CHAPTER IV

THE CONFLICT BETWEEN THE POLISH NOBILITY AND THE

CLERGY: ITS ECONOMIC ASPECTS

Besides the great wealth of the church as such, there existed a whole

series of potent causes, all essentially economic in their nature,

leading to a revolt from the established church and furthering the

spread of religious reform.

The social classes in Poland affected by the Reformation were the

townspeople and the szlachta or nobility. Of the two the most

influential class as well as the most instrumental in the promotion of

the religious reform movement was the nobility. The townspeople were

unfortunately largely of German nationality, foreigners in a foreign

land, and consequently without either social or political influence.

The nobility, however, was both Polish and politically powerful. In the

sixteenth century it constituted not only the Polish nation but also

the Polish state. Hence, as in Germany the Reformation owed its firm

foothold to the protection of the German princes, so in Poland it owed

its spread to the protection of the Polish nobility, particularly the

magnates.

The political foundation underlying the szlachta’s favorable attitude

toward the Reformation, its open revolt from the established church,

its bitter and determined conflict with the Roman hierarchy, and its

enthusiastic support of the new religious movement consisted of a

number of special fundamental rights and privileges guaranteed it by

various royal charters. The first important charter was the Pact of

Koszyce of 1374. By this pact, in exchange for its consent to extend

the right of succession to the Polish throne to the daughters of Louis

of Hungary, including even the youngest, Jadwiga, the Polish nobility

as a class was guaranteed exemption from all public burdens except a

nominal tax of two “grosze” per “łan kmiecy,” which in reality was paid

by the peasantry rather than by the nobility, freedom from royal levies

of special or extraordinary taxes, compensation for military services

outside the country and damages for injuries or losses sustained in the

course of such foreign campaigns.[355] Moreover, royal appointments to

high public offices of state in any part of the country were restricted

by this pact to the native nobility therein resident to the exclusion

of possible foreign favorites of the crown.[356] Thus, by this pact

the szlachta obtained a very important economic advantage, and secured

itself as a class against arbitrary fiscal oppression or political

discrimination by the king.

In 1422, forced by fiscal and judicial abuses and economic oppression,

particularly by the forcible measures employed by the clergy in their

collection of tithes from heretical and recalcitrant Hussite members

of the nobility,[357] the szlachta took advantage of a war exigency,

and in the camp at Czerwińsk, Mazovia, on the eve of a military

expedition against the Teutonic Knights, exacted another charter from

the king, Wladislaus Jagiello, known as the Privilege of Czerwińsk. By

this charter, among other things, the Polish nobility was guaranteed

inviolability of its hereditary property rights against any arbitrary

action either of the king or any of his official representatives. The

king promised the nobility not to seize or to confiscate, nor to allow

any of his officials to seize or to confiscate the hereditary property

of any one of his subjects, whatever his rank or condition, without

due process of law.[358] This royal guaranty henceforth precluded

any unfair oppressive exactions from the szlachta under threat of

confiscation of property or any arbitrary interference with the

property rights of any szlachcic on the part of either the king or his

officials. That the exaction of this guaranty was a foresighted master

stroke on the part of the Polish nobility is proved by the Edict of

Wieluń, issued only two years later, which decreed the confiscation

of property of heretics.[359] Had it not been for the Privilege of

Czerwieńsk, the Polish nobility would have been left wholly at the

mercy of the clergy.

A few years later Wladislaus Jagiello, desirous to secure the Polish

throne for his sons, born of his fourth marriage, sought to obtain

their recognition as his successors by the Polish estates. The Polish

nobility acceded to the wish of the king, but in consideration of

this concession sought and obtained at Jedlnia in 1430 the famous

charter generally known as the “Neminem captivabimus, nisi jure victum”

privilege. This charter constituted the Polish “habeas corpus” act.

According to its terms no nobleman could be arrested except upon the

verdict of a court or when actually caught in the act of committing

arson, murder, rape, or village plunder.[360] By its provisions the

personal liberties of the Polish nobility were both enlarged and more

securely guarded. The two privileges, that of Czerwieńsk and that of

Jedlnia, were of great importance and value to the Polish nobility;

the former guaranteed the inviolability of its property, the latter of

its persons.

The other two very important charters obtained by the Polish nobility

were the Statutes of Nieszawa of 1454 and the “Nihil Novi” Constitution

framed by the Diet of Radom in 1505. The distinguishing features of

these two documents were matters of jurisdiction and legislation.

By the first the szlachta freed itself from the jurisdiction of

royal administrative officials. From now on it was subject to the

jurisdiction of the starostas, the royal administrative and judicial

officials, only in four kinds of cases, arson, murder, rape, and

theft. In other cases it was subject to the jurisdiction of provincial

courts, for which, according to the Statutes of Nieszawa, it secured

the privilege to nominate in the event of vacancies four candidates

for judge, assistant judge, and court clerk. From these nominees of

the provincial szlachta the king selected one for the respective

vacancy.[361] In this way by its control of the provincial judiciary

the szlachta assured for itself a fairer administration of justice. By

the second it freed itself from arbitrary legislation. According to the

Constitution of Radom the king was not permitted to make any new laws

without the common consent of the senate and the representatives of the

szlachta.[362] By this constitutional provision the rank and file of

the nobility represented in the Chamber of Deputies came now into full

control of legislation, and became masters of their own destinies.

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:

I exceedingly regret the way the Diet dissolved, especially

when I reflect and see where it all tends and to what

consequences such beginnings are apt to lead. Would that it

might not result in destruction of our clerical estate! For

we see now the most arrogant and audacious people, to whose

insatiable passions there is nothing sacred or inviolable,

who draw inspiration and power from their wilfulness and

impunity, lie in wait for the church’s property. It is the

duty of your Reverence, who are the head and primate of our

clerical estate in these parts of ours, to watch diligently

that their impious purposes may not be realized in our

times at least.[391]

When it became evident that the king did not intend to carry out the

wishes of the Diet of 1535, the szlachta of Great Poland instructed its

deputies to the Diet of 1536-1537 to insist on “the execution of laws,”

which included the matter of the church’s privileges. At this Diet the

Chamber of Deputies raised, therefore, most violent protests against

the abuses described, and vigorously demanded conformity to law and

restoration of all illegally acquired benefices and church property.

At the same time the Chamber demanded that henceforth the king appoint

to abbacies and other lucrative church benefices only native Poles of

noble birth, or plebeians of Polish nationality in the event that there

are not enough candidates of noble birth to fill vacancies. The leaders

in this movement were Raphael Leszczyński, Stanislaus Myszkowski,

Nicholas Krzycki, and John Sierakowski, who later on became well-known

champions of the Reformation movement.[392] Moreover, in 1538 the Diet

passed a law, according to which anyone receiving anything contrary

to statutory enactments by courting the favor of the Vatican was

thereby ipso facto proscribed and his possessions were confiscated. By

the same law all church dignitaries residing in Rome away from their

appointments were recalled, and if they failed to return to the country

within a specified time, they were to be deprived of their offices and

banished, and were not to be permitted to enter the country.[393]

But high ecclesiastical offices richly endowed were after all limited

in number. If the Polish nobility was to find larger access to the

landed property of the church, it had to get to it in other ways,

which it did. If the secular nobles were keen in buying up village

mayorships, so were the Polish clergy. In fact, they were in possession

of more mayorships than the secular nobles.[394] Then, too, their

landed estates were further augmented by bequests of pious persons.

These things were a thorn in the flesh to the Polish nobility. It

sought ways and means of preventing this constant increase of church

property. As early as 1510 testamentary bequests of real estate

property to the church were prohibited by statutory enactment.[395] In

1534 the szlachta at its provincial diets unanimously demanded that the

General Diet restrain the clergy from buying up village mayorships,

with the result that in the end a law was enacted prohibiting all

transfers of estates with nobility rights and privileges to the

clergy whether by gift, sale, or any other method.[396] The stormy

Diet of 1536-1537 went still further, demanding the secularization

of all ecclesiastical estates and the sale to the szlachta of all

the newly acquired lands of the clergy.[397] Nor did the nobles stop

at mere demands and legislative enactments; occasionally they took

matters directly into their hands. For instance, whenever and wherever

there was an opportunity to seize the land of a parish priest or a

prebendary, the nobles were quite ready to take advantage of it. In

the sixteenth century, influenced and encouraged by the Reformation

movement, the Polish nobles did not hesitate to resort to that method

of dealing with ecclesiastical property, and of thus enlarging their

own demesne estates.[398]

Moreover, the revival of agriculture created a demand not only for

more land, but also for more labor, and cheap labor. We have already

noted that farming by tenant peasants was not any more profitable to

the landlords in the sixteenth century, and that there was a strong

tendency to annex the peasant leaseholds to the demesne estates. But

as the demesne estates increased in size the labor problem grew more

acute every day. To solve it, the noble landlords began to change

the status of the peasants by legislation. Thus former free peasants

became gradually, as a result of a series of legislative enactments,

glebae adscripti. They were not any longer free to leave their masters

at will; and if they did, their masters had the right to demand their

return, or to pursue them and bring them back.[399] Of a family of

peasant children, only one might leave the estate on which he was born,

and go to the city into service, or for the purpose of study or of

learning a trade.[400] An only child was forbidden to leave the land;

he had to pass into the serfdom of his parents.[401] And if a peasant

youth escaped, he was to be restored to his master under penalty of

forty marks.[402] Not only were the Polish peasants bound to the soil

in the sixteenth century, they were now also compelled to do forced

labor on their masters’ estates. In 1477 the provincial diet of “Ziemia

chełmska” established one day a week of forced peasant labor on the

estate of the lord. In 1520 the General Diets of Thorn and Bydgoszcz

extended this local provision to the peasants on all the manors in

the country.[403] Thus what had hitherto been a matter of private

arrangement was now made a statutory and universal obligation. And

gradually as time went on the number of forced labor was increased

to two days a week and more.[404] Worst of all, under the influence

of Roman law, which recognized only masters and slaves, the Polish

peasants lost also their standing before the law, and were subjected

wholly to the jurisdiction of their lords.[405] This removed the last

vestige of the peasants’ personal rights, and made them practically the

property of the aristocratic landlords.

