SOCIAL CAUSES OF THE POLISH REFORMATION
The phenomenal spread of the Reformation in Poland was due, first
of all, to certain social causes. Among these probably the most
potent were the Renaissance, the art of printing, the influence of
foreign universities, particularly those of Germany and Switzerland,
religious toleration in Poland in the sixteenth century, and the fact
that the new ideas were accepted, championed, and maintained by the
upper classes of the population, thus giving the Reformation movement
a certain prestige, popularity, and much needed moral and material
support.
As in the West, so also in Poland the way for the religious Reformation
was prepared in a large measure by the Renaissance. The new learning,
together with the new temper of mind resulting therefrom, reached
Poland early in the fifteenth century, won many enthusiastic followers
among the educated nobility and even among the higher clergy, and
exerted a powerful influence over the minds of the upper classes in the
nation throughout the sixteenth century. Many of the Polish bishops
were ardent admirers of Erasmus, among whom were Tomicki, Maciejowski,
Zebrzydowski, Padniewski, and Myszkowski. Their episcopal courts as
well as those of some of the Polish magnates, including that of Hetman
Jan Tarnowski, were centres of humanistic culture.[181]
The most notable representatives of the new temper of mind and
exponents of the new ideas were John Ostrorog, who died in 1501, John
Łaski, known also as John a Lasco, and Andrew Frycz Modrzewski; the
first living and writing in the fifteenth and the second two in the
sixteenth century. In his Monumentum pro reipublicae ordinatione,
published in 1456, John Ostrorog opposed the Polish king’s humble
submissiveness to the pope, the payment of annates, the proclamation
in the country of papal jubilees and indulgences for the purpose of
collecting money, contended for the separation of the Polish church
from Rome, and advocated state control of clerical education.[182]
John Łaski (1499-1560), nephew of the primate of the same name,
was the most ardent and conspicuous Polish humanist and patron of
humanists before his acceptance of the Reformation and his break with
the established church. He had spent some time with Erasmus at Basel,
purchased the great scholar’s wonderful library, the use of which,
however, he left to his master until his death, and on his return home
in 1526 became a zealous promoter of humanistic studies in his own
country and the most distinguished patron of a number of young Polish
humanists, among whom were Modrzewski, Andrew Trzycieski, Rullus,
Hosius; the Silesians, Pyrser, Lang, Ephorinus, Frederick of Freistadt;
the Hungarian Antoninus, the Frenchman Aignan Bourgoin, known also as
Anian, and the Englishman Coxe.[183]
Andrew Frycz Modrzewski (1503-1572) was educated at the universities
of Cracow and Wittenberg, and at the latter institution he became
intimately acquainted with Melanchthon. On his return to Poland he
became secretary to Prince Sigismund Augustus. In 1546 he joined the
Cracow circle of humanistic religious reformers, to which belonged
Andrew Trzycieski, a fellow student of Modrzewski at Cracow, the
publisher Wojewódka, the jurist James Przyłuski, James Uchański, deacon
of the Cathedral Chapter, later archbishop and primate of Poland,
Zebrzydowski, also deacon of the Cathedral Chapter and later bishop of
Cracow, Lismanini, the Franciscan confessor of the queen, and others.
In 1554 he published in Basel in the establishment of John Oporin his
De republica emendanda, the fourth part of which consisted of his
intended work, De Ecclesia, in which he dealt with the problem of
church reform. Modrzewski was primarily a humanist, secondarily an
advocate of religious reform. He strongly favored the establishment of
a national church, independent of papal jurisdiction,[184] and leaned
toward Calvinism.[185]
In the first half of the sixteenth century humanism reached the height
of its development and influence in Poland, and as a result brought
about a radical mental and spiritual change. It freed the individual
from the mediaeval burden of religious and intellectual authority; and
while it did in turn impose new authorities, yet it awakened a sense of
criticism, of intellectual and spiritual inquiry, and of independent
judgment.[186] This new critical attitude of mind constituted a well
prepared soil for the reception, growth, and development of the new
seed of religious reform. This accounts in a large measure for the
easy and rapid spread of the Reformation in Poland. In their search
for truth the humanists disregarded the authority of the church, and
subjected the established faith and ecclesiastical order to criticism.
