In modern Poland, its citizens are equalized in rights and have no class distinctions. However, each Pole knows the meaning of the word "gentry" well. This privileged estate existed in the state for almost a thousand years, from the 11th century to the beginning of the 20th, when all privileges were abolished in 1921.
History of occurrence
There are two versions of the emergence of the supreme nobility of Poland, the gentry.
According to the first, which is considered more plausible and officially accepted, it is believed that the Polish gentry arose evolutionarily as a result of socio-economic transformations.
Scattered Slavic tribes living in Eastern Europe gradually expanded and united in alliances. The largest was called Opole. Initially, at the head of the Opole was the council of elders, elected from among the representatives of the most powerful and respected clans. Subsequently, the management of certain territories of the Opole was divided between the elders and began to be inherited, and the elders themselves became known as princes.
Constant wars and conflicts between the princes led to the need to create military units. Warriors were recruited from among free people who were not tied to the earth. From this class a new privileged estate grew - the gentry. Translated from German, the word "gentry" means "battle."
And here is the second version of the emergence of the estate. It belongs to the professor of Krakow University, Franciszek Xavier Pekosinsky, who lived in the 19th century. According to the scientist, the Polish gentry was not born evolutionarily in the bowels of the Polish people. He is convinced that the first gentry were descendants of the Slaves, warlike Slavic tribes who invaded Poland in the late 8th - early 9th centuries. In favor of his assumption is the fact that Slavic runes are depicted on the patrimonial arms of the most ancient gentry families.
First annals
The first mention of the Polish knights who became the ancestors of the nobility was preserved in the annals of Gall Anonymous, who died in 1145. Despite the fact that he compiled "The Chronicle and the Acts of Princes and Rulers of Poland" sometimes sins with historical inaccuracies and gaps, it still became the main source of information about the formation of the Polish state. The first mention of the gentry is associated with the names of Meshko 1 and his son, King Boleslav 1 the Brave.
The reign of Boleslav established the assignment of the status of "ruler" to each soldier who rendered the king significant service. There is a record about this dating back to 1025.
King of the Polish Knights
Boleslav 1 The brave man granted the honorary title not only to the princes, but also to the slaves, although the former demanded a special status for themselves - “Mnogovlady”, which they were especially proud of. Until the end of the 11th century, the sovereigns, they were knights, and they were the founders of the nobility, and did not have their own lands.
In the 12th century, under Boleslaw Krivoust, the chivalry of the tumbleweed turned into landowners.
Europe of the middle of the last century knows the knights as warriors of the church, carrying the Christian faith to the Gentiles. The Polish knights did not begin as warriors of the church, but as defenders of princes and kings. Boleslav 1 the Brave, who made this class, was first the prince of Poland, and then the self-proclaimed king. He ruled for almost 30 years and remained in history as a very smart, cunning and courageous politician and warrior. Under him, the Kingdom of Poland expanded significantly due to the annexation of Czech territories. Boleslav introduced part of Great Moravia to Poland. Thanks to him, the city of Krakow, the capital of Lesser Poland, forever entered the Kingdom of Poland. For a long time he was the capital of the state. To this day, it is one of the largest cities in the country, its most important cultural, economic and scientific center.
Pasterns
The Piast Dynasty, to which King Boleslav belonged, ruled the country for four centuries. It was under the Piasts that Poland experienced a period of most rapid development in all areas. The foundations of modern Polish culture were laid precisely then. Not the last role in this was played by the Christianization of the country. Crafts and agriculture flourished, and strong trade ties were established with border states. The nobility class actively participated in processes conducive to the development and exaltation of Poland.
Separation of the gentry and chivalry
By the 14th century, the Polish gentry was a fairly large and very influential estate. Now it’s become impossible to join him just like that, for a knightly deed. Laws on indigenate, adoption and mobilization have been enacted. Shlyahtichi fenced off from other classes, putting pressure on the king. They could afford it, since in a few centuries they had become the largest landowners in the state. And during the reign of King Louis of Hungary, they achieved unprecedented privileges.
Kositsky privilege
Louis did not have sons, and his daughters did not have the right to the throne. In order to obtain this right for them, he promised the noblemen-nobles the abolition of almost all duties in relation to the monarch. So, in 1374 the famous Koshitsky privilege came out. Now all important government posts were held by the Polish gentry.
Under the new treaty, the nobility significantly limited the power of the royal family and the supreme clergy. Shlyakhtichi were exempted from all taxes, with the exception of land, but it was also miserable - only 2 pennies were charged from one field per year. At the same time, the nobles received a salary if they participated in the hostilities. They were not obliged to build and repair castles, bridges, city buildings. During the royal person’s trips through Poland, the gentry no longer accompanied her as a guard and an escort of honor, they also removed the obligation to provide the king with food and housing.
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
In 1569, the Kingdom of Poland merged with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania into a single state, the Commonwealth. The political system in the new state is usually called gentry democracy. In fact, there was no democracy. At the head of the Commonwealth was the king, elected for life. His title was not inherited. Together with the monarch, the Saeima controlled the country.
The Diet consisted of two chambers - the Senate and the Ambassadorial Hut. The Sejm consisted of senior government officials and the supreme clergy, and the Ambassadors izba - their elected representatives of the nobility. In fact, the history of the Commonwealth is the history of how the nobility autonomously and unreasonably ruled their own state.
The power of the gentry over Poland
With a weak monarchy, the Polish gentry gained great influence on the legislative and executive authorities. Historians consider gentry self-government as a prerequisite for anarchy.
This conclusion is based on the unlimited influence of the gentry on political and economic processes in the country. The gentry had a veto if the king intended to call a militia, pass a law or establish a new tax, the last word, whether or not to be this, always stood behind the gentry. And this despite the fact that the gentry class itself was protected by the law on personal and property inviolability.
Relations of the gentry with the peasants
After joining the 14-15 centuries. to Poland, sparsely populated Chervonnaya Rus, Polish peasants began to move to new territories. With the development of trade, agricultural products produced on these lands began to be in high demand abroad.
In 1423, the freedoms of the communities of migrant peasants were limited by another law introduced under the pressure of the nobility. According to this law, the peasants were converted into serfs, pledged to fulfill the serfdom, and had no right to leave the locality on which they lived.
Relations of the gentry with the bourgeois
The history of the Commonwealth also remembers how the gentry oppressed the urban population. In 1496, a law was passed prohibiting petty bourgeois from buying land. The reason seems far-fetched, since the argument in favor of the adoption of this resolution was only that the townspeople tend to evade military duties, and the peasants assigned to the land are potential recruits. And their city masters-petty bourgeois will prevent the recruitment of their subjects for military service.
Under the same law, the work of industrial enterprises and trade institutions was controlled by the elders and governors appointed from among the gentry.
Gentry worldview
Gradually, the Polish gentry began to perceive itself as the highest and best of the Polish estates. Despite the fact that, in the total mass, the gentry were not tycoons, but had rather modest possessions and did not have a high level of education, they had an extremely high self-esteem, because the gentry is primarily an ambition. In Poland, the word “ambition” still has no negative connotation.
What was such an unusual worldview based on? First of all, the fact that every nobleman elected to the Government had a veto. The then gentry culture even implied a neglect of the king, whom she chose at her discretion. Rokosh (the right to disobey the king) put the monarch on one level with subjects from the nobility. Shlyahtich is a man who equally despises all estates, except his own, and even if the king himself is not an authority for the gentry and, moreover, is not God's anointed one, then what about peasants and philistines? Their gentry called servants.
What did this idle part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth take its time? Favorite activities of the gentry were feasts, hunting and dancing. The customs of Polish nobles are colorfully described in the historical novels of Henryk Sienkiewicz "Pan Volodyevsky", "Fire and Sword" and "Flood".
However, everything once ends. The autocracy of the gentry also ended.
Poland as part of the Russian Empire
At the end of the 18th century, part of the territory of the Commonwealth became part of the Russian Empire. That's when the so-called nobleman’s analysis began. This term refers to a set of activities undertaken by the Russian government. They were aimed at restricting the power of the Polish nobility, undivided and inexpedient, within the framework of state development. By the way, at that time the percentage of the noble population in Poland was 7-8%, while in the Russian Empire it barely reached 1.5%.
The property status of the gentry did not reach that adopted in Russia. According to the sovereign's Decree of September 25, 1800, those residents of the Privislin provinces (the so-called Polish lands within Russia) who could present documentary evidence of their status dating from the gentry revision tales of 1795 within two years could be attributed to the nobility. All the rest will be distributed among other classes - peasant, bourgeois and free-breeding. During the gentry self-government in the Commonwealth, the gentry estate was actively replenished with new members. By the time of joining the Russian Empire, among the gentry were those who managed to get this status from the Noble Assembly, but did not have confirmation from the Senate Heraldry. This category was excluded from the list considered to be considered a nobility.
After the Polish uprising of 1830-1831, the Senate adopted a decree on the ordering of the Poles, who belong to the gentry, and on their division into three categories, with subsequent reckoning with the nobility.
Poles belonged to the first category, owning estates with peasants or owning subjects, but not having land, regardless of whether they were approved by the Noble Assembly or not.
The second category included Poles who did not have land and subjects, but were approved by the Noble Assembly.
Poles were considered to the third category, considering themselves a gentry, but without land and subjects and not approved by the Noble Assembly.
Since the entry into force of this Decree, noble assemblies have been prohibited from issuing to the Poles certificates of nobility if the named status has not been certified in Heroldia.
Poles-gentry, who submitted documents for the provision of the nobility, were recorded by citizens or odnodvortsy. All the rest were registered with state peasants.
Shlyahtichi, not approved by the Russian nobility, did not have the right to buy land with peasants. In the end, they replenished the middle class and the peasantry.
The end of the nobility
The era of the Polish gentry ended with Poland gaining (at the beginning of the 20th century) independence from the Russian Empire. In the new Constitution from 1921-1926. the words "gentry" or "nobility" are never mentioned. From now on, forever in the newly proclaimed Polish Republic, all its citizens were equalized in their rights and duties.