Besides monopolizing agricultural production, the Polish nobles

obtained exemption from export and import duties on all products raised

on their own estates for export and on all goods imported for their

own use and not for trade.[406] By this stroke they secured a monopoly

advantage in trade also, and became the chief beneficiaries of all its

benefits to the detriment and destruction of the Polish town population.

The changes in Poland’s commerce and agriculture in the fifteenth and

sixteenth centuries had a very important bearing on the country’s

problems of defense and finance. They disqualified the Polish nobility

for warfare, and they undermined the revenues of the state. The

szlachta, settled on the land, grew more attached to the soil and to

the life of country gentlemen than to the camp and the discomforts

of military service. Stimulated by the new commercial opportunities

and the prospect for gain and enrichment, it naturally became more

interested in agriculture and in exports of its agricultural products

than in warfare and military expeditions. The rewards of agriculture

and of commerce were greater, more certain, less hazardous, and

consequently more alluring than those of war. Moreover, the changes

in warfare, resulting from the invention of gunpowder, demanded the

employment of new methods in the conduct of war, called for more

costly equipment, which the warriors had to provide themselves at

their own expense, and were fraught with greater perils to life.

Naturally, therefore, the nobility grew reluctant to leave the soil,

and to engage in war; and when actually called out in emergency in

“pospolite ruszenie” it was far more interested in political than in

military maneuvers, in extracting new privileges from the king than in

vanquishing the enemy. Whether as a defensive or as an offensive force

the “pospolite ruszenie” became now both physically inadequate and

temperamentally unfit for war. Yet the country’s wars with the Teutonic

Knights, Russia, Moldavia, Courland, and the city of Danzig, and its

constant menace of Tartar invasion called for a strong and ever-ready

military force to repel aggression, subdue rebellion, and to protect

the borders in order to guard the country’s safety and to maintain its

integrity and prestige.

These conditions created the necessity of hiring mercenaries. But

mercenaries had to be paid. This called for more state funds, which,

however, were very hard to raise. The old revenues, which even under

ordinary conditions would have been inadequate for the new needs, were

rendered all the more inadequate by the fact that their sources instead

of being increased were actually diminished. This was due to a number

of causes. The lavish generosity of the Polish kings, particularly

the Jagiellos, greatly reduced the royal domain and the royal income

therefrom. Exemption of the nobility by the Pact of Koszyce (1374) from

all taxation except two grosze per łan kmiecy and by the Constitution

of 1496 from all export and import duties, and of the clergy from all

public burdens and responsibilities, contributed to the depletion of

the royal treasury and to the weakening of the country’s defense.

This evil was still further accentuated by the processes of annexing

“vacant” peasant leaseholds to the demesne estates and of buying up

of village mayorships by the clergy. The first withdrew the annexed

peasant lands from taxation;[407] the second rendered the mayorships

free from participation in the country’s defense. Out of a total number

of 14,000 village mayorships, which had in the past participated in the

“pospolite ruszenie,” only 2,000 still answered the call to arms by

1539, according to a complaint of the deputies at the Diet of Cracow of

that year.[408] These things combined to impoverish the royal treasury,

to put the king in constant financial straits, and to jeopardize the

peace and security of the country.

To eliminate these difficulties and to provide adequate defense for

the country, special contributions or taxes had to be voted from time

to time. The demand for these special contributions grew greater and

more frequent as time went on. With every year the nobility felt the

burden of defense more keenly. It looked around for help and for new

sources of revenue. These were by no means hard to find. The wealth

and resources of the clergy presented an excellent source of defensive

strength. The szlachta began, therefore, to demand the participation

of the clergy in the responsibilities and burdens of public life and

of the country’s defense. This resulted in a sharp conflict between

the clergy and the Polish nobility, a conflict which lasted for two

centuries and which found expression in the fifteenth century in the

Hussite movement and in the sixteenth in the Reformation.

The Polish clergy’s privileged character respecting their participation

in public responsibilities and burdens constituted the most sensitive

point of difference between the Polish szlachta and the Polish

Roman Catholic clergy.[409] According to Casimir’s Code the duty of

participation in the country’s defense rested upon all hereditary

estates of the Polish knighthood, regardless of the fact as to

whether any of their owners happened to belong at a particular time

to the ranks of the clergy or not.[410] Moreover, it was very early

established that lands newly acquired by the church were subject to

military service. A statute of 1437 provided that all church lands

acquired by purchase within the last forty years and those that might

be thus acquired in the future were required to render military

service.[411] But throughout the fifteenth century the owners of these

lands were clever and successful enough in evading these provisions

and in maintaining the principle of their freedom from participation

in the country’s defense. In 1506 at the Diet of Lublin they even

succeeded in securing royal sanction of their freedom from rendering

military service due from these lands. Gradually, contrary to the law

of Casimir the Great, they extended this principle of their exemption

from military service even to their hereditary lands and to village

mayorships purchased by them.[412]

Naturally, the Polish szlachta rose in arms. It demanded that the

mayors of ecclesiastical villages render military service as did the

mayors of secular villages; that if the clergy objected, they should

produce their privileges exempting the mayors of their villages from

that public duty; that the Diet should prohibit the clergy from buying

village mayorships; that all newly acquired ecclesiastical lands

should be sold to the nobility, which was bearing the burden of public

defense; that the clergy be placed on the same footing with the secular

nobility in respect of participation in public defense; that their

lands be secularized and the income from them be used for purposes of

public defense; and that the clergy assume their fair share of special

taxes levied by the diets. To be sure, all these demands were not made

at once; but they were all made with varying insistence in the course

of the first three-quarters of the sixteenth century.

According to a statute of Casimir the Great of the year 1347 the mayors

of ecclesiastical villages as well as the mayors of secular villages

were required to participate in military expeditions.[413] This

obligation was reaffirmed by the Constitution of 1538,[414] and again

in 1550.[415] But, as we have already noted, the clergy succeeded in

evading these statutory provisions not only throughout the fifteenth,

but also in the sixteenth century. It is not strange, therefore,

to find that as the burden of defense was increasing in weight the

Polish nobility repeatedly demanded that the mayors of ecclesiastical

villages take part in the country’s defense in compliance with the

law. The first demand of this nature in the sixteenth century was made

as early as 1510; then we find it repeated at the Diet of 1536-1537;

and again in 1563. In 1510 the king referred the question at issue

to the provincial synod for review, and the synod was to report on

it at a subsequent general diet.[416] But the matter was evidently

laid aside and remained so as long as it was possible to keep it from

coming to the front again; for when it was brought up at the Diet

of 1536-1537, it was again treated in a similar manner. The bishops

agreed to comply with the law, provided it was proved to them that

the mayors of their villages were subject to military service. Their

special privileges, which they claimed to possess, were to be examined

at the following synod, and then the matter was to be reported on at

the general diet.[417] Presumably the matter stopped there as before;

for at the Diet of 1558-1559 the Chamber of Deputies raised the old

question again, and demanded of the bishops the presentation of their

special privileges exempting the mayors of ecclesiastical villages

from military service. But even then the clergy did not produce this

documentary evidence until at the Diet of 1563; and when actually

produced, it was found wanting, owing to its indefiniteness.[418]

The stubborn opposition of the Polish hierarchy to share in the burden

of defense in this mild form caused the Polish nobility to stiffen

its demands. Since the Polish bishops so strenuously objected to the

participation of the mayors of ecclesiastical villages in the pospolite

ruszenie, the szlachta came forward at the Diet of Thorn in 1520 with

the demand that the clergy as a class be put on the same level as the

secular nobility in regard to military service.[419] All the clergy

in possession of landed estates were to participate in the pospolite

ruszenie along with the szlachta. This demand was renewed and firmly

insisted upon at a local diet of the nobility of Great Poland at

Kolo in 1533, at the General Diet of 1535,[420] and even as late as

1562 at the Diet of Piotrków.[421] This summary demand on the part

of the Polish nobility that the clergy as a landowning class share

equally with the szlachta the burden of defense startled the clergy,

and finally induced them to present their documentary privileges, on

which they based their claim of exemption from the burden of defense

at the subsequent Diet of Piotrków, which met in the fall of 1563. On

examination these documents were found to be anything but explicit and

clear; yet the nobility had relented by this time, and ceased pressing

this particular demand any further.[422]

Owing to this stubborn opposition on the part of the clergy to their

personal participation in military service and to that of the bailiffs

of ecclesiastical villages as well, the Polish nobility turned its

attack now directly upon the landed property and the incomes of the

clergy. In 1534 and in 1535 it vehemently protested against the

purchases of village bailiwicks by the clergy. In 1536-1537, at

the Diet of Piotrków, it went still further, and urgently demanded

the secularization of all ecclesiastical property. As a result of

this determined stand, a plan was actually agreed upon between

the Chamber of Deputies and the secular members of the Senate for

partial secularization of church lands. According to this plan all

ecclesiastical lands acquired by the clergy whether by gift or by

purchase since Louis the Great, 1370-1382, were to be sold to the

nobility.[423] The demand for the secularization of ecclesiastical

estates was first made in the first half of the fifteenth century, then

in 1524, with increasing vigor and insistence at the Diet of Piotrków

in 1536-1537, and again in 1576.[424] How determined the Polish

nobility was to get hold of the property of the clergy may be seen from

the fact that in 1539, when the old king, Sigismund I, was critically

ill, a conspiracy was actually formed, the purpose of which was not

to recognize Sigismund Augustus in the event of his father’s death

until he agreed to and sanctioned the confiscation of one-third of the

church lands for purposes of national defense.[425] The leaders in this

conspiracy, as well as in the rebellion of 1537, were Martin and Peter

Zborowski, ardent advocates of the Reformation after 1550.

