presented a memorandum to the Sejm (parliament), submitting palatines, or Voivodes of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, receive the title of prince. Sons of the prince were to receive titles of counts and barons. Castellans of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth were to receive the title of count. All these submissions were rejected. In the 1840s Nicholas I reduced 64,000 of lesser szlachta to a particular commoner status known as odnodvortsy (literally "single-householders"). Despite this, 62.8% of all Russia's nobles were Polish szlachta in 1858 and still 46.1% in 1897. Serfdom was abolished in Russian Poland on 19 February 1864. It was deliberately enacted with the aim of ruining the szlachta. Only in the Russian Partition did peasants pay the market price for land redemption, the average for the rest of the Russian Empire was 34% above the market rates. All land taken from Polish peasants since 1846 was to be returned to them without redemption payments. The ex-serfs could only sell land to other peasants, not szlachta. 90% of the ex-serfs in the empire who actually gained land after 1861 lived in the 8 western provinces. Along with Romania, Polish landless or domestic serfs were the only ones to be given land after serfdom was abolished. All this was to punish the szlachta's role in the uprisings of 1830 and 1863. By 1864 80% of szlachta were déclassé – downward social mobility. One quarter of petty nobles were worse off than the average serf. While 48.9% of the land in Russian Poland was in peasant hands, nobles still held onto 46%. In the Second Polish Republic the privileges of the nobility were legally abolished by the March Constitution in 1921 and as such not reinstated by any succeeding Polish law. == Culture ==

Sarmatism , Hetman, Grand Crown Chancellor and a representative of Sarmatism The szlachtas prevalent ideology, especially in the 17th and 18th centuries, was manifested in its adoption of "Sarmatism", a word derived from the legend that its origins reached back to the ancient tribe of an Iranic people, the Sarmatians. This nostalgic belief system embracing chivalry and courtliness became an important part of szlachta culture and affected all aspects of their lives. It was popularized by poets who exalted traditional village life, peace and pacifism. It was also manifested in oriental-style apparel, the żupan, kontusz, sukmana, pas kontuszowy, delia and made the scimitar-like szabla a near-obligatory item of everyday szlachta apparel. Sarmatism served to integrate a nobility of disparate provenance, as it sought to create a sense of national unity and pride in the szlachta's "Golden Liberty" złota wolność. It was marked furthermore by a linguistic affectation among the szlachta of mixing Polish and Latin vocabulary, producing a form of Polish Dog Latin peppered with "macaronisms" in everyday conversation. Gastronomy '' by Alfred Wierusz-Kowalski, 1910 The szlachta, no less than the rest of the population, placed a particular accent on food. It was at the centre of courtly and estate entertaining and in good times, at the heart of village life. During the Age of Enlightenment, King Stanislaw August Poniatowski emulated the French Salons by holding his famed Thursday Lunches for intellectuals and artists, drawn chiefly from the szlachta. His Wednesday Lunches were gatherings for policy makers in science, education and politics. There was a tradition, particularly in Mazovia, kept until the 20th century, of estate owners laying on a festive banquet at the completion of harvest for their staff, known as Dożynki, as a way of expressing an acknowledgment of their work. It was equivalent to a harvest festival. Polish food varied according to region, as elsewhere in Europe, and was influenced by settlers, especially Jewish cuisine, and occupying armies. Hunting One of the favourite szlachta pastimes was hunting (łowiectwo). Before the formation of Poland as a state, hunting was accessible to everyone. With the introduction of rulers and rules, big game, generically zwierzyna: Aurochs, bison, deer and boar became the preserve of kings and princes on penalty of poachers' death. From the 13th century on the king would appoint a high-ranking courtier to the role of Master of the Hunt, Łowczy. In time, the penalties for poaching were commuted to fines and from around the 14th century, landowners acquired the right to hunt on their land. Small game, foxes, hare, badger and stoat etc. were 'fair game' to all comers. Hunting became one of the most popular social activities of the szlachta until the partitions, when different sets of restrictions in the three territories were introduced. This was with a view to curbing social interaction among the subject Poles. Over the centuries, at least two breeds of specialist hounds were bred in Poland. One was the Polish Hunting Dog, the brach. The other was the Ogar Polski. Count Xavier Branicki was so nostalgic about Polish hunting, that when he settled in France in the mid 19th century, and restored his estate at the Chateau de Montresor, he ordered a brace of Ogar Polski hounds from the Polish breeder and szlachcic, Piotr Orda. Women