Besides a number of printer-publishers, there was in Cracow and in Poland in general a considerable number of booksellers thoroughly sympathetic with the Reformation movement. One of the earliest Cracow booksellers imbued with the new religious ideas was Georg Fenig, of Crailsheim, Würtemberg. He had been in Cracow as early as 1515. In 1520 he was in Leipzig, where he had a bookshop and where he became a Lutheran. In 1527 he returned to Poland, and settled in Poznań. After his death in 1538 his widow carried on the business until 1551, when she removed to Königsberg in East Prussia with her daughter, who married there John Seklucjan, formerly of Poznań.[209] Other Cracow booksellers, favoring the Reformation, were Sebestian Pech, Michael Królik, Zachaeus Kessner, Jean Tenaud, of Bourges, and Estienne Le Riche, of Lyon.[210] Pech and Królik were Calvinists, and were in constant touch with Geneva, Zurich, and Basel. Just as soon as a new book was published in Switzerland it at once found its way to Poland through these intermediaries. Pech maintained a bookstore not only in Cracow, but also in Lwów.[211] The largest Cracow bookseller in the second half of the sixteenth century, and a very influential member of the Lutheran congregation there, was Zachaeus Kessner. His business connections extended throughout Poland and northern Hungary, and he dealt chiefly in books of scholarly value.[212] John Policjusz, a former business manager of Kessner’s, became a bookseller at Zamość.[213] Jean Tenaudus was a Frenchman and a leading Calvinist, who came into touch with Polish Calvinists through Geneva. He came to Poland in 1558, and was first a teacher in the Calvinistic gymnasium at Pińczów and later principal of the Calvinistic school in Cracow, conducting a bookstore at the same time. Owing to his fame as a bookdealer, he won the honor of being designated by King Stephen Batory in 1578 as court bookdealer.[214] Estienne Le Riche, known also as Stephen Dives, of Lyons, seems to have succeeded Tenaud, and was an important intermediary in the book business between Poland and the West.[215] As a result of this active book trade in Poland in the sixteenth century, the writings of Luther and Calvin and of other reformers were speedily imported into Poland and received wide circulation. As early as 1520 Luther’s books were brought to Cracow, sold in the university buildings to the students, and were read and discussed by them with the tacit approval of the faculty until they were condemned by Pope Leo X.[216]
In the spread of intelligence regarding the new religious movement the Polish magnates, favoring and supporting the Reformation, played also an active and important part. A number of them established printing presses of their own for the distinct purpose of religious propaganda. Thus, for instance, Michael Radziwill, the Black, an ardent supporter of Calvinism, founded a printing press at Brześć-Litewski, where Calvinistic literature was printed, and where in 1563 the Radziwill Bible was published. John Kiszka, starosta of Żmudź, established presses at Łosk and Nieśwież. These together with Raków and for a time with Pińczów were publication centres for Arian literature. At Nieśwież in 1572 Budny’s Arian Bible was published. The presses at Pińczów were maintained by the Oleśnickis. Moreover, we must not fail to bear in mind that one of the earliest, most prolific and most influential Polish Protestant publication centres was Königsberg in East Prussia, where Prince Albert had established one of the best and largest printing and publishing enterprises of the time for the dissemination of the Reformation doctrines both in his own duchy and throughout Poland.[217]
These Protestant presses were kept busy, printing pamphlets, books, and the Scriptures or portions thereof. This literary output consisted partly of translations and partly of original writings. A good deal of it was polemical, making a severe attack on Catholicism. What helped to stimulate this publishing activity was the fact that by a statute of 1539 the royal edicts of 1520 and 1523, forbidding the dissemination of heretical literature, were revoked, and freedom of the press was established in Poland.[218] From the presses of Königsberg John Seklucjan fairly flooded Poland with religious literature between the years 1544 and 1559. Among his publications deserving mention there were: A Confession of Christian Faith, published in 1544, Luther’s larger and shorter catechism and a collection of hymns (1547), a Polish translation of the New Testament, effected by Stanislaus Murzynowski and published in 1550-1553, and Seklucjan’s volume of homilies (1556).[219] Here, too, appeared in 1552 Małecki’s translation of the New Testament.[220] This Małecki is the same person whom we met before in Cracow and at Pułtusk as printer-publisher under the name of John of Sącz. Following Seklucjan’s example, Scharffenberg published in Cracow in 1561 John Leopolita’s translation of the Bible, known as the Leopolitan Bible. The Calvinistic or Radziwill’s Bible, as we have already noted, appeared at Brześć-Litewski in 1563, the Arian or Budny’s Bible at Nieśwież in 1572, and the Catholic or Wujek’s Bible in 1599.