Nor were the incomes of the clergy to escape the Polish nobility’s

attack. Whenever the country was in financial straits, the nobility

in a general diet assembled voted special taxes to meet special

emergencies. The clergy, however, were not liable to these special

taxes voted by the diets. They claimed exemption from them. Yet they

did come forward in each emergency with a voluntary contribution, known

as “subsidium charitativum.” This was based on a general estimate of

the clergy’s general income. As this estimate usually constituted

only one-third and frequently one-eighth of the real income of the

clergy, their voluntary contributions based on such estimates were

obviously far below their ability to pay. Manifestly this was unfair

and unjust to the nobility. It, therefore, demanded that the clergy

pay a contribution based on an evaluation of their specific sources

of revenue, such as their estates, their tithes, and other sources of

income.[426]

To this demand of the nobility the clergy were most decidedly opposed.

At the same time they were not a little apprehensive that it might

result in consequences unfavorable to them. To safeguard themselves,

they voted a liberal contribution of 40,000 florins in 1511 for the

purpose of redemption of certain royal lands in Red Russia; and in

exchange for this contribution they exacted from the king a solemn

pledge that henceforth they would be free from military obligations and

from all other burdens, with the exception of the customary subsidium

charitativum, based on an evaluation of their general income, in cases

of a pospolite ruszenie. A written document confirming the pledge of

1511 was issued to the clergy by the king, December 10, 1515.[427] This

furnished the clergy a certain legal basis for their opposition to the

nobility’s demands. When, therefore, the Diets of 1525 and 1527 imposed

a tax on the specific sources of the clergy’s income, the clergy at

their Synod of Łęczyce in 1527, owing to a threatening Tartar invasion,

again voted a voluntary contribution to the country’s needs, but flatly

refused to be taxed by the diets.[428]

But if the clergy were stubborn in their resistence to taxation by

the diets, so were the diets in their insistence on such taxation of

clerical property. At the Diet of 1525 a revaluation of ecclesiastical

property was proposed. The bishops opposed this course resolutely,

fearing that a precedent might be established for the diet to tax their

tithes. Their fear was not groundless. In 1529 at the Diet of Warsaw

the deputies refused to take up the business of the diet until the

bishops declared what percentage of their tithes they would give as a

contribution to the defense of the country. The bishops strenuously

objected on the ground that the nobles did not tax their own incomes

but insisted on taxing those of the clergy. The conflict reached a

deadlock, and finally the whole question was referred to the king. When

at the subsequent diet, called for November 11, 1530, at Piotrków, the

Chamber of Deputies moved to impose a tax on the tithes of the clergy,

its attempt encountered a determined opposition, not only on the part

of the clergy, but also on the part of the king. In consequence of this

combined clerical and royal opposition the Chamber developed an equally

solid front against the immunities of the church, and demanded the

passage of a law taxing the clergy in proportion to the real value of

all their property. In case the clergy refused to comply, the deputies

threatened to suspend all payments of tithes, and to put the proposed

law through and in force at the very next pospolite ruszenie of the

szlachta.[429]

Nor was this an empty threat. For more than a century and a half, ever

since the reign of Casimir the Great (1333-1370), the Polish nobility

had chafed under the burden of church tithes. In its relation to the

king it was free from all special compulsory taxes for the benefit of

the royal treasury, save a nominal tax of two grosze per łan kmiecy,

paid in reality by the tenant peasants rather than by the landlords

themselves. But in its relation to the church it was not as free. The

burden of church tithes rested upon it. Originally voluntary, it became

compulsory in the first half of the fifteenth century; and it was a

burden that could not be shifted. It was, also, a burden which the

clergy never failed to exact.

Conflicts over the payment of tithes were, therefore, frequent.

They occurred as early as the reign of Casimir the Great,[430] and

as time went on they grew more bitter and more frequent. Owing to

the growth of the church in wealth and of the clergy in arrogance

as a result of Wladislaus Jagiello’s great liberality and even

subserviency, the nobility was forced to consider measures at the

Convocations of Piotrków in 1406 and 1407 for protection against this

exploitation.[431] By the Privilege of Czerwieńsk forced from the king

in 1422 it further secured itself against the relentless exaction of

tithes.[432] A decade later the special privileges concerning tithes

given the clergy by Wladislaus Jagiello in 1433,[433] and the king’s

assurance that he would assist in the collection of this tax, are

evidence of the difficulties encountered. To force the clergy to desist

from their pretensions, the nobility, under the leadership of Andrew

Zbonsz, Spytek of Melsztyn, and John Strasz, decided at the Convocation

of Piotrków, August 15, 1435, to withhold the payment of tithes

altogether.[434] A similar resolution was adopted by the Confederation

of 1439.[435] These decisions, however, were never fully carried out

in practice. In the second half of the fifteenth century, influenced

by the economic changes that were taking place and encouraged by such

radical humanistic ideas as those of John Ostrorog, embodied in his

“Monumentum pro reipublicae ordinatione congestum,” the Polish nobility

moved still more resolutely toward the abolition of the tithes.[436]

In the sixteenth century this conflict became even more determined. If

the nobility objected to the tithes in the preceding century, it did so

now all the more. The wealth of the church had increased as a result

of the economic changes in progress, the incomes of the clergy were

princely, the needs of the country greater and more exacting; and yet

the clergy shirked all public burdens and responsibilities. Naturally,

therefore, the nobility began to withhold the payments of tithes. The

situation was so serious that the clergy became very much concerned. At

several of the provincial synods, notably those of 1544 and 1551, they

gave a good deal of time to discussions of ways and means by which to

force the nobility to pay tithes.[437] But the situation seemed to be

beyond repair. Incensed at the immunities, pretensions, and exactions

of the clergy, the nobility was turning away in great numbers from

the established church to the Reformation after 1550, and thereby was

cutting down ecclesiastical revenues.

This touched the clergy in the most tender spot, and aroused them to

action. To save its revenues, the church began to resort to the use

of its ecclesiastical jurisdiction; it summoned the rebellious nobles

before its episcopal courts, and if they did not relent and penitently

submit, they were placed under the ban of the church. This procedure

put the nobility, their persons, their honor, their property, and their

very lives at the mercy of the clergy. Their very existence, individual

and collective, was in jeopardy as long as they were subject to the

jurisdiction of episcopal courts. That such a situation could not last

long soon became perfectly evident. The indignation of the nobility

rose to a high pitch. The relation between the two estates became more

tense and hostile than ever, and inevitably precipitated a bitter

struggle over the fundamental question of ecclesiastical jurisdiction.

The jurisdiction of the clergy now became an intolerable burden to

the Polish nobility. Its scope had gradually expanded until, in the

fifteenth century, in spite of protests and attempts to fix limits,

it came to cover not only questions of religion, but also all sorts

of civil matters. In fact, it so happened that there was scarcely a

question that the ecclesiastical courts regarded as foreign to their

jurisdiction. Their authority, moreover, was greatly strengthened

when the government, by the Edict of Wieluń (1424) and by a statute

of 1458 confirming it, committed the execution of their verdicts to

the starostas, thus lending the clergy the executive arm of civil

authority.[438]

The administration of justice by ecclesiastical courts in Poland in

the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was very harsh, arbitrary,

and light-minded. The most severe penalty, namely, that of

excommunication, which carried the confiscation of property,

deprivation of honor, exile and death, was frequently inflicted

upon offenders for most trivial offenses. A noble was in danger of

excommunication for getting into a fight and beating a precentor, an

organist, or a grave-digger, not to speak of more serious offenses,

such as seizing or withholding the tithes.[439] Sometimes a landlord

was excommunicated for offenses committed by his peasants on the ground

that he should have used his authority to bring the peasants to terms

and into submission to the church. So terrible in its consequences was

the church’s excommunication in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries

that everyone dreaded it.

Naturally, then, attempts were made very early to define and limit the

scope and authority of ecclesiastical jurisdiction. At the Convocation

of 1420, in answer to the synodical statutes of Nicholas Tromba,

archbishop of Gniezno, the nobility forbade its members to appeal to

ecclesiastical courts.[440] According to a document of 1433, issued

to Bishop Bodzanta of Cracow, laymen were not to be cited before

ecclesiastical courts.[441] In 1447 the nobility sought to confine

episcopal jurisdiction to matters strictly ecclesiastical, such as

questions of faith, heresy, marriage, and religious indifference in

cases of those that had not confessed once a year at least.[442]

Disputes over tithes, seized or withheld, according to this foregoing

agreement between the nobility and the clergy, were to be settled in

episcopal courts, but they were to be adjudicated according to law. If

the accused failed to answer the first summons, a second one was to be

issued to him at his expense; and he could not be excommunicated until

he was duly tried.[443] In matters belonging to civil courts the clergy

were forbidden by the Statute of 1496 to summon persons before their

courts.[444] By the Constitution of 1505 civil matters were withdrawn

from episcopal courts altogether, and henceforth ecclesiastical

judges were forbidden to adjudicate them.[445] Furthermore, to avoid

complications in the administration of justice and to minimize

difficulties in the execution of verdicts, the Diet of 1532 called upon

the clergy in synod assembled to determine what cases they regarded

as belonging to their jurisdiction, and instructed the commission

appointed to revise existing laws to define the exact scope of the

jurisdiction of the spiritual and secular courts.[446] Unfortunately,

the commission allowed the episcopal courts too wide a scope, and

consequently its report was rejected. The Statute of 1543 again

undertook to define the jurisdiction of the two classes of courts,

but it was in force for one year only.[447] And once more, a statute

of 1550, confirming existing laws, provided that no person should be

summoned before any court unless his case fell within the jurisdiction

of that court,[448] and a clergyman was forbidden to hold the office of

clerk in a secular provincial court.[449]

By 1550 the question of ecclesiastical jurisdiction became one of the

burning questions of the day. It was precipitated by Orzechowski’s

defiance of ecclesiastical authority. Stanislaus Orzechowski was a

nobleman priest in the diocese of Przemyśl. He publicly announced that

he would enter the state of matrimony. Bishop Dziaduski of Przemyśl

in turn announced publicly that if Orzechowski should carry out his

intention he would excommunicate him at once, depriving him of honor,

confiscating his hereditary property, and exiling him from the country.

The bishop’s threat was a sweeping violation of the most fundamental

rights of the nobility by the clergy. It endangered the nobility as a

class. The Polish nobles were not slow to see that Orzechowski’s case

was not merely a question of church discipline, and that if the Bishop

of Przemyśl was allowed to carry out his threat, their property and

their lives would not be safe. They took up Orzechowski’s case as their

own, and rose to his defense. They viewed the episcopal threat as an

attack upon them and their liberties, and therefore resolved to stand

by Orzechowski. The matter came before the Diet of 1550. Orzechowski

found supporters in some of the most influential magnates of Poland,

like James Górka, Martin Zborowski, Raphael Leszczyński, Nicholas

Radziwill, and Nicholas Oleśnicki, all of them adherents and champions

of the Reformation. Through the intervention of John Tarnowski, grand

hetman of Poland, and Peter Kmita, starosta of Przemyśl, a compromise

was effected, the terms of which were that Orzechowski was to apply to

the Pope for sanction of his intention and was not to be married until

he received the Pope’s permission.[450]

The compromise was absurd. It did not settle anything; it only delayed

the settlement of the question raised. Górka and Zborowski, therefore,

spurred on Orzechowski to break the compromise agreement and to carry

out his plan in defiance of episcopal authority.[451] The magnate

Nicholas Oleśnicki of Pińczów decided to make a test case of the whole

issue. On the advice of the Italian reformer Franciscus Stankar, he

broke openly with Roman Catholicism, accepting the Reformed faith and

taking away from the monks at Pińczów their church and monastery.

Immediately the Polish bishops brought charges against him. He was

tried, not according to the canon law of the church, but according

to the law of the country, before the king and the senate. He was

acquitted on condition that he dismiss Stankar and restore the seized

monastery to the monks, neither of which orders Oleśnicki actually

carried out.[452]

Thus spurred on by his friends, Orzechowski took courage, renounced his

clerical vows, and entered the state of matrimony. Bishop Dziaduski,

struck with consternation, did not at first know what to do, but in the

end resolved to carry out his threat, On April 8, 1551, he issued his

verdict against Orzechowski, annulling his marriage and excommunicating

him. On presentation of the case by the primate to the king, Sigismund

Augustus confirmed the episcopal verdict in accordance with his pledge

given the Polish bishops in December, 1550,[453] and instructed Peter

Kmita, starosta of Przemyśl, to execute it. At the same time the

king issued an order to all the starostas to execute the verdicts of

episcopal courts in all cases of condemned and excommunicated heretics.

Excommunicated by the church, Orzechowski was deprived of honor and

property, exiled from the country, and in danger of being put to death,

if caught.[454]

The news of Orzechowski’s excommunication by Bishop Dziaduski and of

the royal confirmation of the episcopal verdict without a trial came

like a lightning stroke from the clear sky. Orzechowski’s case was the

first instance in the history of the Polish Commonwealth of a noble

deprived of honor and of his hereditary possessions and condemned to

exile and death as a result of episcopal excommunication, without due

trial, according to law, guaranteed the Polish nobility by the Charter

of Jedlnia (1483). Immediately the nobles, not only of Orzechowski’s

province, but of the whole of Poland, rose as one man against this

high-handed attack on their liberties both by the clergy and by the

king. Orzechowski’s neighbors were ready to defend him in case the

starosta tried to execute the verdict; but Peter Kmita neither dared,

nor wanted to execute it. He preferred to wait and see what the Diet of

1552 was going to do about the whole matter.[455]

The local diets of 1551, at which the szlachta elected the deputies to

the General Diet of 1552, fairly seethed with the indignation of the

Polish nobility. The clergy, on the other hand, greatly elated over

their apparent victory and pleased with the king’s stand regarding the

Orzechowski affair, called a synod at Piotrków, at which they decided

to bind the king still closer to their cause by offering him the

estates of all condemned heretics; and to frighten the nobility into

submission they excommunicated at this synod Stadnicki and Lasocki, two

very influential and popular heretics in their respective palatinates.

The excommunicated magnates went from one local diet to another,

informed the szlachta of the ecclesiastical verdicts, reported the

resolutions of the synod, and read the king’s pledge given the bishops

secretly in 1550 in exchange for their consent to Queen Barbara’s

coronation, and which had been secured and made public by Nicholas

Lutomirski, castellan of Zawichow. They called upon the szlachta to

defend their lives and property.[456]

The indignation and anger of the nobility of Little Poland rose so

high that it almost reached the point of massacring the clergy and of

bringing in Protestant ministers from abroad to take their places. As

deputies to the Diet of 1552 they chose the most decided opponents

of the clergy, and instructed them to take up no measures until the

king defined episcopal authority and invalidated the above mentioned

verdicts of episcopal courts.[457]

The Diet of 1552 convened at Piotrków. The secular nobility, both

the senators and the deputies, were in a most hostile frame of mind

toward the clergy. Even as faithful a Catholic as Hetman Jan Tarnowski

refused to shake hands with Bishop Dziaduski of Przemyśl, turning

away from him, when the latter came to the hetman’s house to greet

him.[458] Raphael Leszczyński, president of the Chamber of Deputies,

stood with his head covered during the celebration of the opening mass.

When the diet had been duly opened, the Chamber, under the leadership

of Leszczyński, unequivocally demanded the abolition of episcopal

jurisdiction, stating that no other measure would be considered until

that demand was complied with. The secular portion of the Senate,

under the leadership of Jan Tarnowski, did not go quite so far, but it

seconded the Chamber’s demand to this extent, that it, too, called for

bringing ecclesiastical jurisdiction within the limits of law.[459]

The Polish nobility stood firm by their demand for the abolition of

ecclesiastical jurisdiction. The bishops, on the other hand, were

equally determined not to surrender it. The decision rested finally

with the king. After a bitter struggle of two months, due partly to the

royal vacillation, the king at last handed a decision that in all cases

of heresy the bishops have jurisdiction. The verdict created no small

consternation among the secular senators as well as among the deputies.

But, though apparently fully victorious, the bishops, sensing the

feeling against them and taking counsel of wisdom in time, consented to

suspension of their jurisdiction for one year until at the next diet or

at a national synod the country’s laws and the church’s canons could

be harmonized, provided the nobles agreed to continue the payment of

tithes.[460]

This concession on the part of the Polish episcopate, did not,

however, conciliate the Polish nobility. The nobles felt that their

rights and liberties had been outraged and were in danger of being

completely violated. The turn of events in 1552 made them only all

the more determined to fight. In great numbers they came out now for

the Reformation. Inside of one year nearly all the Polish nobility,

according to Dr. Kubala, left the Roman Catholic Church and embraced

the faith of the Reformation. The speed with which the Polish nobles

tried to change their form of worship had no parallel. They invited

reformers from abroad; they converted their manor houses into places

of worship; they built hospitals, schools, and homes of refuge for

persecuted dissidents; and the new doctrines were preached through

the whole length and breadth of the country.[461] Great Poland,

where the influence of Hussitism still survived, accepted, under the

leadership of James Ostrorog, the tenets of faith and form of worship

of the Bohemian Brethren. By 1557 there were thirty Bohemian Brethren

churches in Great Poland, and all the leading aristocratic families,

the Ostrorogs, the Leszczyńskis, the Tomickis, the Krotowskis, and

the Opalińskis, turned Protestant.[462] Little Poland, under the

leadership of the Zborowskis, Nicholas Oleśnicki, and Stanislaus

Stadnicki, became Calvinistic. In “terra Sandeceniensis,” the home

province of Orzechowski, all the nobility became Protestant by 1554;

and by 1560, according to a letter of Bishop Przyrębski to Bishop

Kamerini, one hundred and sixty churches in Little Poland broke away

from the jurisdiction of the Church of Rome.[463] In Lithuania, under

the leadership of Nicholas Radziwill, the foremost aristocratic

families accepted Calvinism. They were the Radziwills, the Kiszkas,

the Chlebowiczes, the Sapiehas, the Słuźkis, the Zawiszes, the

Wiśniowieckis, the Wojnas, the Paces, the Abramowiczes, the Wołowiczes,

the Ogińskis, the Zienowiczes, the Pruńskis, the Naruszewiczes,

the Talwoczes, the Drohostajskis, the Puzynas, the Szemiotas, the

Gruźewskis, the Góreckis, and others. By 1559 the Catholics in

Lithuania constituted only one-thousandth part of the population.[464]

So strong was the sentiment now against the Church of Rome that men

well known for their antagonism to Rome, like James Uchański and Andrew

Frycz Modrzewski, were selected and sent as Poland’s delegates to the

Council of Trent.[465] In 1535 at the Diet at Piotrków the calling of a

National Synod to adjust the existing differences and difficulties was

agreed upon, and a delegation was dispatched to Rome by the king with a

request for the Pope’s sanction of that plan as well as of a number of

practical reforms. Needless to say, the desired papal sanction was not

granted. On the contrary, the Pope immediately sent a legate to Poland

in the person of Alois Lippomano, bishop of Verona, to stave off any

such possibilities. In his first interview with the king Lippomano

advised the Polish monarch, for the sake of an example and a warning,

to execute twenty leading dissidents. Owing to his harshness and lack

of tact, this papal nuncio became so unpopular in Poland, that when

in 1556 he entered the Diet Chamber, the deputies shouted: “Salve,

progenies viperarum!”[466] At the Diet of 1557 security and freedom

were guaranteed all foreign Reformed ministers.[467]

As to episcopal jurisdiction, this became a lost cause after 1552. The

bishops, having once agreed to its suspension, though only temporary,

were unable to recover it again, in spite of desperate attempts.[468]

By a statute of the Diet of 1562-1563, all excommunicated persons

were admitted to provincial and fortress courts (do sądow ziemskich

i grodzkich) with their grievances and complaints, and the starostas

were instructed to respect the constitutionally guaranteed privileges

of the szlachta.[469] The result was that no one wanted now either to

appeal to or to appear in any episcopal court. This took the teeth out

of ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Moreover, by the Constitution of 1565

the clergy were forbidden to summon before their courts starostas who

in compliance with the statutory law of 1562-1563 refused to execute

the verdicts of episcopal courts.[470] Deprived of the executive

arm of civil authority, ecclesiastical courts became powerless and

their verdicts of no effect. This was a great victory for the Polish

nobility. At last their lives and their property were safe from

further attacks of the clergy through arbitrary exercise of their

ecclesiastical jurisdiction.

All the grievances of the Polish nobility in the sixteenth century

were summed up and the remedies for these grievances were contained

in the demand for “the execution of laws.” It was a demand of the

Polish nobility for a return to the fundamental constitutional laws of

the land, for conformity in private and public life to these laws,

and for elimination of abuses. Many of the social and political ills

and problems of the times were due either to disregard or to open

violation of existing constitutional and statutory laws. For instance,

after 1454 and particularly so after 1504, it became illegal for the

king either to pledge or to grant any part of his royal lands to any

private individual or to any institution without the sanction of the

diet.[471] The extravagant liberality of the Polish rulers had made it

necessary to make these restrictions; they were intended to safeguard

the royal domain from undue diminution, the royal treasury from

embarassing impoverishment, and the country from inadequate defense.

Also, it became illegal after 1454, and especially after 1505, for the

king to make any new laws or to issue edicts having the force of new

laws without the common consent of the two chambers of the diet.[472]

It was illegal, also, for the clergy to enlarge their landed estates

either by purchase or by gift, while they evaded the responsibility

of participation in the country’s defense.[473] Likewise, it was

illegal for the king to confer upon them special privileges, exempting

them from various public burdens.[474] Moreover, it was a flagrant

violation of the constitutionally guaranteed rights of the szlachta

for the clergy to sit as their judges in matters of life, liberty,

and property.[475] Yet all these violations and abuses had become

so common that they almost had the force of perfectly lawful acts

and practices. For a time they were tolerated. But when they began

seriously to interfere with the liberties and economic interests of

the Polish nobility, the nobles rose against them resolutely, and with

determination demanded a general reformation of conditions.

Their demand for “the execution of laws” was directed particularly

against the special privileges and immunities, real or pretended, of

the clergy.[476] Beginning with the Diet of 1511,[477] both the secular

and the regular clergy were repeatedly called upon by the diets of the

sixteenth century to justify their specially privileged status and

their evasion of public responsibilities and burdens by presenting

their charters for examination, until at last they were forced to

comply with this demand in part at least.[478] The continued insistence

on the part of the nobility on the clergy’s participation in public

burdens resulted finally in the imposition by the Diet of 1563 of a

regular tax on episcopal property and tithes.[479] In the struggle

regarding ecclesiastical jurisdiction the nobility appealed to its

privileges of 1422, 1433, 1454, and the Constitution of 1505, demanding

the annulment of all royal edicts against heresy as unconstitutional,

together with ecclesiastical jurisdiction in matters involving the

nobility’s constitutional rights to life and property. As a result of

this appeal and demand the king issued instructions to the starostas

in 1563 to respect the constitutional rights of the nobility. By this

act the royal edicts against heresy and episcopal jurisdiction, whether

in cases of heresy or of refusal to pay tithes, became invalidated and

rendered of no effect.[480]

Thus, we see that the conflict between the Polish nobility and the

ecclesiastical authorities in the sixteenth century, resulting in the

former’s extensive revolt from the established church, was due mainly

to the wealth of the Polish clergy, their immunities from public

burdens, and their abuse of episcopal jurisdiction; for these not

only increased the burdens of the Polish nobility, but also seriously

menaced its social and economic status. Whatever particular form this

conflict assumed, its underlying motives were essentially economic and

social rather than religious or even purely political.

[355] Guaranteeing to compensate the szlachta for their

participation in foreign expeditions and for

injuries sustained in them, Louis of Hungary simply

confirmed and further enlarged a right which had

been previously granted by Casimir the Great by the

Statute of Wiślice of 1347, where we read: “Sed extra

Regni metas nobis servire non sunt obligati, nisi

ipsis satis competens satisfactio per nos impendatur,

vel per nos specialiter fuerint petiti et rogati ad

hoc” (Vol. leg., vol. i, fol. 44).

[356] Ibid., fol. 57.

[357] Sokołowski, vol. i, p. 295.

[358] “… item, ut gratia uberiori consolentur a nobis,

etiam nos fide et servitiis amplioribus prosequantur,

promittimus, quod exnunc et de caetero nunquam

alicujus subditi Regni nostri, cujuscunque

dignitatis, eminentiae, status aut gradus fuerit,

bona haereditaria recipiemus, confiscabimus,

recipi vel confiscari faciemus, nec se de eis per

nos vel officiales nostros vel alios quoscunque

homines intromittemus vel intromitti faciemus pro

quibuscunque excessibus aut culpis, nisi prius

super hoc preccedat judicium nostrorum, quos ad hoc

deputaverimus, cum nostris praelatis, baronibus,

matura cogitio et sententia sequatur” (Vol. leg.,

vol. i, fol. 83).

[359] See Appendix, No. 1.

[360] “Caeterum promittimus et spondemus, quod nullum

terrigenam possessionatum pro aliquo excessu

seu culpa capiemus seu capi mandabimus, nec

aliquam vindictam in ipso faciemus, nisi judicio

rationabiliter fuerit convictus, et manus nostras vel

nostrorum Capitaneorum per judices ejusdem terrae,

in qua idem terrigena residet, praesentatus; illo

tamen homine, qui in furto et publico maleficio (ut

pote incendio, homicidio voluntario, raptu virginum

et mulierum, villarum depopulationibus aut spoliis)

deprehenderetur; similiter illis, qui de se nollent

debitam facere cautionem vel dare juxta quantitatem

excessus vel delicti, duntaxat exceptis. Nulli

autem bona seu possessiones recipiemus, nisi fuerit

judicialiter per judices competentes vel Barones

nostros nobis condemnatus” (Vol. leg., vol. i, fol.

93).

[361] Ibid., fol. 250.

[362] Ibid., vol. i, folios 299-300. “De non faciendis

constitutionibus sine consensu conciliariorum et

Nuntiorum Terrestrium.”

[363] Henry C. Vedder, The Reformation in Germany, New

York, 1914, p. 33; Adam Szelągowski, Money and the

Overturning of Prices in the 16th and 17th Century in

Poland (Pieniądz i przewrót cen w XVI i XVII ieku w

Polsce), Lwów, 1902, pp. 60-63.

[364] Szelągowski, p. 65.

[365] Ibid., pp. 66-67.

[366] Ibid., pp. 67-68.

[367] Ibid., pp. 71-72.

[368] Ibid., pp. 67-68.

[369] Ibid., p. 73.

[370] Cf. Ibid., pp. 73, 82.

[371] Vol. leg., vol. i, fol. 151-152; also fol. 153, par.

“De his qui telonea absque concessione Regum exigunt.”

[372] Ibid., fol. 257-258, art. “De liberis navigationibus

et fluminibus ex nomine liberis.”

[373] Ibid., fol. 255-259, par. “De fluviis ad navigandum

aperiendis praesertim circa Thorunium” and “De

Thorunen, impedimento et navigatione.”

[374] Ibid., fol. 517, par. “De teloneis pontalibus,

aggeralibus.…”

[375] Kazimierz Rakowski, A History of the Economic

Development of the Polish State (Dzieje rozwoju

ekonomicznego państwa polskiego), Warsaw, 1909, p.

134.

[376] Ibid., p. 130.

[377] Ibid., p. 131.

[378] Ibid., p. 132.

[379] Ibid., pp. 135-136.

[380] Ibid., p. 135.

[381] Ibid., p. 141.

[382] Vol. leg., vol. i, fol. 271, par. “De civibus et

plebeis oppida, et bona alia in iure Terrestri non

possessuris.”

[383] Ibid., folios 262-265, par. “De plebeis ad majores

ecclesias non recipiendis” and “De numero plebeorum

ad ecclesias recipiendorum.”

[384] Ibid., folios 302-303, par. “De numero plebeorum ad

ecclesias cathedrales suscipiendorum” and “Statuta

ecclesiarum.…”

[385] Cf. ibid., folios 511-512; Reformation in Poland,

vol. ii, No. 7, p. 182.

[386] Acta Tom., vol. xiii, No. 2, cited by Dr. Pociecha in

Reformation in Poland, vol. ii, No. 7, p. 182.

[387] Reformation in Poland, vol. ii, No. 7, p. 183.

[388] “Adscripsi ego in legatione nostra, omnibus

approbantibus, ut Mtas Regia serio mandaret

capitaneis omnibus statuta et decreta vetera adversus

excomunicatos et haereticos exequi, quorum latens

venenum in locis insignioribus et libellis famosis et

aliis indiciis sese prodit,” wrote Primate Krzycki to

Bishop Tomicki from Piotrków, Dec. 19, 1534 (cited

by Dr. Wladislaus Pociecha in Reformation in Poland,

vol. ii, No. 7, p. 166).

[389] “Sacra tamen Mtas Regia Serenissimus Dominus noster

his diebus ad omnes dignitarios et capitaneos edictum

misit severum dogmata et libros prohibendo et jubet

punire severo tali haeresi contaminatos atque a

studiis haereticorum revocat adolescentes sub poena

perpetui exilii,” wrote M. Drzewicki to Jan Dantyszek

from Gniezno, March 11, 1535 (cited by Dr. Pociecha

in ibid., n. 3).

[390] Reformation in Poland, vol. ii, No. 7, pp. 166-167.

[391] Ibid., p. 167.

[392] Ibid., pp. 167, 183.

[393] Vol. leg., vol. i, folios 526-627, par. “De plebeiis

et cortesanis.”

[394] Kutrzeba, p. 93; Reformation in Poland, vol. ii, No.

7, p. 174.

[395] Vol. leg., vol. i, fol. 369, par. “De testamentis

condendis”; see also fol. 374.

[396] Reformation in Poland, vol. ii, No. 7, pp. 174, 176.

[397] Ibid., pp. 173-175, 176.

[398] Rakowski, p. 145.

[399] See Vol. leg., vol. i, fol. 259, par. “De fugitivis

kmethonibus”; fol. 367, par. “De colonis fugitivis

restituendis”; fol. 503, par. “Consulentes

commoditati rei communis domesticae Regni nostri.…”;

fol. 524, par. “De profugis kmethonibus.”

[400] “Statuimus quod tantummodo unus filius de villa a

patre recedere possit ad servitia, et praesertim ad

studia, aut literarum, aut artificiorum, reliqui

maneant in haereditate cum patribus” (ibid., fol.

260).

[401] “Et si unicus fuerit, ille in haereditate maneat

et laboret in domo cum parentibus, vel in eadem

haereditate quam parentes incolunt, aut domicilium,

aut servitium, aut victum acquirat” (ibid., fol. 260).

[402] “Quod si aliquis adolescens villanus, praeter

istud decretum, fugiens repertus fuerit, sive in

civitatibus et oppidis sive alibi ubicunque, ille

domino loci illius a quo fugit, sine juris strepitu

restituatur, sub poena quatuordecim marcarum, et

nihilominus illi qui eum retinuerint, poena toties

quoties secus fecerint soluta, ad restitutionem sint

astricti” (ibid., fol. 260).

[403] Ibid., fol. 394, par. “De laboribus kmethonum”; and

fol. 396, par. “kmethones unum diem, plus minusve,

septimantim laborent.”

[404] Kutrzeba, p. 96; Rakowski, pp. 148-149; Źr. dz. vol.

viii, p. 395.

[405] Vol. leg., vol. i, Constitutions of 1523 and 1532.

[406] Ibid., folios 261-262, par. “De libertate nobilium

in theloneis”; fol. 298, par. “De teloneis in terra

et aqua solvendis et non solvendis”; see also folios

375, 517, 594.

[407] Ibid., fol. 375, par. “Ut de agris, hortis, et

Scultetiis desertis, publicae contributiones non

exigantur.”

[408] Reformation in Poland, vol. ii, No. 7, p. 174.

[409] Ibid., p. 173.

[410] Vol. leg., vol. i, fol. 6, par. “De clericis bona

haereditaria habentibus ad bellum ituris.”

[411] Reformation in Poland, vol. ii, No. 7, p. 174.

[412] Ibid.

[413] “Quia onus praesertim quod omnes tangit inter plures

divisum facilius deportatur. Quapropter statuimus,

quod indifferenter omnes sculteti tam spiritualium

quam etiam saecularium personarum juxta ipsorum

facultates ad quamlibet expeditionem nobiscum

transire teneantur” (Vol. leg., vol. i, fol. 5).

[414] See ibid., fol. 532, par. “De Scultetis spiritualium.”

[415] See Zakrzewski, pp. 117, 118.

[416] Balzer, Corpus juris Polonici, vol. iii, No. 51, par.

17; Reformation in Poland, vol. ii, No. 7, p. 174.

[417] “Visum est, ut si probatum fuerit Scultetos

spiritualium teneri ad expeditionem bellicam,

Sculteti eorum sint obligati deinceps Nobiscum in

bellum proficisci: praeter eos qui privilegiis essent

ab expeditione exempti et liberati; quae privilegia,

domini spirituales, in Synodo proximo, postquam

praeterita, propter mortem Domini Archiepiscopi

effectum sortita non est, se recensere promiserunt,

et illa post modum in Conventu Generali Regni,

proxime post Synodum futuro exhibebunt; ut ex

illis fiat cognitio de immunitate Scultetorum seu

Advocatorum; vel obligatione ad praestandam et

sustinendam bellicam expeditionem” (Vol. leg. vol. i,

fol. 532).

[418] See above, p. 60, cf. Vol. leg., vol. ii, fol. 623,

par. 56.

[419] Acta Tom., vol. v, p. 128, cited by Dr. Pociecha in

Reformation of Poland, vol. ii, No. 7, p. 174.

[420] Reformation in Poland, vol. ii, No. 7, p. 174.

[421] Vol. leg., vol. ii, fol. 623, par. 55.

[422] See ibid.; above, p. 60.

[423] Reformation in Poland, vol. ii, No. 7, p. 176.

[424] See above, p. 98; Reformation in Poland, pp. 174-175.

[425] Zakrzewski, pp. 237-238.

[426] Reformation in Poland, vol. ii, No. 7, pp. 176-177.

[427] Balzar, Corpus juris, vol. iii, No. 181; see also

Reformation in Poland, vol. ii, No. 7, p. 177.

[428] Reformation in Poland, vol. ii, No. 7, p. 177.

[429] Ibid., p. 179; Acta Tom., vol. xii, p. 402, as cited

by Dr. Pociecha.

[430] See Kutrzeba, p. 83.

[431] Smoleński, p. 76; Caro, vol. iv, pp. 85-89.

[432] Sokołowski, vol. i, p. 295.

[433] Vol. leg. vol. i, fols. 95-104; Caro, vol. iv, p. 40.

[434] See Caro, vol. iv, pp. 115, 116.

[435] Krasiński, vol. i, p. 52.

[436] Caro, vol. iv, p. 115; Smoleński, p. 81.

[437] Kakrzewski, pp. 64, 243.

[438] Vol. leg., vol. i, folios 85-86; folios 194-195; “Ex

quo etiam,” etc.

[439] Kubala, p. 22.

[440] Smoleński, p. 76.

[441] “Praeterea volumus quod laici deinceps pro debitis

et in aliis causis civilibus per clericos, ad forum

ecclesiasticum non trahantur, nisi forte sit causa

spiritualis, vel spirituali annexa, aut debitum

fuerit decimale” (Vol. leg., vol. i, fol. 102).

[442] Caro, vol. iv, pp. 310-311.

[443] Ibid., p 311.

[444] Vol. leg., vol. i, fol. 277, “De inhibitionibus

ecclesiasticis ad judicia.”

[445] “… quapropter decernimus et statuimus, quod judices

spirituales saecularia judicia non exerceant neque

judicent in futurum” (Vol. leg., vol. i, fol. 304).

