The reformation in Poland

by Paul Fox

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: