In modern Poland, its citizens are equal inrights and class differences do not have. However, every Pole knows the meaning of the word "gentry". This privileged class existed in the state for almost a thousand years, from the 11th century to the beginning of the 20th, when in 1921 all privileges were abolished.
History of occurrence
There are two versions of the rise of the nobility of Poland, the gentry.
According to the first, which is considered more plausible and officially accepted, it is considered that the Polish gentry arose evolutionarily as a result of socio-economic transformations.
Scattered Slavic tribes living onthe territories of Eastern Europe gradually grew and united in alliances. The largest received the name of Opole. Initially, the council of elders was at the head of the Opole, elected from representatives of the strongest and most respected families. In the future, the management of individual territories of the field was divided between the elders and was inherited, and the elders themselves became known as princes.
Constant wars and conflicts between princesled to the need to create military units. Warriors were recruited from among the free people, not tied to the ground. From this class, and grew a new privileged class - the gentry. Translated from the German word "gentry" means "battle."
But what is the second versionthe emergence of the estate. It belongs to the professor of the Krakow University, Franciszek Xavier Pecosynsky, who lived in the 19th century. According to the scientist, the Polish gentry was not born evolutionarily in the depths of the Polish people. He is convinced that the first gentry were descendants of the Polabs, the warlike Slavic tribes who invaded Poland in the late 8th and early 9th centuries. This assumption is supported by the fact that Slavic runes are depicted on the family arms of the most ancient gentry families.
The first chronicles
The first mention of the Polish knights who becameforebears of the nobility, preserved in the chronicles of Galla Anonymous, who died in 1145. Despite the fact that the Chronicle and Deeds of Princes and Polish Rulers compiled by him sometimes suffers from historical inaccuracies and gaps, it nevertheless became the main source of information about the formation of the Polish state. The first mention of the nobility is associated with the names of Mieszko 1 and his son, King Boleslav 1 the Brave.
The Boleslav rule was assigned the status of "ruler" to each soldier who rendered the king a significant service. There is a record about this, dating back to 1025.
King of Polish Knights
Boleslav 1 The Brave willed no honorary titleonly to princes, but also slaves, although the first ones claimed for themselves a special status - “mobs”, of which they were especially proud. Up until the end of the 11th century, the lords, they are also knights, they are also the founders of the gentry class, did not have their land holdings.
In the 12th century, under Boleslav Krivoust, the knightly class turned into a landowner from the tumbleweed field.
Mid-century Europe knows knightsas warriors of the church, carrying the Christian faith to the Gentiles. Polish knights did not begin as church soldiers, but as defenders of princes and kings. Boleslav 1 Brave, who perpetuated this estate, and was at first the prince of Poland, and then the self-proclaimed king. He ruled for almost 30 years and remained in history as a very clever, cunning and courageous politician and warrior. Under him, the Kingdom of Poland expanded significantly due to the annexation of the Czech territories. Boleslav introduced part of Great Moravia into Poland. Thanks to him, the city of Krakow, the capital of Little Poland, forever entered the Kingdom of Poland. For a long time he was the capital of the state. It is to this day one of the largest cities in the country, the most important cultural, economic and scientific center.
Piast
Piast dynasty to which the king belongedBoleslav, ruled the country for four centuries. It was under Piast that Poland experienced a period of the most rapid development in all areas. The foundations of modern culture of Poland were laid precisely then. The Christianization of the country played a significant role in this. Crafts and agriculture flourished, and strong trade relations were established with neighboring countries. The gentry class was actively involved in the processes contributing to the development and exaltation of Poland.
The separation of the nobility and chivalry
By the 14th century, the Polish gentry representedquite numerous and very influential class. Now it was impossible to join it just like a knightly feat. Laws were passed on indigenates, adoptions and mobilizations. The gentry fenced off from other classes, putting pressure on the king. They could afford it, because for several centuries they had become the largest landowners in the state. And during the reign of King Louis of Hungary, they achieved unprecedented privileges.
Kositsky priviley
Louis had no sons, and his daughters did not haverights to the throne. In order to get this right for them, he promised noblemen gentry to abolish almost all duties towards the monarch. So, in 1374, the famous Košitsky priviley came out. Now all the important government positions were occupied by the Polish gentry.
In accordance with the new treaty, the nobilitysignificantly limited the power of the royal family and supreme clergy. The gentry were exempted from all taxes, with the exception of land, but it was scanty - only 2 pennies were collected from one field per year. At the same time, the nobles received a salary if they participated in hostilities. They were not obliged to build and repair castles, bridges, city buildings. During the trips of the royal personage on the territory of Poland, the nobles no longer accompanied her as a guard and an honorary escort, and the duty to provide the king with food and shelter was also removed from them.
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
In 1569, the Kingdom of Poland united withGrand Duchy of Lithuania in a single state, Rzeczpospolita. The political system in the new state is called gentry democracy. In fact, there was no democracy. At the head of the Commonwealth was elected king for life. His title was not inherited. Together with the monarch, the Sejm administered the country.
