At the next Diet, assembled in Warsaw toward the end of November, 1563, the clergy made a show of presenting their privileges, exempting the mayors of their villages from military service, with the declaration that they were doing it “ad informationem” and not “ad judicum.” The indefiniteness of the documents was apparent. But the Chamber, though predominantly Protestant again with Nicholas Siennicki presiding, was inclined to be conciliatory. It agreed that the clergy should enjoy personal exemption from the so-called “pospolite ruszenie,” or general rising in arms, but it did express the feeling that they should share in the burdens of defense by money contributions. After several consultations with the papal legate, the clergy declared their willingness to make a substantial contribution to the country’s defense at this time, but could not obligate themselves regarding the future; and that they would do this on condition that the law passed at the last Diet virtually doing away with ecclesiastical jurisdiction be repealed and that the Edict of Warsaw of 1557, which had then been expressly recalled by the king as unconstitutional, be enforced. These reservations and conditions were not acceptable. And when the bishops refused to recede from the position they had taken, the king signed a manifesto, imposing a tax of 20 groszen per łan, or 20 groats per hide of land, of which 10 groszen were to come from the tithes.[172] This evoked a veritable furor among the bishops. But it was useless. The king was firm; and from now on to the end of his reign whenever a tax was imposed for purposes of defense, the same proportion was to come from the tithes.[173]
The notable victories achieved by the Protestants over the Roman clergy at the last two Diets opened the way wide to the spread of the Reformation. They also encouraged the szlachta to go still farther in their efforts to emancipate themselves from the power of the clergy. With ecclesiastical jurisdiction practically abolished, the szlachta began now to question the legitimacy of tithes. They were led to this by the insistence of the clergy that the tithes be paid, and by continuing to summon before their courts those who failed to do so and even the starostas who, in compliance with the law of the Diet of 1562-1563, refused to execute the verdicts of their courts. When, therefore, the Diet of 1565 assembled at Piotrków on January 18, the Chamber under the presidency of Nicholas Siennicki wanted to know the ground on which the szlachta was required to pay the tithes and the purposes for which the clergy were using them. And since the clergy was unwilling to share the burden of the country’s defense, the szlachta was disinclined to pay the tithes.[174] The Deputies complained also about the summons served by episcopal courts on the szlachta for non-payment of tithes and on the starostas for refusing to execute episcopal decrees; whereupon the king sanctioned a law making all such summons null and void.[175] This was the last blow administered to the effectiveness of ecclesiastical jurisdiction; and as a result of it the victory of the Protestants was complete.
An idea of the relative strength and influence of Protestantism at this time may be gained from the composition of the Senate in the Diet of 1569, the number of Protestant parishes in the realm, and from a complaint of Peter Skarga, the greatest Jesuit preacher in Poland at the close of the 16th and the beginning of the 17th century. The total number of senatorial seats in the Diet of 1569 was 133. Of these 70 were occupied by Catholics, 15 of whom were bishops, 58 by Protestant dignitaries, 2 by Greek Orthodox senators, and 3 were vacant. Of the total number of senators the Protestants came close to having one-half, and, exclusive of the Catholic bishops, the Protestants outnumbered the Catholic temporal peers by three.[176] The number of Protestant parishes in Poland toward the close of the 16th century, according to Professor Henry Merczyng’s researches and calculations, was about 600, or one-sixth of the total number of Roman Catholic parishes in Poland including Lithuania. The same relative proportion existed between the Protestant and the Catholic szlachta of Poland at this time.[177] That this estimate of Professor Merczyng’s of Protestant strength in Poland at this time is very conservative can be seen from Peter Skarga’s complaint, made at the close of the 16th century, that two thousand Romanist churches had been converted into Protestant places of worship.[178]
To make their strength felt still more politically, the Protestants, including the Lutherans, the Calvinists, and the Bohemian Brethren, entered into a certain form of union at Sandomir, April 14, 1570, known as Consensus Sandomiriensis. By this agreement, while each body retained its organization and form of worship, the three Protestant bodies pledged themselves to preserve peace and harmony among themselves and to act together politically.[179] Due to the political strength of the Protestants, the Polish szlachta entered during the interregnum after the death of Sigismund Augustus into a Pact of Confederation at Warsaw in 1573, by which religious toleration and equality were legally established in the realm, and had to be sworn to by every newly elected king.[180] This marked the climax in the development of the Reformation in Poland.
The causes of this remarkable development of the Reformation movement in Poland were not only political, as previous studies have sufficiently established, but also social and economic. To show this is the purpose of the present study.
[1] Walerjan Krasiński, Zarys dziejów Reformacji w Polsce, Warsaw, 1903, vol. i, p. 26; Wł. Smoleński. Dzieje narodu polskiego, Warsaw, 1904, p. 21.
[2] Smoleński, pp. 30-31; Krasiński, vol. i, pp. 29-30.
[3] Krasiński, vol. i, p. 31.
[4] Ibid., vol. i, pp. 31-32.
[5] Smoleński, pp. 41-42.