[446] Ibid., vol. i, fol. 506, “Prospicientes,” etc.

[447] Ibid., vol. i, folios 578-581, “Differentias

judiciorum,” etc.

[448] Ibid., vol. ii, fol. 598, par. 41.

[449] Ibid., vol. ii, fol. 597, par. 37.

[450] Kubala, pp. 26-27.

[451] Ibid., p. 27.

[452] Ibid., p. 55.

[453] “… Pollicemur, nos hereticos expugnaturos, ex regno

nostro propulsaturos, ecclesiasticas item personas

eorumque jura defensuros et conservaturos” (cited

from Wegierski, by ibid., p. 100n.)

[454] Ibid., pp. 28, 30, 55.

[455] Ibid., p. 30.

[456] Ibid., p. 30.

[457] Ibid., p. 30.

[458] Ibid., p. 31.

[459] Ibid., p. 31.

[460] Ibid., pp. 35-37, 55-56.

[461] Ibid., p. 56.

[462] Ibid., pp. 58, 101, n. 42.

[463] Ibid., pp. 58, 101, n. 43.

[464] Ibid., pp. 58, 101, n. 46.

[465] Ibid., p. 56.

[466] Ibid., p. 67.

[467] Ibid., p. 58.

[468] See above, pp. 59-60.

[469] Vol. leg., vol. ii, fol. 625, par. 68; cf. fol. 692,

par. 74.

[470] Ibid., vol. ii, fol. 692, par. 74.

[471] Ibid., vol. i, folios 184, 298-299, “De mode bonorum

Regalium inscribendorum.”

[472] Ibid., vol. i, fol. 299-300, “De non faciendis

constitutionibus sine consensu Consiliariorum et

Nuntiorum Terrestrium” et “De constitutionibus novis

per proclamationes publicandis.”

[473] Cf. Caro, vol. iv, p. 311; Ref. in Poland, vol. ii,

No. 7, p. 174.

[474] Compare, for instance, this special privilege given

by Sigismund Augustus to Martin Cromer, canon of

Cracow and the king’s secretary. “Sigismundus

Augustus etc. Planum, testamentumque facimus

universis, quorum interest, quia contributionem,

in proxima Piothrocoviensi synodo decretam et

laudatam, ven. Martino Cromero, canonico Cracoviensi,

secretario nostro, ex omnibus sacerdotiis in diocesi

Cracoviensi remisimus, remittimusque praesentibus

litteris, ac de ea ipsum quietamus ac liberamus,

volentes omnio, ut contributionis eius nomine nihil

ab eo per collectores illius exigatur. In cuius rei

fidem manu nostra praesentibus subscripsimus et

sigillum nostrum imprimi fecimus. Datum Gostinii,

20 mai anno Dni 1552.” T. Wierzbowski, Materials

for a History of Polish Writings (Materyały do

Piśmiennictwa Polskiego), Warsaw, 1904, vol. ii,

p. 7, No. 15. This is a sample of many similar

exemptions given the clergy.

[475] Note Charters of 1422, 1433, 1454, and 1505.

[476] Balzar, Corpus juris polonici, vol. iii, No. 261,

pars. 7, 8, 10.

[477] Ibid., No. 69, pars. 16, 19.

[478] See above, p. 60.

[479] See above, pp. 60-61.

[480] Vol. leg., vol. ii, fol. 625, pars. 68, 74, 692; cf.

above, pp. 60, 134.

APPENDIX

1. Edict of Wieluń of 1424.--Contra Haereticos et Fautores Eorum

Vladislaus Jagiello in Vieluń Constituit. Significamus tenore

praesentium quibus expedit; universis praesentibus et futuris harum

notitiam habituris, quod cum sub dissimulatione praeterire non

debemus imo arcemur Divinae legis perpetuis institutis, pestiferos

haereticorum errores, quos in Dei contemptum et in Christianae fidei

detrimentum et enervationem politiaeque jacturam, iniqua perversorum

corda conflaverunt, etiamsi quaecunque oporteret nos subire pericula,

a finibus nostris propulsare, et in gladio dejicere, ut qui censura

ecclesiae non terrentur, humana severitate mulctentur, maturo consilio

Praelatorum, Principum et Baronum nostrorum habito et consensu, et

etiam de certa ipsorum et nostra scientia praesentibus decernimus, et

pro firmo constanti atque irrefragabili edicto teneri praecipimus.

Ut quicunque in Regno Nostro Poloniae et Terris Nobis subjectis

haereticus, aut haeresi infectus vel suspectus de eadem, fautor eorum

vel director repertus fuerit, … velut Regiae Majestatis offensor

capiatur, et juxta exigentiam excessus sui puniatur, et quicunque

venerint de Bohemia et intrant Regnum nostrum, ordinariorum suorum

examini aut magistrorum haereticae pravitatis ad hoc a Sede Apostolica

deputatorum vel deputandorum subdentur comprehensi. Si quis autem

incolarum Regni nostri cujuscunque status, dignitatis, gradus aut

conditionis fuerit, hinc ad Festum Ascensionis Domini proximum redire

de Bohemia neglexerit, noluerit, vel contempserit, pro convicto

haeretico censeatur et poenis subjaceat, quae haereticis infligi

consveverunt, nec amplius ad Regnum nostrum revertatur moraturus. Et

nihilominus omnia bona ipsorum mobilia et immobilia in quibuscunque

rebus consistentia publicentur thesauro nostro confiscanda, prolesque

eorum tam masculina, quam feminea omni careat successione perpetuo

et honore, nec unquam ad aliquas assumatur dignitates vel honores,

sed cum patribus et progenitoribus suis semper maneat infamis; nec de

caetero gaudeat aliquo privilegio nobilitatis vel decore. Inhibemus

etiam sub eisdem poenis, omnibus mercatoribus et alijs hominibus

cujuscunque conditionis fuerint, ut amodo et in posterum nullas res

venales, praesertim plumbum, arma, esculenta et poculenta ad Bohemiam

ducere praesumant vel portare.

--Volumina legum, I, fol. 85.

2. Contra eos, qui excommunicationis sententias ultra annum

sustinent.-- … statuimusque et ordinamus per praesentes, ut dum

aliquis indigena Regni nostri, cujuscunque status et conditionis

existat, propter raptum decimarum vel aliarum rerum ecclesiasticarum

occupationem, aut ratione excessum quorumcunque sive etiam in

contumatiam de non parendo juri et mandatis S. ecclesiae, sententia

excommunicationis juste fuerit innodatus, ipsamque ultra annum legalem

pertinaciter sustinuerit nec curaverit ad gemium S. Matris ecclesiae

redire, et pro excessu debitam emendam exhibere, extunc anno hujusmodi

elapso omnia bona ejusdem excommunicati mobilia et immobilia quae tunc

possederit, debent recipi per locorum Capitaneos quibus subjacent et

apprehendi tenenda et possidenda tam diu per Capitaneos hujusmodi,

quousque per eosdem excommunicatos vel Capitaneos memoratos, de

hujusmodi bonis damna vel valor rei ipsis laesis vel injuriam passis

plenarie exolvantur. Quibus solutis bona praelibata, praefatis

excommunicatis nonnisi absolutis, decernimus viceversa restituenda

per Capitaneos praenotatos. Mandamus igitur omnibus et singulis Regni

nostri Capitaneis et Vicesgerentibus eorundem, quatenus ad compescendam

talium excommunicatorum pertinatiam duritiam et temeritatem, praemissa

nostra saluberrima decreta executioni debite debeant demandari perpetue

et in aevum, toties quoties, per Praelatos, aliasque personas tam

ecclesiasticas quam saeculares super hoc fuerint requsiti et moniti.…

Actum Cracoviae … Anno Domini 1433.

--Vol. leg., I, fol. 195.

3. Confederation against the Heretics of 1438 in Korczyn.--Nos

Principes spirituales et saeculares, Barones, Comites, totaque

communitas Regni Poloniae.… Significamus tenore praesentium … quod

consideratis nonnullis disordinationibus, quae in ipso Regno Poloniae

suboriri inceperant, visis literis praedecessorum nostrorum Posnaniae,

Petricoviae, et in Jedlnia factis, circa easdem literas et earum

articulos … remanere volumus, et usquequaque spondemus, et praecipue

circa hunc articulum. Quod quicunque exstans indigena Regni Poloniae

habens in ipso Regno Poloniae bona, vellet aliquas inobedientias,

contra jus Terrestre commune, aut etiam gverras nobis et eidem Regno

Poloniae damnosas alicui movere sine licentia Domini nostri Regis

gratiosissimi, et consilij sui, et in jure Terrestri communi nollet

contentari, aut etiam haereticales errores facere vel promovere vellet,

contra talem seu tales cujuscunque status, gradus, conditionis, et

praeeminentiae fuerint sive spirituales, sive saeculares, et in eorum

destructionem consurgere volumus et promittimus, sub fide et honore

nostris, absque dolo et fraude, nec ipsis auxilis consilio vel favore

patrocinari volumus sub fide et honore nostris, etiam si sangvine,

affinitate et quaecunque propinquitate forent nobis aut alicui nostrum

cunjuncti, nec pro eis loqui volumus aliquod verbum, sed eos et eorum

talem quemlibet punire volumus et promittimus.

--Vol. leg., I, fol. 140.