[221] Among the Protestant publications of this time deserving mention were also two significant volumes of homilies, Nicholas Rey’s published in 1557, and Gregory’s of Żarnowiec, which appeared in 1572-1580.[222] Both of these works have survived in various editions the vicissitudes of time to the present day, and are still in use in Protestant homes of Poland. The Arians, too, made a large and credible contribution to Polish religious literature, consisting of translations of the works of Stankar, Lismanini, Ochino, and Socino, and of original writings of their leading representatives. Among the leading Arian writers of the sixteenth century were Martin Krowicki, Gregory Paul or Pauli, Peter of Goniądz, Simon Budny, John Niemojewski, and Martin Czechowic. Czechowic had studied at Poznań and Leipzig (1554), and was the most distinguished of the Arian writers. His most important works were published between the years 1575 and 1583, his Racovian Catechism appearing in 1575, his translation of the New Testament in 1577, and the Epistomium, a polemical work, in 1583.[223]
We have seen that the number of books printed in Cracow alone in the years 1503-1536 was two hundred ninety-four. The total number of books printed in Poland toward the end of the fifteenth and during the sixteenth century is estimated to have been seven thousand five hundred.[224] This extensive printing and publishing activity contributed greatly to the popularization and spread of the ideas of humanism and the doctrines of the Reformation.
Then, too, the spread of the new ideas in Poland was due to close intellectual connections between Poland and the West and to the influence of German and Swiss universities. It was customary for the sons of the Polish aristocracy and the well-to-do gentry to frequent foreign universities for the purpose of rounding out their education. The leaders of that day, whether in science, literature, or politics, were invariably men educated abroad. Moreover, visits home on the part of the Polish students, regardless of whether they were studying in Germany, Switzerland, or Italy, were more common and frequent in the sixteenth century than today.[225]
The University of Cracow, famous for its learning, attracting students from all over Europe, and flourishing in the fifteenth century, lost its influential position and its drawing power with the beginning of the sixteenth century, owing to its reactionary character and its pronounced opposition to the new current of thought and learning. The universities of the West and of the South superseded it in influence and attractiveness. The flow of foreign students to Cracow ceased; and Polish students began to turn now more and more to German, French, Swiss, and Italian universities in search of learning and knowledge.[226] Up to 1525 the sons of distinguished Polish families still frequented the University of Cracow, spending their first years there and then finishing their studies in universities abroad. After that, however, the character of the student body at the university changed entirely. The sons of the Polish aristocracy disappeared; they turned to other universities. The names appearing on the university register after 1525 were names of the small gentry, the town population, and the peasantry.[227] The youth of the Protestant families in particular had nothing to gain by registering at the University of Cracow; it, therefore, sought the universities of Wittenberg, Zurich, and Basel, especially so by the middle of the sixteenth century.[228]
The Polish students were eager to become acquainted with the new ideas, they absorbed them readily, and on their visits home or their final return they disseminated them in their own country. So great was the exodus of Polish students to German and other foreign universities, and so great the danger of infecting the country with the new religious doctrines and practices through the channel of intellectual intercommunication that the reactionary elements in the country found it necessary to force the king to pass laws forbidding the Polish youth to frequent foreign universities infected with heresy or suspected of such infection.[229]