Criticism led, in turn, to rebellion against the dogmas of the church
and its organization.[187]
Another factor contributing to the spread of the Reformation in
Poland was the art of printing. The first printed book, Gutenberg’s
Bible, appeared from the press at Munich in the year 1455. Ten years
later books in the Latin language were printed in Cracow by a certain
Gunther Zainer, who, it is claimed, had been invited to Cracow by the
University.[188] Later Zainer is said to have removed to Augsburg,
where he was to open a permanent printing establishment.[189] The
earliest known print struck off in Cracow was a calendar for the year
1474, Calendarium anni Domini 1474 currentis, a copy of which is
preserved in the library of the University of Cracow.[190] Immediately
following this publication there appeared two editions of Joannis de
Turrecremata Explanatio in Psalterium Davidi, the first in 1473-1474,
the second in 1475. Until recently this book was regarded as the
earliest publication printed in Poland.[191] Contemporaneously with
Turrecremata’s work there appeared from the press in Cracow two other
interesting books, namely, St. Augustine’s Opuscula, de doctrina
christiana, de praedestinatione Sanctorum (1473-1474), and Franciscus
de Platea’s Opus restitutionem, usurarum et excommunicationum
(1475).[192]
Books in the Slavic language in cyrilic characters were printed in
Cracow as early as 1491 by a certain enterprising German printer
from Neustadt, Franconia, by the name of Schwaipolt Fiol.[193] In
1492 Fiol was summoned before an ecclesiastical court to be tried
for openly expressing heretical opinions. After that nothing more is
heard of his printing and publishing activity.[194] The first Polish
book was printed in Breslau in 1475. Its title was Statuta synodalia
Wratislawiensia episcopi Conradi Oelsnensis, item statuta episcoporum
Petri Nowak et Rudolphi Ruedesheimii, and it contained in Polish the
Lord’s Prayer, Ave Maria, and the Apostles’ Creed. A copy of this book
is to be found in the British Museum.[195]
Whatever printing was done in Cracow in the second half of the
fifteenth century was, however, sporadic. Permanent printing and
publishing business had not been established until the beginning of
the sixteenth century. This was first accomplished in 1503 by John
Haller, a merchant of Cracow, who imported a printer from Metz, Caspar
Hochfeder by name, with all necessary equipment. Chmielowski claims
that Hochfeder was the printer who had previously been in Cracow
and had printed Turrecremata’s, Augustine’s, and de Platea’s works,
and not Zainer. It is also known that in this undertaking Haller was
assisted by Georg Stuchs von Sulzbach. From this time on Cracow had a
permanent printing establishment, owned and managed by John Haller.
This enterprising merchant owned also a paper mill and maintained
a bookstore.[196] After Haller’s death in 1525 the business was
efficiently carried on by his widow, and merited a considerable degree
of renown.[197]
Encouraged by the example and success of Haller’s enterprise, others
soon entered the publishing business, and the number of printing
presses in Cracow multiplied rapidly. In the first half of the
sixteenth century the Polish capital was the proud possessor of the
printing establishments of Florian Ungler, Hieronimus Wietor, Matthew
Scharffenberger, Siebeneicher, Wierzbięta, Lazarus Andrysowicz,
and of Piotrkowczyk.[198] Ungler was the first one of the Cracow
printer-publishers to attempt Polish prints. Among his employees was
a certain John of Sącz (Jan z Sącza), who later became a very active
promoter of Polish printing. In 1533 this John of Sącz, known now also
as Małecki and Sandecki, had a printing establishment in Pułtusk.