4. The Edict of Thorn, 1520.--Edictum de libellis Lutheranis in regnum

non importandis nec a quopiam adhibendis aut vendendis. Datum Thorunii,

3 Mai a. 1520.--Sigismundus Dei gratia rex Poloniae.… Manifestum

facimus, quia intelligentes ad regnum et dominia nostra inferri

nonnullos libellos cuisdam fratris Martini Luter, ordinis Eremitarum,

in quibus multa continentur tam contra Sedem apostolicam, quam etiam

in perturbationem communis ordinis et status rei ecclesiasticae et

religionis, ne in regno nostro ex huiusmodi scriptis errores aliqui

pullurarent, offici nostri, ut Christiani principis et fidelis filii

sanctae matris ecclesiae, esse duximus auctoritate et potestate nostra

regia huic coepto noxio obsistere. Mandamus igitur vobis omnibus

subditis nostris et cuilibet vestrum seorsum, quod nemo deinceps audeat

talia opera, ut praemissum est, in regnum et dominia nostra inferre,

vendere, emere aut illis uti sub poena confiscationis bonorum omnium

atque exilii, quam unusquisque, mandatum hoc nostrum transgrediens,

sine ulla excusatione tam ignorantiae, quam alterius causae, subibit.

Et pro gratia nostra aliter non facturi.

--Balzer, Corpus juris Polonici, III, pp. 579-584.

There are two copies of this edict, one dated May 3rd and the other

July 24th, 1520. The second copy has “Augustiniani” after Luther.

5. Decree of Janusz, Duke of Mazovia, 1525.--Ut nullus in toto

Ducatu Mazoviae, tam in civitatibus, oppidis, quam eorum in villis,

cujuscunque conditionis et status existat, praesertim in civitate

Varsaviensi libros et falsam doctrinam Lutheri in quocunque sermone,

sive Latino, sive Alemanico, aut quovis alio, tenere apud se, et

in domibus suis habere, legere, ac ipsum falsum dogma Lutheranorum

profiteri, sectam portare, tueri, et aliis eandem persvadere praesumat.

Ita tamen, ut quicunque de hac secta legitime convictus et probatus

fuerit, talis vita privari debeat, et bona eius omnia quaecunque habet,

mobilia et immobilia, confiscari et ad thesaurum Ducalem recipi debeant.

Quod decretum Dominus Dux mandavit, in omnibus Districtibus et

Capitaneatibus publicari, et diligenter per omnes Officiales exequi.

--Vol. leg., I, fol. 448, p. 223.

6. Edict of Dec. 28, 1524.--Mandatum ad co-ercendos et puniendos

Lutheranos in Capitaneatu Costensi--Sigismundus etc. Manifestum

facimus tenore praesentium universis. Quia intelligentes sectam

Lutheranam, quae cum ab ecclesia Catholica aliisque christianis

regibus et principibus, tum et a nobis, ut noxia et pestifera sanctae

religioni et reipublicae tranquilitati, iam dudum damnata est et

prohibita, in civitate nostra Costensi et in illa vicinia pullulare,

esseque aliquos homines ita temerarios ac insolentes, ut neque Dei

timore, neque edictis nostris ab hoc errore contineri queant, sed

contra illa ausu temerario nitantur; volents ejusmodi insolentias

et seditiosos conatus illorum ita, ut debemus, compescere, ne per

nostram dissimulationem hos malum acrius invalescat: mittimus illuc

Generosum Nicolaum Thomyczki, tribunum Lancic., Costensem, Pisdrensem

et Coninensem capitaneum ac praefectum stabuli nostri, cui commissimus

et tenore praesentium committimus, de his transgressoribus mandati

nostri in ipsa re Luterana diligenter inquirere, et in compertos poena

in edictis nostris contenta irremissibiliter animadvertere. Quapropter

vobis proconsuli et consulibus totique communitati ipsius Civitatis

nostrae Costensis, aliisque officialibus, nobilibus et subditis nostris

quibuscunque districte mandamus et praecipimus, ut cum per ipsum Gsum.

Nicolaum Thomyczki Capitaneum et quotiescunque fuertis requisiti, illi

ad perficiendum hoc mandatum et commissionem nostram omnem favorem

et auxilium praebeatis. Pro fide vestra et nostra gratia aliter non

facturi. Harum, quibus sigillum nostrum est impressum, testimonio

literarum. Datum in Conventione generali Piotrcoviensi, feria festi

Sorum. Innocentium (December 28.) A.D. 1524, Regni nostri A. 18-o.

--Metryka Kor., Bk. 39, DD. fol. 91. given by Zakrzewski,

pp. 231-232.

7. Edict of Grodno, Feb. 15, 1522.--Literae ad Magfcum. Palatinum

Cracov. et Consules Cracov., ut ponant in executionem edictum R. Mtis.

contra Lutherum et ejus sequaces. Sigismundus etc. Magfco. Christophero

de Schidlowyecz, Palatino et Capitaneo Cracov. et Regni nostri

Cancellario.… Nos itaque dudum intelligentes, spargi in Regno nostro

Lutheri cujusdam dogmata contra mores et instituta patrum et sanctae

matris ecclesiae ac in perturbationem communis status et unitatis

populi christiani, pro debito nostro et exemplo aliorum priorum Regum

et principum christianorum,--non enim haec nova sunt, nec raro accidunt

in ecclesia,--publico edicto mandaveramus, ut ad Regnum nostrum

nulla opera ipsius Lutheri aut alterius cujuspiam sequacis ipsius

inferrentur, sub exilio et privatione bonorum omnium. Contra quod

edictum nostrum comperimus, istic in Civitate nostra Cracoviensi esse

nonnullos ita curiosos in his, quae muneris eorum non sunt, atque ita

contumaces adversus edictum nostrum, ut non cessent opuscula ejusdem

Lutheri et alia id genus invehere, et propalam jam tueri dogmata ipsa

letifera, in offendiculum bonarum mentium hominumque perturbationem,

ac contemptum auctoritatis et mandati nostri Regii. Quod, ut merito

debemus, indignissimo animo ferentes, committimus S. tuae, idque omnino

habere volumus, ut tales, qui in vulgus spargunt ipsa dogmata Lutherana

vel ejus opera invehunt palam vel occulte in Regnum et Dominia nostra,

et praesertim istuc in Civitate Cracoviensi, aut ea vendunt, diligenter

disquirat, et, ut idem Consules curent, nomine nostro illis mandet, ac

in eos, qui comperti fuerint, multam edicti nostri irremissibiliter

exequatur; sed et quicquid ultra in ea re curanda et animadvertenda

fecerit, id nos non ratum solum, sed etiam gratiosissimum habituros

non dibitet. Pro fide et virtute sua tua S. factura. Datum in Grodno,

sabbato proximo ante Dominicam Septuagesimae A. D. 1522, Regni nostri

A. 16-o.

--Balzer, Corpus juris Polonici, III, pp. 649-650.

8. Edict of Cracow, March 7, 1523.--Sigismundus etc.… Et quia decet

Majestatem Regiam, ut in subjectis sibi populis unitas et tranquillitas

conservertur, quod uno fieri solet, si instituta divina et humana,

longo usu et communi comprobatione recepta, tueantur et manuteneantur,

hominesque seditiosi et plus sapere volentes quam oportet, coerceantur:

ideo praesenti publico edicto nostro statuimus, ut nullus aliqua opera

praedicti Luteri aut ejus sequacium ad hoc Regnum nostrum et dominia

nobis subjecta invehere, vendere et emere palam vel occulte audeat,

nec invecta habeat, legat aut illud pestiferum dogma praedicet,

approbat et tueatur, sub poena hujusmodi libellorum et operum Luteri

ejusque sequacium et illius, qui praemissa ausus fuerit, incendii

et concremationis, bonorumque confiscationis et amissionis. Datum

Cracoviae in conventu generali regni, 7 Martii a. 1523.

--Balzer, Corpus juris Polonici, IV, p. 3.

9. Edictum de libellis Lutheranis, 5 Sept. 1523.--Sigismundus …

manifestum facimus … ut in primis, quandocunque opportunum videretur

reverendo domino episcopo Cracoviensi, fieret per inquisitores eius

cum decurionibus, quos consulatus in tota civitate ad huius negotii

aliorumque excessuum tollendorum custodiam delegit, per omnes et

singulos domos, testudines ac cistas diligens scrutatio, et ubi

aliqui libri haeretici invenirentur, illiuc poena edicti exigeretur;

deinde ut impressores librorum nihil prorsus imprimere et bibliopolae

vel alii quicunque exponere ac vendere deinceps audeant ex libris

undecunque adductis, nisi illos rector universitatis prior viderit et

tam imprimi quam vendi permiserit, sub poenis praedictis. Ut autem

et reliquae civitates nostrae hoc exemplo insistant, ac unusquisque

tempori praemoneretur, ne ipsa mandata nostra regia transgrediatur et

ignorantiam praetendere possit, nos hanc ipsorum consiliariorum simulac

consultatus Cracoviensis ordinationem per has litteras nostras omnibus

testatam esse volumus, mandates omnibus aliis civitatibus regni et

dominiorum nostrorum, ut ad eum modum edicta nostra exequendi faciant

cum loci ordinariis aut eorum delegatis ordinationes opportunas easque

diligentissime exequantur. Datum Cracoviae, 5 Sept., 1523.

--Balzer, Corpus juris Polonici, IV, pp. 29-30.