It is of great interest to note that in the sixteenth century Polish students were registered in considerable numbers in nearly every German and Swiss university of any consequence. They were at Wittenberg, Leipzig, Königsberg,[230] Frankfort on the Oder, Heidelberg, Herborn, Altdorf, Marburg, Freiburg, Würzburg, Dillingen, Mainz, Ingolstadt, Zurich, and Basel.[231] The German universities most largely attended by Poles were Wittenberg, Leipzig, Königsberg, and Frankfort on the Oder. The number of Polish students registered in these institutions of learning in the course of the sixteenth century was over two thousand.[232] At Heidelberg there were in the course of the century about one hundred and sixty-five Polish students,[233] at Altdorf, from its foundation in 1575 until 1617, two hundred and seventy,[234] at Marburg, from 1527 to 1628, about seventy,[235] and at Basel, from 1549 to 1570, also about seventy.[236] At Wittenberg we find representatives of prominent Cracow families among Luther’s students as early as 1520.[237] By the end of the same decade the number of Polish students in that university had considerably increased, and there were found among them Stanislaus Orzechowski, Stanislaus Warszewicki, I. Krotowski, I. Lipczyński, three Górkas, two Ostrorogs, Tomicki, and Grudziński.[238] After 1530 the sons of the Polish nobility flocked to Wittenberg in steadily growing numbers.[239]
The universities most popular with the Poles were the Protestant universities rather than the Catholic. The relative proportion of Poles attending German Protestant and Catholic universities was, in the sixteenth century, six to one.[240] The most popular Catholic university was Ingolstadt, registering in that century three hundred and sixty-five Polish students and occupying the fifth place among the German universities frequented by Poles.[241] Freiburg in the course of fifty-six years, from 1575 to 1631, during a period when the Catholic reaction had already set in, registered less than a hundred Polish students.[242] Dillingen, Würzburg, Mainz, founded by Catholic bishops for the purpose of counteracting the influence of the Protestant universities and under the control of the Jesuit Order, began to draw Polish students with the rise of the Catholic reaction after 1564.[243] Of the Protestant universities the most popular with the Poles were Wittenberg, Königsberg, Heidelberg, and Frankfort on the Oder,—all centres of Lutheranism. Of the Swiss universities the one most largely attended by Poles was the University of Basel. The Swiss universities together with Altdorf, Herborn, and Marburg in Germany were centres of Calvinism, and were sought and frequented by Calvinistic sympathizers from among the Poles.[244] At Altdorf, where the number of students was comparatively small, the Poles constituted in some years one-fourth of the total student body. Owing to their numerical strength, the honorary rectorship of the university was held twice by one of their number, in 1583-1584 by Nicholas Ostrorog, and in 1609-1610 by Adam Sienieński.[245]
The Polish students registered in the German and Swiss Protestant universities were the sons of the Polish aristocracy and the well-to-do Polish gentry.[246] At Altdorf, for instance, we find the sons of such Calvinistic aristocratic families as the Firleys, the Ostrorogs, the Naruszewiczes, the Wollowiczes, the Lanckorońskis, the Wiśniowieckis, the Krotowskis, and the Sienieńskis; of the Calvinistic well-to-do gentry, namely, the Gołuchowskis, the Reys, the Przecławskis, the Lipskis, the Czernows, the Grochowskis, the Balls, the Boguszes, the Zielińskis, the Ossolińskis, the Przyjemskis, the Pieniążeks, and the Suchorabskis; and later, with the beginning of the seventeenth century, of such Arian noble families as the Przypkowskis, the Stoyeńskis, the Lubienieckis, the Otwinowskis, the Filipowskis, the Dudyczes, the Hoyskis, the Niemieryczes, the Taszyckis, the Morsztyns, the Szlichtyngs, and even the Radziwills.[247] At Herborn, in the years 1611-1619, there were the Ostrorogs, the Gołuchowskis, the Drohojewskis, and the Rożyckis. These, too, were sons of Calvinistic families.[248] At Marburg, in the years 1601-1620, we find representatives of the Lithuanian Calvinistic szlachta from around Słuck and Kieydany, the Swięcickis, the Rekuckis, the Ceraskis, the Estkos, the Kozdryns, and the sons of Calvinistic pastors, the Wannowskis, Krosniewieckis, and the Molesons.[249] At Wittenberg, Leipzig, and Frankfort on the Oder there were to be found the sons of the powerful aristocratic families, the Mniszeks, the Ostrorogs, the Lanckorońskis, the Myszkowskis, the Radziwills, and the Przyłęckis.[250] Finally, at Basel we find in the years 1549-1570 representatives of the best and most influential Polish families. From Great Poland there were the sons of the Zbąskis, the Ostrorogs, the Rozrażewskis, the Nadarzyckis, the Łasickis, and of the Woynowskis; from Little Poland, the Myszkowskis, the Dłuskis, the Gnoyeńskis, the Lipnickis, the Ossolińskis, the Czyzowskis, the Pieniążeks, and of the Słupeckis; from Mazovia, Iłowski; from Lithuania, Skumina, Tyszkiewicz, Kiszka; from Kuyavia, Zebrzydowski; from the district of Sieradz, the Lutomirskis, Zalewski, Kotkowski, Paklepka; from the eastern provinces, Drohoyowski, Strzelecki, Drzewińiski, Strzechowski, and Uhrowiecki.[251] All these names found on the register of the University of Basel are well known in connection with the Reformation movement in Poland. The bearers of them played prominent rôles in Polish politics and in the spread of the Calvinistic and later of the Arian faith in their native land.[252]