By 1536 we find him in East Prussia at first as printer-publisher
and afterwards as Lutheran pastor and superintendent at Elck.[199]
Ungler’s successors became Stanislaus of Zakliczyn and Gregory
Przeworski.[200] The largest and best in point of output and quality of
work was the printing establishment of Andrysowicz. By it were printed
the constitutions of the Polish Diet, Wujek’s Bible, and many other
important and valuable books of the sixteenth century.[201]
In the years 1503-1536 there were published in Cracow alone two hundred
ninety-four printed books, or as many as in the whole of England
in the same period.[202] Thus, the Polish capital became the centre
of cultural activity, not only for Poland, but also for eastern and
south-eastern Europe. “The earliest books for Hungary, Moldavia,
Transylvania, Ruthenia, and Lithuania were printed in Cracow.”[203]
But Cracow was not the only Polish city in which printing
establishments were to be found. Other cities had them, too. In the
first half of the sixteenth century printing establishments were found
in Wilno, Pułtusk, and Poznań. Later, in the course of the second half
of the same century, printing presses were established in Lublin,
Brześć-Litewski, Kowno, Łosk, Nieświez, Łowicz, Płock, Kalisz, Pińczów,
Raków, Zamość, Warsaw, Gdańsk, Chełm, Lwów, Kiev, and other provincial
cities and towns.[204]
Moreover, many of the Polish printer-publishers were either open
adherents of the Reformation or in sympathy with it. Some of the
Cracow printers, though remaining in the Catholic Church, yet for the
sake of business printed and circulated Protestant books. Wietor,
suspected of heresy, had to make a confession of the Catholic faith
before an episcopal tribunal. The printer Andrysowicz was placed on
the index.[205] Some were open adherents of the Reformation. The
court printer, Michael Wierzbięta, was a Calvinist, an elder in the
Reformed Church of Cracow, and in his establishment were printed
Calvinistic books and pamphlets as well as many of the best Polish
literary productions of the time.[206] Alexander Rodecki, another
Cracow printer-publisher, conducting printing establishments also at
Raków and at Łosk, was an Arian. His daughter Judith married Sebestian
Sternacki, who was also a publisher of Arian literature at Cracow and
Raków. Sebestian Sternacki’s son, Paul, married Catharine Siebeneicher,
and continued as publisher of Arian literature.[207] Other Protestant
printers were Daniel of Łęczyca, an itinerant printer, Bernard
Wojewódka, active at Brześć-Litewski, and Cyprian Bazylik, who married
a niece of one of the earliest Cracow printers, Wolfgang Lerma von
Pfaffenhoffen.[208]
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]
Another significant cause furthering the spread of the Reformation in
Poland was Polish religious tolerance. In the sixteenth century Poland
was a country not only of political liberty, but also of intellectual
freedom and of religious liberty. To be sure, owing to the pressure
exerted by the clergy upon the kings, royal edicts, forbidding the
dissemination of the new doctrines in the land and imposing severe
penalties upon transgressors, were issued freely. However, these edicts
violated constitutionally guaranteed liberties of the nobility, and,
consequently, were never approved by any diet; hence, they had not the
force of law, and remained largely a dead letter.
As to the attitude of the kings themselves, they were rather tolerant
of differences in religious belief and practice. Sigismund the Old,
while a very good and loyal Catholic and a ruler who seemed to be
easily induced to issue decrees proscribing the new religious movement,
was very tolerant personally. When Johann Eck, the German Catholic
theologian and zealous opponent of Luther, called on him to adopt a
stern policy and to use severe measures in suppressing Lutheranism in
Poland, the king replied that his desire was to rule over the goats as
well as over the sheep.[253] When, again, in July, 1546, Pope Paul III
urged him to take an active part on the side of the cause of the church
in the religious war which had broken out in Germany at this time,
Sigismund I not only refused to do so, but also by royal order forbade
Polish citizens to engage even privately in any way on either side of
the German controversy and conflict.[254] Then, too, it was Sigismund
I who in 1525 consented to the secularization of the Teutonic Order and
of the Duchy of East Prussia, then a part of the Polish kingdom. And it
is a well known fact that his court was unusually liberal and a safe
shelter for humanists and humanistic sympathizers with the Reformation
movement.
If Sigismund I was tolerant, his son, Sigismund Augustus, who
succeeded his father to the throne in 1548, was still more so. Reared
in the liberal atmosphere of the court and educated by humanists in
sympathy with the ideas and doctrines of the Reformation, Sigismund
Augustus was a religious liberal. Out of state policy he remained
in the Catholic Church and stood by it, though to all appearances
his personal convictions and sympathies leaned in the direction of
the Reformation movement, certainly so in his earlier if not in his
later years. He surrounded himself with humanists and with supporters
of the Reformation. He read books of the reformers, participated in
religious discussions with his friends, and corresponded with Calvin.
He formed an intimate friendship with Nicholas Radziwill, the powerful
magnate and grand hetman of Lithuania, and an avowed and staunch
Calvinist, and married his beautiful sister, Barbara, who, too, had
embraced the Calvinistic faith. With Franciscus Lismanini, the former
Franciscan confessor of his queen mother, he maintained a friendly
connection for years, even after Lismanini had become openly known as
an ardent admirer and sympathizer with Calvinism. He favored certain
church reforms, and had gone so far as to send an embassy to Rome to
secure the pope’s sanction of them, which sanction, however, was not
granted. And when at one time the Pope urged him to exterminate the
heretics from his land, Sigismund Augustus gave the Holy Father this
characteristic reply: “I fear that by trying to pull up the tares, I
might uproot the wheat also.”[255]
The same religious broad-mindedness, liberality, and tolerance
characterized the person and the reign of the third notable Polish
king of the sixteenth century, Stephen Batory (1576-1586). King Stephen
was a faithful Catholic, a generous supporter of Jesuitism, and a ruler
who saw the strength of the royal power in a close alliance with the
Church of Rome. Yet, in spite of his strong Catholic loyalty, he would
not tolerate any religious persecution. He steadily discountenanced all
religious disturbances, and firmly kept his coronation oath to maintain
peace among the adherents of different religious faiths, asserting that
he did not wish to violate anybody’s conscience.[256] He, too, like
Sigismund I, wished to rule peaceably over the goats as well as over
the sheep.