as purveyors of culture High-born women in Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth exerted political and cultural influence throughout history in their own country and abroad, as queens, princesses and the wives or widows of magnates. Their cultural activities came into sharper relief in the 18th century with their hosting of salons in the French manner. They went on to publish as translators and writers and as facilitators of educational and social projects. . Oil by Marcello Bacciarelli Notable women members of the szlachta who exerted political and/or cultural influence include: • Queen Jadwiga (1373 ог 1374–1399) • Bona Sforza (1494–1557), second wife of Sigismund I the Old • Zofia Lubomirska • Anna Jabłonowska • Elzbieta Lubomirska • Eleonora Czartoryska • Izabela Czartoryska • Barbara Sanguszko (1718–1791), poet, translator and moralist • Tekla Teresa Lubienska (1767–1810), poet, playwright and translator == Demographics and stratification ==

The szlachta differed in many respects from the nobility in other countries. The most important difference was that, while in most European countries the nobility lost power as the ruler strove for absolute monarchy, in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth a reverse process occurred: the nobility actually gained power at the expense of the king, and enabled the political system to evolve into an oligarchy. Szlachta members were also proportionately more numerous than their equivalents in all other European countries, constituting 6–12% of the entire population. By the mid-16th century the szlachta class consisted of at least 500,000 persons (some 25,000 families). The proportion of nobles in the population varied across regions. In the 16th century, the highest proportion of nobles lived in the Płock Voivodeship (24,6%) and in Podlachia (26,7%), while Galicia had numerically the largest szlachta population. Before the Union of Lublin, inequality among nobles in terms of wealth and power was far greater in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania than in the Polish Kingdom. The further south and east one went, the more the territory was dominated by magnate families and other nobles. on a Lithuanian commemorative stamp It has been said that the ruling elites were the only socio-political milieu to whom a sense of national consciousness could be attributed. All szlachta members, irrespective of their cultural/ethnic background, were regarded as belonging to a single "political nation" within the Commonwealth. Arguably, a common culture, the Catholic religion and the Polish language were seen as the main unifying factors in the dual state. Prior to the Partitions there was said to have been no Polish national identity as such. Only szlachta members, irrespective of their ethnicity or culture of origin, were considered as "Poles". Despite Polonisation in Lithuania and Ruthenia in the 17th-18th centuries, a large part of the lower szlachta managed to retain their cultural identity in various ways. Due to poverty most of the local szlachta had never had access to formal education nor to Polish language teaching and hence could not be expected to self-identify as Poles. It was common even for wealthy and in practice Polonised szlachta members still to refer to themselves as Lithuanian, Litwin or Ruthenian, Rusyn. According to Polish estimates from the 1930s, 300,000 members of the common nobles s zlachta zagrodowa – inhabited the subcarpathian region of the Second Polish Republic out of 800,000 in the whole country. 90% of them were Ukrainian-speaking and 80% were Ukrainian Greek Catholics. In other parts of Ukraine with a significant szlachta population, such as the Bar or the Ovruch regions, the situation was similar despite Russification and earlier Polonization. As an example: as Bacciarelli's Blue Marquise , 1859. However the era of sovereign rule by the szlachta ended earlier than in other countries, excluding France, in 1795 (see Partitions of Poland). Since then their legitimacy and fate depended on the legislation and policies of the Russian Empire, Kingdom of Prussia and Habsburg monarchy. Their privileges became increasingly limited, and were ultimately dissolved by the March Constitution of Poland in 1921. There were a number of avenues to upward social mobility and the attainment of nobility. The szlachta was not rigidly exclusive or closed as a class, but according to heraldic sources, the total number of legal ennoblements issued between the 14th and mid-18th century, is estimated at 800. (); but, children of a legitimate marriage followed the condition of the father, never the mother, therefore, only the father transmitted his nobility to his children. See patrilineality. A noble woman married to a commoner could not transmit her nobility to her husband and their children. Any individual could attain ennoblement ('') for special services to the state. A foreign noble might be naturalized as a Polish noble through the mechanism called the Indygenat'', certified by the king. Later, from 1641, it could only be done by a general sejm. By the eighteenth century all these trends contributed to the great increase in the proportion of szlachta in the total population. In theory all szlachta members were social equals and were formally legal peers. Those who held civic appointments were more privileged but their roles were not hereditary. Those who held honorary appointments were superior in the hierarchy but these positions were only granted for a lifetime. Some tenancies became hereditary and went with both privilege and title. Nobles who were not direct Lessees of the Crown but held land from other lords were only peers "de iure". The poorest enjoyed the same rights as the wealthiest magnate. The exceptions were a few symbolically privileged families such as the Radziwiłł, Lubomirski and Czartoryski, who held honorary aristocratic titles bestowed by foreign courts and recognised in Poland which granted them use of titles such as "Prince" or "Count". See also The Princely Houses of Poland. All other szlachta simply addressed each other by their given name or as "Brother, Sir" Panie bracie or the feminine equivalent. The other forms of address would be "Illustrious and Magnificent Lord", "Magnificent Lord", "Generous Lord" or "Noble Lord" in descending order, or simply "His/Her Grace Lord/Lady". The notion that all Polish nobles were social equals, regardless of their financial status or offices held, is enshrined in a traditional Polish adage: renderable in English: or, preserving the Polish original's rhyme scheme: Szlachta categories File:150913_Garden_of_the_Branicki_Palace_in_Białystok_-_02.jpg|Magnate palace: Branicki family palace File:Żądło-Dąbrowski_z_Dąbrówki_Herbu_(Coat_of_Arms)_Radwan_Family_Manor_in_Michałowice_Village,_POLAND.jpg|Middle nobility manor house (dwór): Żądło-Dąbrowski family manor File:Gerson Before the manor.jpg|Lesser szlachta/nobility homestead (dwór) The nobility were divided by wealth into: • magnates, the wealthiest class: owners of vast lands, towns, many villages, and thousands of peasants • middle nobility (średnia szlachta): owners of one or more villages, often bearing official titles, or deputies from sejmiks (regional sejms) to the general Sejm • petty nobility (drobna szlachta): owners of part of a village or of no land at all, they were often referred to by a variety of colourful Polish terms, including: • '' – from zaścianek, poorer members of the szlachta settled together in related families in one village, neighborhood/village nobility. • szaraczkowa – grey nobility, from their grey, woollen, undyed żupany • okoliczna – local nobility, similar to zaściankowa • zagrodowa – from zagroda, a croft, often little more than a peasant's dwelling • panek – little pan (i.e., lordling), term used in Kaszuby, the Kashubian region, also one of the legal terms for legally separated lower nobility in late medieval and early modern Poland • hreczkosiej – buckwheat sower – those who had to work their fields themselves because they had no peasants. • szlachta służebna – petty nobility who possessed land on the condition of military service (mainly of Ruthenian origin, in Eastern Poland) • quit-rent szlachta (szlachta czynszowa) – a class of impoverished szlachta who rented estates in the vast lands of magnates (predominantly in Ruthenian lands) • szlachta poddańcza – a step below the quit-rent szlachta: they required to work for the landlord who allotted them some land. • brukowa – town-street nobility: landless szlachta who earned a living in towns like other townsfolk Its political rights were removed altogether by the Constitution of 3 May 1791. The purpose of the move was to eliminate the purchases of szlachta-gołota voices in sejmiks by magnates to use them, e.g., in voting or in executing liberum veto. Półpanek ("half-lord"); also podpanek/pidpanek ("sub-lord") in Podolia and Ukrainian accent – a derogatory term for a petty szlachcic pretending to be wealthy. In the Russian Partition of Poland, Tsar Nicholas I signed a ukase on 19 October 1831, titled "On the Division and Disposition of Nobility in the Western Governorates", which required those claiming noble status to provide evidence to the Russian Office of Heraldry. The result was a drastic decrease in the number of petty szlachta, who were demoted into estates of the realm required to pay taxes. == See also ==

a. Estimates of the proportion of szlachta vary widely: 10–12% of the total population of historic Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, around 8% of the total population in 1791 (up from 6.6% in the 16th century) or 6–8%. == References ==

• Aleksander Brückner, Słownik etymologiczny języka polskiego (Etymological Dictionary of the Polish Language), first edition, Kraków, Krakowska Spółka Wydawnicza, 1927 (9th edition, Warsaw, Wiedza Powszechna, 2000). • • . • Żernicki-Szeliga Emilian v., Der Polnische Adel und die demselben hinzugetretenen andersländischen Adelsfamilien, General-Verzeichnis. Published by Verlag v. Henri Grand. Hamburg 1900. https://archive.org/details/derpolnischeade00szegoog (Ger). This is a reasonably modern and comprehensive list of 3000 Polish and settler szlachta families and their crests, sourced from, among others, Niesiecki, Paprocki and Boniecki. 598 pages. Accessed 2018-11-02. == External links ==