The Seimas consisted of two chambers - the Senate and the Embassyhuts. The Seimas consisted of high state officials and supreme clergy, and the Ambassadorial hut - their elected representatives of the gentry class. In fact, the history of Rzecz Pospolita is the history of how the nobility autonomously and unreasonably ruled its own state.
The power of the nobility over Poland
With a weak monarchy, the Polish gentry had a great influence on the legislative and executive authorities. Historians consider gentry self-government as a prerequisite for anarchy.
This conclusion is built on unlimitedthe influence of gentry on the political and economic processes in the country. The nobility had the right to veto, if the king intended to convene a militia, adopt any law or establish a new tax, the last word, to be this or not to be, always stood behind the gentry. And this despite the fact that the gentry estate itself was protected by the law on personal and property inviolability.
Relationship nobility with the peasants
После присоединения в 14-15 вв.Polish peasants began to move to new territories to the sparsely populated Chervonnaya Rus. With the development of trade, agricultural products produced on these lands began to enjoy increased demand abroad.
В 1423 году свободы общин крестьян-переселенцев limited to another law imposed under pressure from the nobility. According to this law, the peasants were turned into serfs, undertook to perform panschina and had no right to leave the area on which they lived.
Relationship nobility with the middle class
The history of the Commonwealth remembers and how the gentrytrampled 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 citizens have a tendency to shy away from military duties, and the peasants assigned to the land are potential recruits. And their city owners, petty bourgeoisie, will impede the call-up of their subjects for military service.
Under the same law, the work of industrial enterprises and commercial establishments was controlled by elders and voivods appointed from among the nobility.
Noble outlook
Gradually, the Polish gentry began to perceivethemselves the highest and best of the Polish estates. Despite the fact that in the total mass the gentry were not magnates, but had rather modest possessions and were not distinguished by a high level of education, they had extremely high self-esteem, because the gentry is first and foremost ambition. In Poland, the word "ambition" still has no negative connotations.
What was the basis for such an unusual worldview?First of all, every nobleman elected to the Government had the right of veto. The then gentry culture even implied a scornful attitude towards the king, whom she chose at her discretion. Rokosz (the right of disobedience to the king) put the monarch on the same level with his subjects from the nobility. Shlyakhtich is a man who equally despises all classes except his own, and if the king himself is not an authority for a gentleman, and certainly not God's anointed one, then what about peasants and burghers? Their gentry called slaves.
What did this idle part of its time occupy?population of the Commonwealth? Favorite occupations of the gentry were feasts, hunting and dancing. The morals of the Polish nobles are colorfully described in the historical novels of Henryk Sienkiewicz “Pan Volodyevsky”, “With Fire and Sword” and “The Flood”.
However, everything once ends. The nobility of nobility also ended.
Poland as part of the Russian Empire
At the end of the 18th century, part of the territories of the Commonwealthbecame part of the Russian Empire. It was then that began the so-called analysis of the nobility. This term is understood as a complex of events carried out by the Russian government. They were aimed at limiting the undivided and inexpedient, within the framework of state development, the power of the Polish nobility. By the way, at that time the percentage of the noble population in Poland was 7-8%, while in the Russian Empire it was barely 1.5%.
Property status gentry did not reachadopted in Russia. According to the sovereign's Decree of September 25, 1800, those of the Privisly gubernias (so-called Polish lands in Russia) who could provide documentary evidence of their status dating back to the noble auditorial tales of 1795 could be included in the nobility class. All the rest will be distributed among other classes - peasant, petty-bourgeois and free-hryborobsky. During the gentry self-government in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the gentry class was actively replenished with new members. At the time of the accession to the Russian empire, there were among the gentry among those who managed to obtain this status from the Noble Parliamentary Assembly, but did not have confirmation from the Gerold of the Senate. This category was excluded from the list considered for assignment to the nobility.
After the Polish uprising of 1830-1831 by the SenateIt was adopted a decree on the ordering of the Poles, who consider themselves to be gentry, and on dividing them into three categories with subsequent assignment to the nobility.
The first category included the Poles, who owned estates with peasants or who owned citizens, but did not have land, regardless of whether they were approved by the Nobility Assembly or not.
The second category included the Poles, who do not have land and subjects, but were approved by the Nobility Assembly.
The third category included the Poles, who consider themselves noblemen, but do not have land and subjects and are not approved by the Nobility Assembly.
From the moment this Decree came into force, Nobiliary assemblies were forbidden to issue certificates of nobility to Poles if the said status was not certified in the Herald.
The Polish gentry, who submitted documents for the provision of the nobility, were recorded by citizens or single-owners. All the rest were recorded in the state peasants.
The gentry, not approved in the Russian nobility, had no right to buy land with the peasants. In the end, they joined the philistine class and the peasantry.
The end of the nobility
Закончилась эпоха польской шляхты с обретением Poland (in the early 20th century) independence from the Russian Empire. The new Constitution from 1921-1926. the words "gentry" or "nobility" are never mentioned. From now on and forever in the newly declared Polish Republic all its citizens were equal in rights and duties.