When we turn from the kings to the nation, we meet with the same
broad-minded liberality and tolerance. The Polish nation of the
sixteenth century loved liberty no less than at any other period
of its history. Liberty constituted the foundation and was an
essential characteristic of all its institutions, political and
social. The Polish nobility worked and fought strenuously for its
political rights and privileges, and having secured them, guarded
them jealously. Naturally, therefore, when the question of religious
liberty once arose, the Polish nobility immediately applied to the
sphere of religion the same principle it had established in the
realm of politics. It insisted on freedom of thought, on liberty of
conscience, on toleration of divergent views, beliefs, and practices.
In 1539 freedom of the press was established, and in 1556 full liberty
of conscience.[257] To secure the realm still further against any
possible religious intolerance, dissensions, persecutions, or strifes
and conflicts, the ruling classes entered, on the death of Sigismund
Augustus, into a compact, sealed by the Confederation of Warsaw on the
twenty-eighth day of January, 1573, mutually pledging themselves to
maintain religious peace and toleration in the land.[258] This compact
was confirmed by the Diet, became a part of the Polish constitution,
and had to be sworn to by succeeding kings on their accession to the
Polish throne.[259]
Owing to this remarkable degree of religious toleration, Poland became
a land of refuge for persecuted religious dissenters and reformers of
other European countries. Here found refuge such men as Franciscus
Stankar, Blandrata, Negri, Lelio and Faustus Sozzino, Bernard Ochino,
Alciati, Gentilis, Franciscus Lismanini, and Peter Statorius,[260] all
of whom were Italians of extreme religious views and unwelcome even
in Switzerland; and later at the beginning of the seventeenth century
the German anti-trinitarians, Crell, Smalz, Ruarus, and Stegmann[261]
also found refuge in Poland. Bernard Ochino, driven out from Zurich,
came to Poland in December, 1563, and in appreciation of the freedom of
thought and of conscience there existing, dedicated his twenty-eighth
dialogue to King Sigismund Augustus. Ochino had opposed the execution
of Servetus, and admired Poland’s religious toleration.[262] Ruarus
was led to emigrate to Poland by the reports of its “golden liberty of
conscience established by the constitution of the Estates and sworn
to by Polish kings.”[263] Besides these extremists, others sought and
found refuge in Poland from religious persecution in their homelands.
The most notable case is that of the Bohemian Brethren. While as a
group they were ordered to move on to East Prussia, where Duke Albert
offered them asylum, many of them remained in Poland, and exerted
a powerful influence on the Reformation movement in that country.
Moreover, at Cracow, Vilna, Posen, Tarnov, and Lublin there actually
existed Protestant congregations composed not only of Germans, but also
of Italian, French, English, and Scotch religious refugees.[264] The
Scotch congregations were naturally Calvinistic, and some of them were
still in existence by the middle of the eighteenth century. Such names
as Gordon, Hyson, Sinclair, Pipe, Leigh, French and Ross still appeared
on the Calvinistic rolls at that time.[265]
In this connection it is worth noting that while in liberal England
hundreds of persons were executed for their religious convictions in
the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, in Poland there
was only one such execution, that of an eighty year old lady in the
city of Cracow in 1539.[266]
The remarkably rapid spread of the Reformation in Poland was,
therefore, due in no small measure to Polish religious toleration.
Finally, in our study of the social causes of the growth of the
Reformation in Poland, we must by no means overlook the fact that the
Polish religious reformation was a class movement. It was accepted,
adhered to, and championed by the upper classes of Polish society; in
the cities by the commercial population, largely German, and throughout
the country by the nobility, the large magnates and the well-to-do
gentry, particularly the large magnates. This was due to the
circumstance that both of these classes were in close contact with the
outside world and with new movements abroad; the first chiefly through
commercial intercourse, the second through educational, social, and
diplomatic relations.
This class aspect of the movement was both its strength and its
weakness. The fact that the Reformation won to itself, and was accepted
by, the most alert, socially most influential, and politically most
powerful classes constituted its strength. It lent the movement a
certain dignity and prestige, made it unavoidably popular, and assured
to it rapid spread and certain victory. In its strength, however,
lay also its weakness. The Polish Reformation remained an upper
class religion. It did not filter through down to the masses of the
population; it did not grip, transform, and revitalize the people. This
circumstance harbored the movement’s inevitable doom from the very
beginning, however glorious that beginning might have been and however
phenomenal the development.
The Renaissance, the art of printing, the influence of foreign
universities, religious toleration, and the aristocratic character of
the Polish Reformation,--these were, then, some of the most important
social causes of the growth of the Reformation in Poland.
[181] Roman Pilat, History of Polish Literature (Historja
literatury polskiej), Lwów, 1909, vol. ii, No. 1 p.
24.
[182] Peter Chmielowski, History of Polish Literature
(Historja literatury polskiej), Lwów, vol. i, pp.
90-91.
[183] Stanislaus Kot, Andrew Frycz Modrzewski, Cracow,
1919, pp. 13-15.
[184] Chmielowski, vol. i, pp. 197-202.
[185] Kot, pp. 189-190.
[186] Cf. Chmielowski, vol. i, pp. 150-152, and Smoleński,
Hist. of Poland, p. 93.
[187] Cf. Pilat, vol. ii, No. 1, p. 28.
[188] See Arthur Górski, Poland’s Objective (Ku
czemu Polska szła), Warsaw, 1919, p. 46, and
Lewinski-Corwin, A Hist. of Poland, p. 142.
[189] Pilat, vol. ii, No. 1, pp. 36-37.
[190] Chmielowski, vol. i, p. 153.
[191] Ibid.; Pilat, vol. ii, No. 1, p. 36.
[192] Chmielowski, vol. i, pp. 153-154.
[193] Reformation in Poland, vol. i, No. 3, p. 181.
[194] Pilat, vol. ii, No. 1, p. 37, n. 1.
[195] Chmielowski, vol. i, p. 174; cf. Lewinski-Corwin, p.
142.
[196] See Reformation in Poland, vol. i, No. 3, p. 181;
Chmielowski, vol. i, pp. 154, 155; Pilat, vol. ii,
No. 1, p. 38.
[197] Pilat, vol. ii, No. 1, p. 36.
[198] Chmielowski, vol. i, p. 155; Pilat, vol. ii, No. 1,
p. 38.
[199] Reformation in Poland, vol. i, No. 3, p. 182.
[200] Ibid.
[201] Pilat, vol. ii, No. 1, pp. 38-39; Chmielowski, vol.
i, p. 155.
[202] Górski, p. 47.
[203] Lewinski-Corwin, p. 143.
[204] Pilat, vol. i, No. 1, p. 39; Chmielowski, vol. i, p.
155.
[205] The Reformation in Poland, vol. i, No. 3, p. 184.
[206] Ibid., vol. i, No. 3, p. 184.
[207] Ibid., vol. i, No. 3, pp. 186-187.
[208] Ibid., vol. i, No. 3, p. 188 and n. 1.
[209] Ibid., vol. i, No. 1, pp. 44-45.
[210] Ibid., vol. i, No. 1, p. 45.
[211] Ibid., vol. i, No. 1, p. 45.
[212] Ibid., vol. i, No. 1, pp. 46-47.
[213] Ibid., vol. i, No. 1, p. 47.
[214] Ibid., vol. i, No. 1, pp. 48-49.
[215] Ibid., vol. i, No. 1, pp. 49-50.
[216] Kot, Modrzewski, pp. 7-8, 64.
[217] See Pilat, vol. ii, No. 1, p. 39, and Brückner,
History of Polish Literature, vol. i, pp. 102-103,
113.
[218] Kubala, Orzechowski, p. 55.
[219] Chmielowski, vol. i, pp. 189-190.
[220] Ibid., p. 189.
[221] Ibid., p. 190.
[222] Ibid., p. 192.
[223] Ibid., pp. 192, 193.
[224] Ibid., p. 155.
[225] Pilat, vol. ii, No. 1, pp. 56, 57; Kot, Modrzewski,
p. 31, n.
[226] Reformation in Poland, vol. i, No. 1, p. 15.
[227] Chmielowski, vol. i, p. 160.
[228] Reformation in Poland, vol. i, No. 1, p. 15.
[229] See Appendix, No. 10. The number of Polish students
at Wittenberg was so considerable by 1535 that John
Cochlaeus, a Catholic polemical writer, called
attention to the danger of this to the Catholic
Church (Reformation in Poland, vol. ii, No. 7, p.
166), and the result was the Edict of Feb. 4, 1535;
repeated March 22, 1540; revoked in 1543.
[230] “Collegium Albertinum,” founded by Albert II in 1544,
with a distinctively Lutheran character.
[231] Historical Quarterly (Kwartalnik Historyczny), Lwów,
vol. xxviii, No. 1, pp. 83-88; The Reformation in
Poland, vol. i, No. 2, pp. 105-133.
[232] Historical Quarterly, vol. xxviii, No. 1, p. 84.
[233] Ibid., p. 84.
[234] Ibid., p. 85.
[235] Ibid., p. 87.
[236] Reformation in Poland, vol. i, No. 2, p. 128.
[237] Kot, Modrzewski, p. 8.
[238] Ibid., p. 15; Kubala, Orzechowski, p. 2; Pilat, vol.
ii, No. 1, p. 56.
[239] Kot, Modrzewski, p. 29, n. 2.
[240] Historical Quarterly, vol. xxviii, No. 1, p. 87.
[241] Ibid., p. 84.
[242] Ibid., p. 87.
[243] Ibid., pp. 87-88.
[244] Ibid., pp. 84-87.
[245] Ibid., p. 85.
[246] Ibid., p. 85; Reformation in Poland, vol. i, No. 2,
p. 128.
[247] Historical Quarterly, vol. xxviii, No. 1, pp. 85-86.
[248] Ibid., pp. 86-87.
[249] Ibid., p. 87.
[250] Ibid., p. 88.
[251] Reformation in Poland, vol. i, No. 2, p. 128.
[252] Ibid., p. 128.
[253] Ad invictissimum Poloniae regem Sigismundum de
sacrificio Missae contra Lutheranos, Joannes Eckius,
1526, referred to by Krasiński, vol. i, p. 88.
[254] See above, p. 38.
[255] Pilat, vol. ii, No. 1, p. 32.
[256] Krasiński, vol. ii, p. 42.
[257] Kubala, Stanislaus Orzechowski, p. 7.
[258] Vol. leg., vol. ii, fol. 841-843.
[259] “Quod vero supra hisce literis, privilegia,
libertatis ecclesiasticas, cum caeteris
confirmavimus, id nihil articulo juramenti derogare
volumus; videlicet pacem, et tranquilitatem,
inter dissidentes de religione, tuebimur, et manu
tenebimus, etc., quem inconcusse, firmiter et
inviolabiliter, ac cum effectu, nos observaturos
promittimus, ac spondemus” (Confirmatio Generalis
Omnium Jurium a. 1576, in Vol. leg., vol. ii, fol.
913).
“Pacemque et tranquillitatem inter dissidentes de religione
tuebor, manutenebo, nec ullo modo, vel jurisdictione
nostra, vel officiorum nostrorum, et Statuum
quorumvis, authoritate quemquam affici, opprimique,
causa religionis, permittam, nec ipse afficiam, nec
opprimam” (Literae de praestito juramento, sworn to
by Henry de Valois, Stephen Batory, and Sigismund
III, see Vol. leg., vol. ii, folio 863, 892, 1096).
It is interesting to note also Sigismund III’s
confirmation of the Confederation of Warsaw:
“Confoederationem inter dissidentes de religione,
non solum juramento, uti a Serenissimis, Henrico,
et Stephano, Regibus Poloniae et Praedecessoribus
suis factum est, conservabit; verum etiam processum
et exequutionem utrique parti servientem, contra
violatores ejus oblatam, sub juramento observabit:
et ut ab Ordinibus Regni quamprimum instituatur,
sedulo curabit” (Vol. leg., vol. ii, fol. 1099). The
significance of this confirmation becomes still more
striking when one recalls the strongly reactionary
character of this ruler.
[260] Reformation in Poland, vol. i, No. 2, p. 129.
[261] Ibid., p. 134.
[262] Ibid., p. 123.
[263] Ibid., p. 136.
[264] Krasiński, vol. ii, pp. 135-136.
[265] Łukaszewicz, A History of Calvinistic Churches in
Little Poland (Dzieje kościołów wyznania helweckiego
w Małej Polsce), Posen, 1853, p. 308.
[266] See above, p. 33.